A yacht drifts lazily along a shore fringed with Aleppo pines, its crew on the look-out for a secluded cove to drop anchor for the night. Sightseeing cruisers ply through the Alonissos-Peristera channel, tour guides talking ten to the dozen about everything the Marine Park has to offer. Virtually alone on the island, a group of hikers makes its way along the cliff-top pathway to the Byzantine monastery of Kyra Panaya. People linger in the tavernas of Steni Vala, watching the fishermen mending their nets under the tamarisk trees. A patrol boat edges out into the Aegean blueness towards the outer islands, making sure that these protected waters remain pristine.

	(click to enlarge)

Idyllic images have never really been in short supply in the National Marine Park of Alonissos-Northern Sporades (NMPANS). You can find them on almost any whitewashed street or mountain pathway, any higher elevation that offers a view over the Park’s constellation of islands. The trouble is, appearances can be deceptive. As an outsider, one simply assumes that everything is alright. One assumes that there is movement towards a clear goal. That there is some kind of master plan that has inspired and galvanised the local community. That someone has a vision of what the Marine Park is and what it should be.

Unfortunately, that is not really the case. Even though a quarter century has elapsed since it was originally proposed as Greece’s first Marine Park, and even though 10 long years have gone by since it was officially established by Presidential Decree, the NMPANS still has no management plan, no management authority, no day-to-day operational staff, no office, no budget, and precious little hope that things will change for the better any time soon.

As it is at present, the Sporades Marine Park could best be likened to a rudderless boat, so pushed and pulled by prevailing currents that it is entirely incapable of setting a course most suited to its own unique needs. The fact that most people on Alonissos now view the NMPANS with a mixture of pessimism, indifference and hostility should probably be seen as the drifting boat’s distress flare.

Although it has experienced its ups and downs, periods of enthusiasm as well as periods of disillusionment, the Marine Park’s aimless drift is not a new phenomenon. In fact, events over the last decade – encompassing everything from guarding against illegal activities to promoting alternative development opportunities – reveal that official complacency or indifference towards management issues has already taken a serious toll upon the Park’s long-term viability.


On patrol

With 2200 square kilometres of sea and islands within its boundaries, patrolling the NMPANS is clearly a major challenge. Given the capacity for both deliberate and inadvertent law-breaking – anything from illegal trawling and dynamite fishing to curious tourists blundering into monk seal caves – an efficient guarding system is clearly indispensable. And yet despite fitful attempts over the years to encourage the authorities to take their responsibilities seriously, it has essentially fallen upon the shoulders of a single NGO – MOm – to implement guarding activities within the Park. Without their efforts, in fact, it is likely that the NMPANS would still have no guarding system at all.

	‘Top Gun’ inflatables marooned in Patitiri

For several years leading up to the Park’s founding, the Port Police on Alonissos had no more than a rowing boat to meet its responsibilities. By 1992, international organizations were still appealing for a patrol boat to be stationed permanently on the island. A year later, prominent Greek shipowner, the late George P. Livanos, was persuaded to donate two high-powered patrol boats to the Port Police authority, for transfer to the Alonissos station. What happened next is symbolic of the way that Greek officialdom can make even the simplest, most straightforward task seem like the trials of Sisyphus. During the first few months, these rugged ‘Top Gun’ inflatables – equipped with enough horsepower to deliver a SWAT team to a crime scene at 100 kph – remained marooned in Patitiri harbour while the local Port Police department awaited its fuel allowance from Athens, and additional funds to install radar and VHF radios. Reports on the island suggest that the farthest they were prepared to venture was to neighbouring Steni Vala where – even if there were no obviously illegal activities to swoop down upon – their crews could at least enjoy a seafront kafedaiki. Once they received their equipment upgrades, the boats were finally ready for patrol and yet, as far as can be discerned, this has never occurred on a regular basis. Apparently the victims of their own insatiable thirst for fuel, and budget-cutting in Athens and Volos, the boats continued to languish in harbour for years to come. One, the larger of the two craft, was subsequently transferred elsewhere, evidently with little regard for the original purpose of its donation to Alonissos – the guarding of the NMPANS.

In the absence of effective policing, illegal activity flourished, with perpetrators seemingly determined to test and challenge the Park’s abilities to fend off attack. There were frequent reports of dynamite and chlorine fishing along the area’s secluded coastlines. Industrial trawlers that had been banished from the area began to sneak across the Park’s borders again, apparently confident that no action would be taken against them.

