Greece plans 2 marine protected areas. But rival Turkey and environmental groups aren't impressed

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece aims to create two large marine parks as part of a 780-million-euro ($830 million) program to protect biodiversity and marine ecosystems that includes banning bottom trawling and tackling plastic and microplastic pollution, the prime minister announced during an international oceans conference Tuesday.

But the plan for the marine parks has irked Greece's neighbor and regional rival, Turkey, while environmental organizations say the initiative doesn't go far enough, noting that the country also allows environmentally harmful practices such as energy exploration in sensitive marine environments.

“The ocean has paid a heavy price for its service to humankind. It has been a vital source of life and livelihood. We have not been kind to it in return,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a speech at the Our Ocean Conference in Athens “So we meet today with a new sense of urgency. Our world is changing faster than our capacity to adapt to change. And this is creating immense pressures: political, economic, physical and social.”

The creation of the new marine parks, one in the Ionian Sea and one in the Aegean Sea, will increase the size of Greece's marine protected areas by 80% and will cover 30% of the country's territorial waters, Mitsotakis said. Greece has thousands of islands and islets, and one of the longest coastlines in the Mediterranean.

Bottom trawling will be banned in all marine protected areas by 2030, while a surveillance system using drones, satellites and artificial intelligence will be set up by 2026 to patrol the areas, the prime minister said. He also pledged that by 2030, Greece will reduce plastic pollution in the water by 50% and microplastics by 30% compared to 2019 levels.

About 300 representatives from more than 100 countries and international organizations are participating, Greek government officials said, with announcements set for new commitments amounting to about $10 billion for environment-related projects.

But environmental organizations have called for stronger commitments.

Under a slogan of “the sea is not for sale,” Greenpeace urged leaders attending the conference to take concrete measures to protect marine environments.

The conference “must not be simply an opportunity for governments to congratulate themselves for what they have said until now,” said Nikos Charalambidis, head of Greenpeace in Greece.

Police banned a planned protest at the venue by environmental organizations. About 20 protesters turned up at a nearby location holding banners calling for an end to deep-sea mining and for the protection of the seas.

Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and other organizations have long leveled particular criticism at Greece for allowing deep-sea seismic exploration for energy and mineral resources in the Hellenic Trench, which includes the deepest waters in the Mediterranean at more than 5,200 meters (17,300 feet).

The trench, which stretches from southwestern Greece to Crete, is a vital habitat for the Mediterranean’s few hundred sperm whales and other marine mammals already threatened by fishing, ship collisions and plastic pollution.

Asked whether the Greek government planned to extend protection to the entirety of the Hellenic Trench, Theodoros Skylakakis, Greece’s minister for both the environment and energy, stressed that adapting to a green economy requires significant funds over the coming decades.

“We need to be a lot more efficient in everything we do. And not trigger our reaction by ideology but rather trigger it by science, by efficiency and by investment,” Skylakakis said. “And for that, we will need money. If anybody thinks we can meet this challenge of paying for the adaptation … and at the same time don’t have economic growth, they don’t live in this world.”

Greece’s plan for the two marine parks also has irked Turkey. When the plan was aired last week, Turkey's foreign ministry accused Athens of exploiting environmental issues to push its geopolitical agenda. The countries, both NATO members, have been at odds for decades over a variety of issues, including territorial claims in the Aegean, and have reached the brink of war three times in the last 50 years.

Relations have improved somewhat over the past year following a period of heightened tensions that saw the countries’ warships face off in the eastern Mediterranean. But Ankara responded with annoyance to Greece's plan for a marine park in the Agean.

“It is known that Greece has long been trying to benefit from almost every platform in the context of Aegean problems,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. “Despite the recent softening in our relations, it appears that Greece is exploiting environmental issues this time.”

Greece's foreign ministry retorted that Ankara was “politicizing a clearly environmental issue.”

People walk in front of an 'Our Ocean' sign during the 'Our Ocean Conference' at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens, Greece, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Greece aims to create two large marine parks as part of a 780 million euro ($830 million) program to protect biodiversity and marine ecosystems, with the plans to be formally announced at an international oceans conference starting in Athens Tuesday. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)

People walk on the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center's square during the 'Our Ocean Conference' in Athens, Greece, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Greece aims to create two large marine parks as part of a 780 million euro ($830 million) program to protect biodiversity and marine ecosystems, with the plans to be formally announced at an international oceans conference starting in Athens Tuesday. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)

FILE - A boy dives into the sea from an old dock on the Aegean Sea island of Milos, Greece, Sunday, May 24, 2020. Greece aims to create two large marine parks as part of a 780 million euro program to protect biodiversity and marine ecosystems, with the plans to be formally announced at an international oceans conference starting in Athens Tuesday. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, File)

FILE - The multihued waters of the Aegean Sea sparkle by the islet of Kounoupa off the island of Astypalea, Greece, on Aug. 30, 2021. Greece aims to create two large marine parks as part of a 780 million euro program to protect biodiversity and marine ecosystems, with the plans to be formally announced at an international oceans conference starting in Athens Tuesday. (AP Photo/Giovanna Dell'Orto, File)

FILE - In this Monday, May 25, 2020 photo, medical staff in a dinghy leaves from the Aegean Sea island of Milos to Sikinos island, Greece. Greece aims to create two large marine parks as part of a 780 million euro program to protect biodiversity and marine ecosystems, with the plans to be formally announced at an international oceans conference starting in Athens Tuesday. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis, File)

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican legislators moved Monday to enact a ban in Kansas on gender-affirming care for minors and bar state employees from advocating social transitioning for transgender youth, brushing aside criticism that they were hurting the state's image.

