At a time when Mediterranean countries are embarking on ambitious post-COVID recovery schemes or, in other contexts, searching a way out of the economic setbacks that the pandemic has caused, the month of June offers two special occasions that should prompt decision-makers to invest in a more sustainable and resilient future: World Environment Day (5 June) and World Oceans Day (8 June).
This year’s observance of World Environment Day will mark the formal launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021 – 2030. Two days later, World Oceans Day will celebrate “The Ocean: Life and Livelihoods”. The two themes are intertwined, especially in the Mediterranean context. Ecosystem restoration (assisting in the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded or destroyed, and conserving the ecosystems that are still intact) is essential to preserving marine life and livelihoods.
The plight of Mediterranean ecosystems
In an event that the Mediterranean Action Plan of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP/MAP) recently co-organized with the Geneva Environment Network, the UNEP/MAP Coordinator told fellow panelists and the audience that, according to science, the Mediterranean is on a collision course with nature. The science that the Coordinator was referring to is encapsulated in two seminal reports backed by the UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention system: the State of the Environment and Development in the Mediterranean (SoED), produced by Plan Bleu, a Regional Activity Centre of UNEP/MAP, and the First Mediterranean Assessment Report (MAR 1) released by the independent network of Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change (MedECC).
The ‘twin reports’ indicate that the global triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution has already taken a hefty toll on ecosystems with increasingly acute impacts on human wellbeing. Making peace with nature in the Mediterranean would entail addressing the root causes of the environmental crisis.
In the context of the recovery from COVID-19, evidence-based policies should invest in ecosystem restoration while paving the way for more sustainable and resilient economies that decouple development from ecosystem degradation. The UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention Secretariat has labelled this ambitious but feasible outcome a “green renaissance in the Mediterranean”.
The Ecosystem Approach in the Mediterranean
The Ecosystem Approach refers to an overarching principle embedded in the work of the UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention system. It also refers to a roadmap (with milestones and a timetable) leading to the fulfillment of the vision of "a healthy Mediterranean with marine and coastal ecosystems that are productive and biologically diverse for the benefit of present and future generations" under the Barcelona Convention.
As part of the Ecosystem Approach roadmap, the Contracting Parties have adopted eleven Ecological Objectives that address key elements of the Mediterranean marine and coastal environment. These objectives constitute the backbone of a harmonized regional system that allows UNEP/MAP and the Contracting Parties to take the pulse of Mediterranean ecosystems: the Integrated Monitoring and Assessment Programme of the Mediterranean Sea and Coast and Related Assessment Criteria (IMAP).
Introduced by UNEP/MAP and adopted by the Contracting Parties in 2016, IMAP has transformed the way in which monitoring and assessment of the status of the marine and coastal environment are conducted. Components of UNEP/MAP support Mediterranean countries in this endeavor by providing technical expertise and capacity building, as well as through the delivery of demonstrative projects that bolster national command of monitoring and assessment tools and methods.
UNEP/MAP and the Contracting Parties are building together the monitoring and assessment infrastructure needed for evidence-based ecosystem restoration in the Mediterranean. The Coordinating Unit of UNEP/MAP is currently implementing three EU-funded projects seeking to remove hurdles to the full implementation of IMAP for the benefit of the entire region: EcAp MED III, IMAP-MPA and Marine Litter MED.
Enforcement of legal instruments will boost ecosystem restoration
The UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention system has made significant progress in building a robust legal framework that underpins restoration and ensures healthy marine and coastal ecosystems. But compliance and enforcement—or the lack thereof—constitute areas where swift and resolute action by the Contracting Parties can deliver significant benefits for the region and its peoples. This is a crucial building block for a green renaissance in the post-COVID era.
There is an opportunity to harness post-pandemic recovery efforts to accelerate enforcement and compliance under the Barcelona Convention, the region’s best chance to make peace with nature, at a hitherto unprecedented pace and scale.
The acceleration of enforcement of the Barcelona Convention and its Protocols at the national level constitutes a well-defined and straightforward path that would translate into a ‘quantum leap’ towards sustainability and resilience in the entire region.
The MedProgramme represents a landmark contribution to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration
The GEF-supported “Mediterranean Sea Programme (MedProgramme): Enhancing Environmental Security (2020-2025)” is a response to the challenges affecting densely populated coastal regions and their ecosystems. UNEP/MAP led the design of this assortment of seven child projects that will deploy more than 100 coordinated actions at the regional and national levels.
The MedProgrammme will reinforce the capacity of ten Mediterranean countries (Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Montenegro, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey) in meeting their environmental objectives under the Barcelona Convention and other Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs).
An unprecedented partnership for regional cooperation has rallied behind the MedProgramme’s execution to address pressing challenges in the region, including the high pressures exerted on water (aquifers, in particular, as a major water resource in contexts of scarcity) and on habitats, biodiversity and landscapes. The emission of nutrients and wastewater, solid waste, marine litter and microplastics, as well as industrial waste are also addressed. National and transboundary interventions will seek to achieve environmental security in the entire Mediterranean region through the reduction of land-based pollution in coastal hotspots, the enhancement of sustainability and climate resilience in the coastal zones, and the protection of marine biodiversity.