By 1992, the violations had become so persistent that the artisanal fishermen of Alonissos were losing what little faith they had in the conservation process. This was an alarming development given the fact that their traditional hostility towards the monk seal was being held in abeyance by a single thread – the belief that fish stocks (and thus their own livelihoods) could only recover once the industrial fleets had been chased from the Park for good. To make matters worse, speargun fishers, equipped with fast inflatables, continued their summer invasion of the islands, regardless of regulations limiting the sport to certain key areas in the B Zone of the Park.

A gri-gri trawler intercepted by a MOm patrol

Pirate gri-gri trawlers continued to operate with virtual impunity until MOm finally took matters into its own hands and launched its own fast patrol boat, the Alonissos, in 1991, purchased with funds from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). In its run-ins with the intruders, MOm soon discovered that guarding can be a dangerous business. During one of its first night patrols that intercepted a trawler fishing illegally, a MOm team member was struck down with a metal bar. Later, an infant seal, aged only ten days, was found dead, a subsequent autopsy revealing that it had been killed with a sharp object.

This independent – albeit officially sanctioned – guarding initiative suffered from one major drawback: the crew of the Alonissos lacked any official warrant to issue fines or make arrests. That stumbling block was overcome when the Port Police agreed to provide an officer to accompany the patrols when circumstances dictated it. Newly empowered, it was decided to strike back against trawlers.

In 1993 the Alonissos apprehended one of the most brazen gri-gri trespassers, the trawler Yannakis, laying nets in the A Zone of the Park. Arrested and charged, the owner-captain was hauled before the Volos law courts and subsequently received a seven months’ suspended jail term. With his boat impounded, it is likely that a far greater penalty was being exacted in lost earnings.

Although targeting only one ship, legal action against the Yannakis fired warning shots across the bows of all trawlers tempted to flaunt the NMPANS regulations. The case marked a turning point in guarding the Park against illegal industrial fishing.

Time and familiarity have done much to obscure the fact that a non-governmental, non-profit charity is responsible for guarding what is, after all, a National Marine Park. Although privatising official obligations for the sake of competitive pricing and efficiency may actually favour such a policy, there is little evidence to suggest that such reasoning is at work in the NMPANS. Indeed, the Greek government provided only basic operating costs for patrols in the 1998-1999 period, and only 50% in 2000. Footing the remainder of the guarding bill has been the prerogative of MOm’s own members and supporters, and international conservation charities such as IFAW. Even equipment is not provided by the state. For its replacement patrol boat purchased in 1997, MOm was obliged to rely on a bank overdraft at normal commercial interest rates, with some board members’ personal property acting as collateral for the loan. All things considered, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the government is exploiting the organisation’s altruistic principles to serve as an alibi for its own indifference.

The tourism dilemma – threats & opportunities

Like most islands in the Aegean, Alonissos has staked its future on tourism, and yet the industry remains largely ambivalent in its attitude towards the NMPANS.

It is here that the Marine Park management authority is most conspicuous by its absence. With no forum capable of encouraging informed debate – let alone of devising a blueprint for the island’s future economic development – the idea that Alonissos tourism could evolve in harmony with the Marine Park remains little more than a pipe dream.

	Tour boats and hydrofoils unloading in Patitiri

The result is that tourism here has continued to drift inexorably towards the high-capacity, summer-intensive model, seen most close at hand on the popular resort island of Skiathos. The irony of this is unlikely to be lost on those who are familiar with the habit of Alonissiots to turn up their noses at the cultural decay, noise and vulgarity that has swept over their neighbour since it first became Mecca to charter-jet tourism in the 1970s. Alonissiots, so it is claimed, want a different kind of tourism, one that will preserve some element of the island’s cultural integrity, that will not ruin the natural environment, that will not erect multi-storey eyesores in towns and villages. In short, the people of Alonissos are said to want a tourism that will contribute to quality of life rather than steal it away from them.

With profits often speaking louder than principles, however, Alonissos continues to follow in the despised wake of its neighbour.

While there is no airport on Alonissos, “Flying Dolphin” hydrofoils (and, more recently, state-of-the-art catamarans) provide a rapid service from Volos, Thessalonika and Aghios Konstantinos, a couple of hours’ drive away from Athens. With the tantalising prospect of charter flights in mind, exploratory excavation work for an airport got underway in 1984 on a fortuitous plateau of land on the island’s otherwise craggy mountain range. The project, the legacy of which can still be seen today in a remote field littered with boulders, appears to have been abandoned because of lack of investment capital rather than any particular conviction that Alonissos should count itself lucky not to be competing in the charter jet rat race.

