The Black Sea Action Plans

The question is, why did it take too long before anyone did anything about it?  How had it come to a point where according to Laurence D. Mee in How to Save The Black Sea – Your Guide to the Black Sea Strategic Action Plan, a foreign newspaper once described the Black Sea as a ‘deadly soup of toxic waste’?   It was not like the destruction came hard and fast the way a storm would.  The Black Sea saga was a slow and very observable decline and it has been said that scientists had computer models to show that the Black Sea’s ecosystem was dying.  And there was an answer before, they knew how to stop what was happening and the destruction could have been prevented.   Now the Earth is reduced to reclaiming a natural resource that was already there to begin with.

Following the Black Sea Strategic Action Plan is the Bucharest Convention signed in Romania in April 21, 1992.  This was joined by the European Union and at that time five out of the six Black Sea countries agreed to adopt the amendments.  The Russian Federation pointed out that it needed more time to study the matter – perhaps because aside from Azerbaijan, Russia is also one of the main oil producers in the area.   

Among other agreements and initiatives to protect the Black Sea is the Black Sea Commission set up to pursue requirements of the provisions of the Convention on Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution (Bucharest Convention).  Its Permanent Secretariat became operational in October 2000.    

Unfortunately, the Black Sea region is affected by a number of disputes and conflicts that flared up in the early 1990’s.  The region includes two significant geopolitical and military players namely Turkey and Russia as great power rivals and competition for resources.  Conflicts like this have an impact on the environment.  Continuing tensions will not allow usage of many areas for implementations like agriculture and forestry.  Obstacles like closed borders to one another can greatly hamper any projects to restore the environment and there is also the fact that countries in conflict will not have the environment anywhere in its list of priorities.

Again, there are ways and more than one good idea has come up from the range of proposals that have been served to save the Black Sea.  Implementation seems to be the biggest challenge and hopefully we start employing more of these ideas to clean up and save the Black Sea. 

Notes:

1.       James Martin, ‘The Meaning of the 21st Century -  A Blueprint for Ensuring Our Future‘; Eden Project Books 2006, pages 31-33

2.       The Wikipedia Free Encyclopaedia (for pictures of the Black Sea and Its map as well)

3.       Laurence D. Mee, ‘How to Save The Black Sea – Your Guide to the Black Sea Strategic Action Plan‘;  United Nations Development Programme, www.undp.org

4.       A.E Kideys (Institute of Marine Sciences, Erdemli, Turkey), G.A Finenko and B.E Anniinsky (Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas, Sevastopol, Ukraine), T.A Shiganova (P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology RAS, Moscow, Russia), A. Roohi, M.R. Tabari, M. Youseffyan, M.T Rostamian, H. Rostami (Mazandaran Fisheries Research Center, Sari, Iran), H. Negarestan (Iranian Fisheries Research Center, Tehran, Iran); Preliminary Report, Laboratory Studieson Beroe Ovata and Mnemiopsis Leidyi In The Caspian Sea Water; Caspian Environment Programme

5.       Photo of the Mnemiopsis leidyi from Dear Kitty. Some Blog at Blogsome.com

6.       Photo of the Beroe Ovata from ‘Evolution of The Black Sea Ecosystem’ from the Living Black Sea Marine Environmental Education Program in the Russian Federal Children Centre Orylonok

7.       International and EU Legislation; Environmental Collaboration For The Black Sea; www.ecbsea.org

8.       Greening The Black Sea Synergy; Nicolas Tavitian (Consultant, Prospect C&S, Brussels), Jason Anderson, Joanna Chiavari (Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), Oleg Rubel (National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Odessa) and Nina Renshaw (Transport and Environment, Brussels), Anja Wittich, Achim Maas, Alexander Carius (Adelphi Research, Berlin),  Claire Dupont (Milieu Environmental Law and Policy, Brussels); WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund) and Heinrich Böll Foundation EU Regional Office in Brussels; June 2008