Malea Peninsula: Fourteen Years After the Declaration, a Landscape Speaks Back

By Panagiotis Tripontikas M.A Captain in the Hellenic Navy and Dr Chrysanthi Gallou, Associate Professor of Archaeology and Director of the Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies (CSPS)

It has been fourteen years since a local dream combined with international knowledge, the Greek State has officially announced that Malea Peninsula is a Landscape of International Significance (Government Gazette D' 186/2025). It is not just recognition of a place of outstanding natural and cultural value, but also of the determination of a nation that did not wish it to be overlooked.

The institution is the realization of a common agreement first articulated in 2011, during the International Symposium "Cape Malea: From the Homeric to the Modern Landscape", promoted by the Velanidia Association "I Myrtidiotissa", the Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies (CSPS) of the University of Nottingham, and the Municipality of Monemvasia, with the support of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation and the Mediterranean Institute for Nature and Anthropos (MedINA).

Organized by the Region of Peloponnese, the symposium took place at the "Petra" Conference Centre in Monemvasia on 30 April – 1 May 2011.

This designation has invited leading voices across archaeology, history, the environment, folklore, art, and maritime cultural heritage. From the University of Nottingham, Academy of Athens, University of Peloponnese, Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, and nearby experts, naturalists, volunteers, and local residents, visitors entered Cape Malea not as a place — but as living cultural landscape.

The symposium ended with the signing of the Cape Malea Declaration which is an appeal by civil society in concordance with the principles of the then recently ratified European Landscape Convention. The Declaration called for the official acknowledgment of the peninsula's distinctive ecological, historical, and cultural identity.

This year, that call has been answered.

The official classification of Cape Malea today requires that any possible future development, infrastructure, or planning in the area must respect its protected status. The cape is included as part of Greece's sequence of significant cultural and natural sites.

This achievement testifies to the long-term durability of collaboration between local communities and universities — and the potential of civic action to drive national policy. It is a living demonstration of the worth of interdisciplinary methodology, international collaboration, and community-organized preservation.

For the University of Nottingham, this result underlines the core purpose of the Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies: to promote research and outreach projects that combine scholarly expertise with public engagement and cultural viability.

The 2011 symposium was not just an academic conference — it was the beginning of a cultural movement. It involved site visits, ecological walks, bird releases, and the symbolic opening of the Cape Malea Lighthouse — blending memory with action, and heritage with vision.

The official naming of the peninsula is not an end, but a beginning of that endeavor. It requires rededication to education, ecotourism, international research, and wise stewardship of one of Greece's most historic landscapes.

Cape Malea has spoken. Let us continue to listen.