Given the sudden deluge of tourists already swamping the island during the brief high season in July and August, it would be hard to imagine how Alonissos could cope with such an invasion. Despite having no airport of its own, charter flight holidaymakers still manage to shuttle in from Italy, Britain, Germany and Holland, using Skiathos as their arrival and departure point. Those visitors are swelled by others arriving from Athens and Thessalonika. Once the summer season is in full swing, the island also starts absorbing an overspill of tourists from neighbouring Skiathos and Skopelos. By the time August comes around, hotels, guest houses and restaurants are bursting at the seams, turning an otherwise tranquil, even sleepy, island into a bustling holiday resort. Flotillas of yachts, tour boats offering excursions to the outer islands, and speed boats dashing from one beach to another add to the summer mayhem.

All this poses a serious dilemma for those who must monitor the Park’s 2200 square kilometres, guarding against intrusions into monk seal caves, forest fires, illegal speargun fishing and other threats [see Guarding continues in the Sporades, TMG 4(1): May 2001]. Mass tourism has been implicated in the decline and eradication of the monk seal in several Mediterranean countries, and remains a clear and present danger to the last strongholds of the species in Greece and Turkey [see Mass tourism and the Mediterranean monk seal, TMG 2(2): November 1999]. Pregnancy in monk seals may also coincide with the holiday season, imposing an additional stress burden to which the species is already acutely susceptible.

Based on a two-month high season with high-capacity occupancy and fast client turn-around, this intense, conveyor-belt brand of tourism also presents other, long-term threats to the integrity of the NMPANS. The vast majority of visitors in this tourism bracket are drawn to Alonissos for reasons other than the existence of its Marine Park. Most have scant interest in the area’s endangered wildlife or its unspoilt landscapes, unless it is to make a barbecue on a deserted beach. Few will go out of their way to learn more about the Park, even though some will take advantage of cruises plying among the islands and hear guides spouting information of dubious accuracy over the loudspeakers.

The danger is that if Alonissos expends more effort in intensifying the summer tourist trade – with all the road and concrete developments that will entail – it may well end up alienating the very people who would be drawn to the island’s Marine Park. Says Yiannis Vlaichos, of the Ecological and Cultural Movement of Alonnisos: “Unfortunately, the general attitude of people is that tourism can deliver a big return for a small investment. In the short term this may be good economically, but in the long term, catastrophic.”

Severe water shortages, forest fires, roads and houses being built at a frantic pace, traffic jams in a town that only saw its first car in the mid-1960s, are beginning to look like worrying omens for an island so uncertain over its own future.

Convinced that its summer tourism is becoming too intense for the island’s infrastructure and ecology to bear, some on Alonnisos are eager to see a fundamental shift in focus that would promote the Marine Park as a unique ecological and cultural preservation zone.

This idea – still far too vague to be called a plan – would place greater emphasis on ‘nature watch’ excursions, on walking tours, sailing and other ecologically-friendly pursuits. Encouraging this type of ecotourism to the island, it is thought, would help restrain further expansion of the high summer tourist trade by attracting visitors in spring and autumn. In this scenario, the Marine Park would become a lure for travellers who have grown weary of the usual noisy and overcrowded holiday resorts. Says Kostas Efstathiou, owner of the Paradise Hotel and Albedo Travel in Patitiri: “Alonissos shouldn’t play the game of touristic competition with other islands, but should use the Marine Park to distinguish itself from other destinations.”


Chicken & Egg

Over the years, some in the business community have taken the personal initiative to pursue opportunities offered by the Park’s creation. Cruises through the NMPANS have increased, as have guided walking tours. Three years ago, after considerable pressure, the Nomarchia (Prefecture) also opened up a 40 kilometre network of restored pathways on Alonissos. And yet despite these small steps forward, developing ecotourism on the island faces several major obstacles. The most important of these is lack of off-season amenities.

“Unfortunately, we are in a chicken and egg situation,” explains Diogenes Theodorou, who owns and operates Alonnisos Travel, a tourist agency on the harbour front of Patitiri. “We can’t persuade the shops, hotels and restaurants to remain open in the off-season months if there are no tourists, and we can’t attract tourists unless we have a package of boat trips, hiking tours and other activities on offer.”