The many facets of ecosystem restoration under the Barcelona Convention
A blue economy aligned with SDG 14 can pave the way for the green renaissance that we wish to see in the Mediterranean. In a paper on the blue economy in the Mediterranean, released in 2020, Plan Bleu, the France-based Regional Activity Centre of UNEP/MAP, highlighted the main issues and challenges constraining the region’s efforts to tap the potential of a low polluting, resource-efficient and circular economy based on sustainable consumption and production patterns, enhancing human well-being and social equity, generating economic value and employment, and significantly reducing environmental risks and impact on biodiversity.
Zoonotic spillover has demonstrated in the most tragic of ways that the protection of biodiversity is not only critical to nature but also to human health. In the Mediterranean region, SPA/RAC, the Tunisia-based Regional Activity Centre of UNEP/MAP, is currently working on the development of the post-2020 Strategic Action Programme for the Conservation of the Biological Diversity and sustainable use of natural resources in the Mediterranean Region (post-2020 SAPBIO), which will lead to prioritizing and planning urgent actions at the regional and national levels for the sustainable management of Mediterranean biodiversity until 2030. The post-2020 Regional Strategy for Marine and Coastal Protected Areas (MCPAs) and Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs)—also under preparation—is expected to boost conservation in the Mediterranean Sea and coast.
Article 10 of the Protocol on Integrated Coastal Zone Management in the Mediterranean (ICZM Protocol) of the Barcelona Convention indicates that the Contracting Parties “shall take measures to protect certain specific coastal ecosystems: wetlands and estuaries; marine habitats; coastal forests and woods; and dunes”. PAP/RAC, the Croatia-based Regional Activity Centre of UNE/MAP, is working to step up coastal ecosystem restoration. PAP/RAC has recently contributed to the formulation of green adaptation options—a set of solutions based on the Ecosystem Approach that range from reinforcing natural defenses, such as dunes and cliffs, to maintaining and restoring coastal wetlands and seagrass.
Originating on land and often in the coast, marine litter remains one of the most arduous challenges hampering ecosystem restoration efforts in the Mediterranean. A combination of lax enforcement of existing regulations and unbridled production and consumption patterns generates excessive amounts of waste. It is estimated that 730 tonnes of plastic find their way to the Mediterranean Sea every single day.
In 2018, SCP/RAC, the Spain-based Regional Activity Centre of UNEP/MAP, contributed to identifying more than 100 measures to curb marine litter, including activities that can be implemented in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to safeguard important ecosystem services.
Since 2020, SCP/RAC supports marine litter prevention and mitigation measures in three MPAs located in Italy and Spain. In the Miramare MPA (Italy), measures are now in place to curb littering caused by mussel nets. In the Spanish natural parks of Ebro Delta and Cabo de Gata-Níjar, SCP/RAC interventions focus on curbing marine litter originating from bars, festivals and other recreative activities, including the infamously ubiquitous beverage containers made of PET.
The promotion of Extended Produced Responsibility (EPR) schemes, which are part of the litter-busting measures, constitutes an important notion. It highlights the central role of the private sector in Ecosystem restoration efforts. In the Mediterranean context, shipping is one of the sectors where the industry plays a central role in bending the pollution curve and in ensuring that growth does not come at the expense of natural systems that underpin life and livelihoods.
REMPEC, the Malta-based Regional Activity Centre jointly administered by UNEP/MAP and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), is edging closer to a breakthrough on cleaner shipping in the Mediterranean. The possible designation of the Mediterranean Sea, as a whole, as an “Emission Control Area for Sulphur Oxides (Med SOx ECA) would transform shipping in one of the busiest maritime routes in the world.
Emissions from ships contribute to the overall air quality degradation in the Mediterranean region, particularly in coastal zones. Emissions of Sulphur Oxides (SOx), in particular, can cause acid rain that harms ecosystems. They can also combine with other pollutants to generate fine particles, the inhalation of which can lead to a morbid array of respiratory and cardiovascular ailments.
The REMPEC endeavor is part of the implementation of the Regional Strategy for Prevention of and Response to Marine Pollution from Ships (2016-2021). In addition, the Ballast Water Management Strategy for the Mediterranean Sea (2022-2027), currently being prepared by REMPEC in consultation with SPA/RAC, will address the introduction of non-indigenous species (NIS) by shipping activities.
More than 1,000 non-indigenous species have already been identified in the Mediterranean. Invasive species disrupt the natural balance of ecosystems, and so do human-made pollutants released into the coastal and marine environment.
MED POL, the UNEP/MAP Programme for the Assessment and Control of Marine Pollution in the Mediterranean, is spearheading efforts in the formulation and implementation of pollution monitoring, control and prevention as well as regulatory measures aiming to bolster ecosystem restoration. The Regional Plan on the Reduction of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) from Urban Wastewater, which MED POL is currently upgrading, is a case in point.
BOD measures the amount of oxygen required or consumed for the microbiological decomposition of organic material in water: the more organic pollution, the less oxygen to sustain marine ecosystems.
The Regional Plan on Marine Litter Management in the Mediterranean—another instrument being upgraded by MED POL— and a new Regional Plan on Sewage Sludge Management are part of a raft of pro-sustainability measures to be considered by the twenty-second Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention and its Protocols (COP 22, December 2021, Antalya, Turkey).
The next Medium-Term Strategy (2022-2027) to be considered for adoption by the Contracting Parties at COP 22 will concentrate the UNEP/MAP expertise and resources on accelerating ecosystem restoration, among other green pursuits.
Learn more:
Six ways in which UNEP/MAP can support a green renaissance in the Mediterranean
Enforcement of biodiversity protection is crucial to recovering better in the Mediterranean
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