Port-Cros

Declared in 1963, Port-Cros was the first marine national park in the whole of Europe, protecting as a single unit both the small island off the coast of Provence and a wide belt of its seabed, setting a precedent that would later inspire similar designations across the rest of the Mediterranean. The absence of building and of road traffic on the island since its declaration has preserved one of the densest and least human-shy populations of Mediterranean dusky grouper on the entire French coast.