Diversification of activities is also deemed essential in order to promote ecotourism abroad. Says Pakis Athanassiou, owner of Ikos Travel: “There’s no way you can fool big companies that 14-day water excursions are possible. If we want to offer off-season ecotourism holidays, it will require a major investment in infrastructure and a whole package of activities.”

	Eleonora’s falcon

Amenities specifically developed for nature travellers, however, are few and far between. Although Alonissos might be spectacular for bird-watchers, for example, there are currently no hides or identified observation points on the island. No hotel has yet adopted a Marine Park theme or is operated along clearly ecological lines. No taverna can yet be found serving organically-grown food.

To make matters worse, local government has gained the reputation of smothering rather than cultivating Alonissos’ ecological image. According to critics, public works projects, instead of dovetailing with the Marine Park concept, are still rooted in old “dynamite-and-bulldozer” thinking, so evident on other tourism-intense Aegean islands.

The use of EU development funds, supposedly earmarked for environmental improvements in the Park during the years 1996-1999, continues to be a source of controversy. Singled out for particularly harsh criticism is the 12 km asphalt road to Gerakas on the remote northeastern tip of the island, where Alonissos’ infamously impractical Biological Station had previously been constructed with another EU handout. Critics also point to numerous dust tracks that have been gouged out of the landscape, criss-crossing their way haphazardly through forests, and bringing traffic to beaches that could formerly only be reached by boat or footpath. Says Pakis Athanassiou: “The island is being crucified with new roads, many of them nonsensical.”

Further compromising the Park’s ecological image, Alonissos makes no effort to collect aluminium cans and bottles for recycling, and no effort to encourage less reliance on the all-pervasive plastic shopping bag. Waste management currently consists of dumping all types of trash into a landfill – admittedly an improvement over the previous method, which saw refuse being unloaded over a cliff into the sea.

Local indifference towards ecology appears to be compounded by a similar nonchalance towards cultural preservation. It is unlikely to be entirely coincidental, in fact, that many of the treasures that now grace the Historical and Folklore Museum were rescued from an ignominious fate at the Municipal rubbish tip by the single-minded efforts of the Museum’s founder, Costas Mavrikis. The fact that few locals have ever set foot in the Museum is also a telling reminder that Alonissos has yet to realise the role cultural preservation must play in promoting the island’s ecotourism credentials.


The obstacle course

For those favouring the ecotourism route, there’s no shortage of enthusiastic ideas when contemplating the Marine Park’s future. They include the restoration of Byzantine monasteries on the outer islands, opening-up additional hiking trails, horseback riding, sailing and scuba diving courses. There also remains the long standing priority of giving Patitiri a much needed facelift by planting trees and requiring traditional red tiled roofs instead of the ugly concrete rooftops that currently dominate the town. The difficulty is putting these ideas into practice.

“Ecotourism is still a new concept here,” explains Kostas Efstathiou, “and it won’t happen overnight.”

The question is, will it happen at all? Despite a few hesitant steps, progress in transforming the NMPANS into an internationally recognised ecotourism destination has been hampered by lack of coordination, lack of investment capital and lack of expert guidance. There is currently no official body capable of acting as a forum for debate on such crucial issues. Arguably, such a forum would be essential to articulate development opportunities, tailor them to Alonissos’ unique needs and attributes, and provide the necessary framework to promote initiatives and bring them to completion.

Even if the NMPANS management authority were already functioning, there is no guarantee that it would have either the mandate or the competence to act in this capacity.


The ecotourism risks

Despite the innocuous reputation it currently enjoys, uncontrolled but loudly hawked “ecotourism” activities have become a growing threat to protected areas and target species in several countries, with wild animals such a whales, dolphins and seals suffering harassment by well-intentioned visitors.

Without clear management procedures that seek to inform, guide and strike a dynamic balance between conservation and development interests, it is likely that ecotourists drawn to the NMPANS will become part of the problem rather than the solution.

The implications are seen even today on Alonissos. With no management body to establish precise operating procedures, and with a listing of Park regulations still to be published, confusion reigns over restrictions which vary from area to area according to zone designation [see map; an English translation of the NMPANS regulations is available in the Monachus Library: NMPANS 1992].

“Tourists regularly come into the office and ask me to explain it to them,” says Diogenes Theodorou, “but even I don’t know where it’s legal to swim, snorkel and sail.”