The GOP-supermajority Kansas House expected to vote on overriding Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's veto only hours after the Senate did on a 27-13 vote, exactly the required two-thirds margin. The vote in the House was expected to be close after LGBTQ+ rights advocates raised questions about whether the provision against promoting social transitioning is written broadly enough to apply to public school teachers who show empathy for transgender students.

Under the bill, social transitioning includes “the changing of an individual’s preferred pronouns or manner of dress,” and the rule would apply to state workers who care for children. The measure doesn’t spell out what constitutes promoting it.

The bill is part of a broader push to roll back transgender rights from Republican lawmakers in statehouses across the U.S. Kansas would be the 25th state to restrict or ban such care for minors, and this week the South Carolina Senate expected to debate a similar measure that already has passed the state House.

“Unfortunately, in today’s society, the predator in particular is a woke health care system,” said Republican state Sen. Mark Steffen, a central Kansas anesthesiologist and pain management specialist.

Like other Republicans across the U.S., Steffen and other GOP lawmakers in Kansas argued that they're protecting children struggling with their gender identities from being pushed into health care that the lawmakers see as experimental and potentially harmful. But that puts them at odds with the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other major U.S. medical groups.

LGBTQ+ rights groups such as Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and Equality Kansas have stopped short of saying they would challenge the new law in court, but they've said they believe the provisions preventing state employees from advocating social transitioning violates their free speech rights. They've said that provision makes the Kansas law more sweeping than laws in other states.

Other critics argued that enacting such a ban sends a message that transgender residents aren't welcome. When Kelly vetoed a similar ban last year, she suggested that it would hurt the state's business climate.

“This is not the message we want to send to Americans about the welcoming opportunities that Kansas has,” said state Sen. Tom Holland, a northeastern Kansas Democrat.

About 300,000 youths ages 13 to 17 identify as transgender in the U.S., according to estimates by the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ+ research center at UCLA Law. It estimates that in Kansas, about 2,100 youths in that age group identify as transgender.

Republican lawmakers last year enacted laws barring transgender girls and women from female college and K-12 sports teams and ending legal recognition of transgender residents' gender identities. Transgender residents no longer can change the listing for “sex” on their driver's licenses or birth certificates to match their gender identities, something Kelly's administration had allowed.

“I do feel like there’s a genuine fear about me and what my body means, when I’m very happy,” Issac Johnson, who is transgender and just finished a social work internship in Topeka’s public schools, said during a recent Statehouse news conference.

Transgender youth, parents of transgender children and dozens of medical and mental health providers all described gender-affirming care as life-saving and argued that it lessens severe depression and suicidal tendencies among transgender youth. At least 200 health care providers signed a letter to lawmakers opposing a veto override.

During the Senate's debate Monday, Democratic Minority Leader Dinah Sykes' voice wavered as she spoke against the bill and told transgender residents, “We accept you and we cherish you.”

“I urge my colleagues to show grace and kindness,” she said.

But supporters of the bill repeatedly cited the recent decision of the National Health Service of England to stop covering puberty blockers as a routine treatment for gender dysphoria in minors.

NHS England issued a nearly 400-page report from its review, concluding that there is not enough evidence about the long-term effects of gender-affirming care or how well it works. In a foreword, the review’s leader added, “This is an area of remarkably weak evidence.”

Kansas Senate Health Committee Chair Beverly Gossage, a Kansas City-area Republican, told her colleagues: “We’re on the right side of history on this.”

Supporters of the bill also said many of their constituents simply have strong misgivings about medical treatments for children struggling with their gender identities.

The proposed ban would require Kansas to revoke the medical license of any doctor who violates it. It would bar gender-affirming care from being provided on state property or by recipients of state tax dollars.

Kansas' Medicaid program, providing health coverage for poor and disabled residents, also couldn't cover gender-affirming care. On Monday, in a case likely headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal appeals court ruled that West Virginia and North Carolina’s refusal to cover certain health care for transgender people with government-sponsored insurance is discriminatory.

“The language put in the bill is, in my opinion, is to try to prevent state entities, state employees, from promoting the use of different pronouns and, if you will, the search for gender change,” Republican state Rep. John Eplee, a northeastern Kansas family physician.

Kansas Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, D-Lenexa, speaks against overriding Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's veto of a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Sykes argues that the ban would deny transgender children crucial care that helps lessen severe depression and suicidal tendencies. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas state Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, speaks against overriding Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's veto of a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors, Monday, April 29, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Holland suggested that the ban would send a message that Kansas is not welcoming. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Lobbyists Brittany Jones, left, of the conservative group Kansas Family Voice, and Lucrecia Nold, right, of the Kansas Catholic Conference, watch from the Senate's west gallery as members debate overriding a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors, Monday, April 29, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Both of their organizations support a ban. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Isaac Johnson, who just completed an internship with Topeka's public schools and is finishing work on a social work degree, talks to reporters during a news conference, Thursday, April 26, 2024, in front of a mural at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Johnson, who is transgender, worries about the effects of a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors, which also would bar state employees from promoting social transitioning for youth. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly speaks at a public event, Monday, April 29, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Kelly has vetoed a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors that also would bar state employees from advocating social transitioning for transgender children. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas state Sen. Mark Steffen, R-Hutchison, speaks in favor of overriding Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's veto of a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors, Monday, April 29, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Steffen says the state must protect "confused" children from a "confused health care system and confused parents." (AP Photo/John Hanna)