Curated & Moderated by:
Anna-Kynthia Bousdoukou

Demetres Karavellas

CEO of WWF Greece

Demetres Karavellas is a conservation leader who has worked with WWF in various posts for over twenty-five years. He has been active in the field of environmental protection and on key policy issues linked to natural resources, conservation of species and critical habitats, climate change and sustainable development, at a national, regional and global level. He is the CEO of WWF Greece and is presently also chairing the WWF Mediterranean Marine Initiative, a coordinated network-wide effort to conserve the valuable marine and coastal ecosystems and promote a sustainable "blue economy" for the region. He is also a member of the SDSN Leadership Council of Greece. He holds a BSc in Marine Biology from Queen Mary University and a MSc in Fisheries Biology and Management from Bangor University. He has a passion for the sea and has explored many marine sites around the world, but feels most at home in the waters of the Aegean Sea.

Climate change has become a crisis because we are already living it, and we have reached the point where reality confirms, or even exceeds, forecasts. Moreover, there is also the time factor; the fact that time is running out, and now is the time for change. The crisis is the harbinger of the need for change.