Indeed, after 14 years in the wilderness, there is still no definitive guidebook to the Marine Park’s fauna and flora, no map lucidly explaining regulations, no official leaflet distributed to every hotel room and visiting yacht.

As the Park continues its directionless drift, local businesses are beginning to view it as a dead-end rather than an avenue for advancement, as a place strangled by regulation, and offering few benefits.

“The Park is too closed and restrictive at the moment,” complains Diogenes Theodorou, echoing the views of many on the island. “It’s very difficult to tell visitors ‘you can’t go here and you can’t go there’ – it makes them angry. Strict rules are necessary, of course, but the Park should welcome people and not drive them away.”

The renovation of the monastery at Kyra Panaya, technically illegal under Park regulations

According to some critics, fatal flaws in the 1992 Presidential Decree will prevent the Marine Park from ever reaching its full potential in terms of ecotourism and cultural preservation. Regulations laid down in the Decree, they claim, are muddled, irrational, and penalise traditional land use activities that did much to shape the islands. Under the current regulations regime, for example, restoration of monasteries and other historical landmarks in the A Zone of the Park is technically illegal, as is the care and cultivation of ancient olive groves on Kyra Panaya. To make matters even worse, claims Kostas Efstathiou, Alonissos travel agencies are even guilty of breaking Park regulations with their guided nature tours to the outer islands. Critics point out that as well as being muddled and sowing confusion over arbitrary sub-zoning, the Decree also attempts, through its regulations, to micro-manage issues that would be better delegated to a management authority. Those responsible for the day to day operation of the Park, they insist, would be in a far better position to impose or lift temporary restrictions according to prevailing conditions.


Losing faith

Given the bureaucratic delays, broken promises and wasted opportunities, it is perhaps little wonder that local attitudes towards the NMPANS have soured dramatically in recent years. In fact, a recent sociological study for a UK university (Trivourea 2001) reveals consistently negative views towards the Marine Park over a broad cross-section of Alonissos society (even though most interviewees expressed the belief that a management authority would significantly improve matters).

	Landing a tuna catch on Alonissos

Like the tourism sector, the local fishing industry also complains about being cheated out of the promised benefits of the NMPANS. Artisanal fishers charge that the authorities have reneged on an agreement that would have allowed them to turn their caïques into “water taxis” and ferry tourists around the Marine Park. They also claim that illegal trawling persists within the NMPANS, despite guarding efforts, and that their catches continue to dwindle as a result. According to members of the Alonissos Fishing Cooperative, the island’s traditional fishers can only survive at all because of seasonal tuna fishing, and lucrative exports of bluefin tuna to Japan. Although that may be an exaggeration, with no management authority to set scientific priorities or to allocate funding, even vital research into fish catches and stocks has remained in limbo.

Ever since President Constantine Karamanlis signed the decree that officially brought the NMPANS into being in May 1992 , a follow-up edict – the now-infamous “Second Presidential Decree”, establishing detailed operational rules, and appointing a management authority – has been promised routinely “in the months to come”. It has, however, manifestly failed to materialise. Why should that be?

Even in a country where conspiracy theories are two a penny and bureaucracy is well known for being far more Byzantine than the architecture, there are few plausible explanations for the delays afflicting the NMPANS. Local people appear to be of the opinion that government procrastination is about as inevitable as fate itself. Some argue that the government gains from consigning the Park to a long-running administrative limbo: it does not have to push forward the draft decree to compete in an already crowded legislative agenda; nor does it have to tap scarce financial resources to operate a management body, hire staff and to pay for guards and patrol boats.

Whether there is any truth to that ostensibly cynical view remains to be seen. However, the Environment Ministry in Athens does appear to have far more room to manoeuvre than it is currently willing to concede. In fact, article 6 of the founding Presidential Decree empowers the Ministry of Environment to establish a Temporary Management Committee. Despite the numerous problems afflicting the Park, that Committee has never once functioned as a legally constituted body.

NMPANS: a monk seal success story despite persistent management failures

Although it is impossible to say if it reflects official thinking, Ministry of Environment functionaries visiting Alonissos have been heard to reject any blame for the current NMPANS malaise. In their view, the Alonissos business community alone bears responsibility for not seizing the development opportunities offered by the establishment of the Marine Park. In contrast, local entrepreneurs insist that it is the state of chronic uncertainty perpetuated by the government that has restrained greater financial investment in the NMPANS. The same Athens functionaries are also reputed to be of the opinion that the government has fulfilled its duty and accomplished its mission in the NMPANS – the protection of the critically-endangered Mediterranean monk seal. If so, they appear to be entirely oblivious to the plans and promises so liberally scattered by their predecessors over the last decade.

