The founder of Greece’s first school for professional fishermen and an activist for cleaner seas and healthy fish stocks, Lefteris Arapakis, has been bestowed the honorary title of ambassador for the Mediterranean coast for 2021-22 by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Awarded in the context of UNEP’s Mediterranean Action Plan, the title is “a recognition of the team’s work and shows us that we are on the right path, doing something that is having an impact,” says Arapakis, founder of Enaleia, a startup that trains and incentivizes the local fishing community to collect plastic from the sea.

“It is a recognition of all the professional fishermen and all our associates in the battle against marine pollution from plastic,” adds the fifth-generation Piraeus fisherman who was also named Europe’s Young Champion of the Earth by UNEP in 2020, at the age of 26.

This article was previously published at ekathimerini.com.