Environment: Cure Sought for “Sick” Mediterranean Sea

By Stelios Fotinos

ATHENS, Oct. 7, 2005 (IPS/GIN) — Non-governmental organizations want to do their part to save the Mediterranean Sea. They say it can do with some saving.

Nonprofit groups will join with regional United Nations organizations, local authorities, trade unions and the industrial sector from the Mediterranean area in Athens Oct. 10 and 11 to find remedies for what they see as a sickness of the sea.

Big as it may appear to the eyes of the 435 million inhabitants of its riparian countries, including 150 million coastal residents, the Mediterranean Sea is just a drop in the oceans — it has only 0.7 percent of all salt water on the planet.

But it is more than a little sick. The Mediterranean, with more than 46,000 kilometers of coastline and 3,700 cubic kilometers of water volume, is under heavy pressure from pollution both from land and sea. Urban centers, the tourism industry, and agriculture are among the biggest polluters.

Non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, have a lot to contribute to solving the problem, said Emad Adly, coordinator of the Arabic Network for Environment and Development.

Efforts “should focus more on what we call the ‘popular axe’, that is, NGOs, trade unions and political parties,” Adly told IPS. The Cairo-based network groups NGOs active in 17 Arab countries, seven of them in the Mediterranean region.

“They are key players, together with the private and the public sectors, in the implementation of projects aimed at ensuring sustainable development at the local level, be it in the field of agriculture, industry, coastal management or desertification, ” said Adly, who will attend the meeting in Athens.

“NGOs are active everywhere, in cities, in villages, and they group people from all social categories; they are more aware of the problems and solutions,” Adly said.

Studies by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), specifically, its Athens-based Mediterranean Action Plan set up in 1975 to combat pollution, reveal that hundreds of coastal towns lack sewage treatment facilities.

“The 150 million people living along the Mediterranean coast produce 3.8 billion cubic meters of wastewater each year,” WWF says in a report. “A further 2.5 million cubic meters are produced by the tourists visiting the Mediterranean region.” The report adds that “80 percent of the urban sewage produced is discharged untreated.”

The Athens-based Program for the Assessment and Control of Pollution in the Mediterranean region (Med Pol), which operates within the Mediterranean Action Plan, says solid wastes going into the sea from coastal residents average 254 kilograms per person per year. This includes household trash, food, paper, plastic and bottles.

Pollution caused by the discharge of solid waste and litter into the sea, especially plastic packaging, is a significant cause of degradation of beaches, the seabed and associated ecosystems, environmentalists say.

According to Med Pol data, plastic alone accounts for 75 percent of the waste on the sea surface and the seabed. Non-biodegradable plastic and tar balls build up on beaches all along the coast.

Industrial activities are also a key source of pollution. This pollution comes mainly from the chemical and petrochemical and the metallurgy sectors. Large commercial harbors and heavy industrial complexes cause significant pollution. Some 60 petrol refineries release nearly 20,000 tons of petrol a year into the Mediterranean.

Waste from more than 200 petrochemical and energy installations, chemical industries and chlorine plants, and more than 80 major rivers carrying heavy loads of pollution from inland, has taken the Mediterranean basin into an advanced state of deterioration.

All this pollution takes place in a semi-enclosed sea. The Mediterranean has only two exits, the 14-km-wide Gibraltar Strait and the Suez Canal, which is only a few meters wide. This means Mediterranean waters will need between 80 and 150 years to be renewed through inflow from other seas, according to scientific estimates.

Under the Mediterranean Action Plan, each Mediterranean country will identify and quantify its main sources of pollution, and devise a national plan to cut such pollution.

WWF is campaigning for establishment of marine and coastal areas to protect biodiversity. It also wants specific measures against pollution to be agreed at the international convention.