While the mayor the Alonissos recently expressed his hope to The Monachus Guardian that the NMPANS management authority would be formed “in the months to come”, it now appears that this long-awaited action may be delayed for several more years. The reason is likely to give many people pause for thought. Although Alonissos may not yet have realised the potential of its unique Marine Park, the same cannot be said for neighbouring Skopelos’ shrewd and charismatic mayor, Stamatis Perissis, who sees opportunities galore in the NMPANS. As a result, Skopelos has now expressed its wish to join the Marine Park, a request that has apparently gained the sympathetic support of both Volos and Athens. In order to accommodate the island, however, prospective coastal protection zones must be mapped, and rules, regulations, and decrees all re-drafted. Aside from suffering yet another intolerable delay, the danger for Alonissos is that it will now face marginalization as its larger, wealthier neighbour exerts its influence over the NMPANS.

Although in the present climate on Alonissos it is easy to forget the headway that has been made in the NMPANS over the years [see sidebar], in gambling so extravagantly with time, the authorities risk losing the only thing that will keep Greece’s flagship Marine Park afloat – local commitment.

Further reading

Anon. 1997. National Marine Park of Alonissos, Northern Sporades. Getting to know Greek marine parks. Ministry of the Environment, Physical Planning & Public Works, Athens, Greece: 1-48.
Dendrinos, P., S. Kotomatas, & E. Tounta. 1996. Monk seal pup production in the National Marine Park of Alonissos – N. Sporades. In: 7th International Congress on the Zoogeography and Ecology of Greece and Adjacent Regions, Athens, Greece: 1-8.
Dendrinos, P. Alonnissos. The surrounding islands and the National Marine Park. Adam Editions, Athens, Greece: 1-96.
Dendrinos, P., E. Tounta & S. Kotomatas. 2000. A field method for age estimation of Mediterranean monk seal pups. Monachus Science Posters, The Monachus Guardian 3(2) November 2000.
Hau, G., & C-P. Hutter. 1997. Nördliche Sporaden. Natur zwischen Inseln und Meer. Naturerbe Verlag Jürgen Resch, Überlingen, Germany: 1-160.
Johnson, W.M. 1988. The Monk Seal Conspiracy. Heretic Books, London: 1-206. Internet edition: http://www.iridescent-publishing.com.
Johnson, W.M. 1993. Hermit of the Aegean. BBC Wildlife Magazine 11 (7 July 1993): 38-45.
Kotomatas, S. 2001. On Course in the Aegean. Right of Reply, Letters to the Editor, The Monachus Guardian 4(1) May 2001.
Schultze-Westrum, T.. 1976. Monk seal investigations in Greece. Nature. Newsletter of the Hellenic Society for the Protection of Nature, Athens, Greece 8: 3, 24.
Schultze-Westrum T., et al. 1992. Remarks and suggestions in relation to the Marine Park of Northern Sporades, with particular reference to the Presidential Decree published 28th May, 1992. European Natural Heritage Fund, Radolfzell, Germany: 1-14.
Schultze-Westrum T. 2001. Off Course in the Aegean? Letters to the Editor, The Monachus Guardian 4(1) May 2001.
Scoullos, M., M. Mantzara, & E. Constantianos. 1994. The Book-Directory for the Mediterranean Monk seal (Monachus monachus) in Greece. Elliniki Etairia, Athens, Greece: 1-167.
SRRC. 1990. The rehabilitation of two newborn Mediterranean monk seals (Monachus monachus) in the Seal Rehabilitation and Research Centre (SRRC) in Pieterburen, the Netherlands. t' Hart, L., & L. Vedder, January 1990: 1-17.
SRRC. 1991. The rehabilitation of an orphaned Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) in the National Marine Park of N. Sporades, Greece. Pieterburen: 1-29.
Trivourea, M. 2001. Socio-economic impacts of national parks on local human communities. A thesis submitted for the degree of MSc Environmental Protection and Management of the University of Edinburgh: 1-86.
University of Athens. 1985. Research Program in the Northern Sporades. Report of research team of the Department of Biology, University of Athens, December 1985: 1-77.

Alonissos and the NMPANS on the Web

• www.alonissos.com
• www.albedotravel.com