On 6 November 2020 Gaetano Leone, Coordinator of the UN Environment Programme Mediterranean Action Plan (UNEP/MAP), took part in the webinar organized by Legambiente and titled “Networking for tackling marine litter in the Mediterranean Sea”, which took place in the context of the digital edition of Ecomondo, an international event dedicated to green technology and the circular economy.
Mr. Leone focused on the work undertaken by the UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention Secretariat, shedding light on governance challenges in the Mediterranean region. He noted that the COVID-19 crisis calls for attention to a similar, more surreptitious scourge: marine litter. Both “share a common root cause: a dysfunctional relationship between humans and nature,” he observed.
While countries continue to grapple with COVID-19, the Mediterranean finds itself at the confluence of momentous challenges: from climate change and biodiversity loss to rising inequalities within and between countries. A boom in plastic production and a decline in recycling (side-effects of the coronavirus pandemic) are compounding challenges on the marine litter front. Submarine footage (courtesy of /RAMOGE Explorations 2018) screened during the webinar and commented by François Galgani of IFREMER showed evidence of the accumulation of staggering quantities of marine litter on the Mediterranean seafloor.
Mr. Leone highlighted the recently released UNEP/MAP State of the Environment and Development in the Mediterranean (SoED) report, which indicates that the total amount of municipal solid waste produced in Mediterranean countries in 2016 was around 183 million tonnes, i.e. an estimated 1 kg per capita per day on average. Although solid waste management capacity showed encouraging signs of improvement, it remains insufficient to cope with the ever-growing volume of waste being generated.
“We have the means to prevent the worst impacts of marine litter,” Mr. Leone said, recalling that the thematic strategies and action plans as well as the (legally-binding) regulatory measures developed under the auspices of the UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention system provide Mediterranean countries with ready-to-use instruments to tackle the problem, including the Barcelona Convention Protocols pertaining to Land-Based Sources (LBS), Pollution from Ships and Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM).
The Regional Plan on Marine Litter Management in the Mediterranean, which was adopted by the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention in 2013, acknowledges the importance of prevention through the application of sustainable circular economy principles. At the national level, important prevention measures have been adopted in the majority of Mediterranean countries, in many cases with the support of the UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention system.
Mr. Leone told participants that other legally binding agreements and voluntary measures pertaining to marine plastic pollution have been adopted under several UN Multilateral Environmental Agreements.
“Efforts have so far fallen short of achieving Good Environmental Status across the basin,” Mr. Leone said. But “the vision, the technology, the public awareness and the political commitment are in place and can turn the crucial shift to sustainability into reality”.
Beyond marine litter, nutrients, heavy metals, Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), pesticides, and hydrocarbons are the main pollutants of the Mediterranean Sea. But emerging pollutants, such as plastic additives, cosmetics, plasticizers, nanoparticles and pharmaceuticals, represent an under-investigated threat to ecosystems and human health.
Supporting a regionally coordinated approach to the required monitoring and assessment of the environmental status of the Mediterranean, UNEP/MAP was instrumental in the development of the Integrated Monitoring and Assessment Programme (IMAP), which encompasses 11 Ecological Objectives and related targets covering pollution and marine litter, biodiversity, non-indigenous species, coastal ecosystems and hydrography.
In the Naples Ministerial Declaration—adopted at COP 21 Barcelona Convention, 2-5 December 2019, Naples, Italy—Mediterranean coastal countries and the European Union took on ambitious commitments to prevent and significantly reduce plastic leakage into the Mediterranean Sea, including measures to boost the Green Economy and circular approaches, and to achieve 100 per cent plastic waste collection and recycling by 2025. “We need to build on this commitment and to ensure proper enforcement in collaboration with all stakeholders,” Mr. Leone told participants. “This is crucial if we want to see a green renaissance in the Mediterranean”.
UNEP/MAP has been calling for a green renaissance in the Mediterranean in the context of the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to induce the required transformative change that tackles the drivers of environmental degradation, SoED identifies five levers of action:
- incentives and capacity building: phasing out environmentally harmful subsidies and incentivizing sustainable options – including removing subsidies on non-renewable energies and groundwater extraction – while empowering local administrations and actors to implement nationally or internationally agreed commitments and measures.
- intersectoral cooperation: ensuring that shifting development pathways are shared by all sectors, not just administrations in charge of the Environment, and prioritising sustainability in all sectoral policies.
- preventive action: implementing measures that prevent degradation, which are generally less costly and lead to better environmental and social outcomes than clean-up and curative action.
- resilience-building under uncertainty: directing action and investment towards adaptation to projected environmental stresses, including by harnessing nature-based solutions.
- enforcement of legal obligations: promoting the adoption of provisions in national legislation to allow for accountability and legal action, and strengthening the legal and administrative mechanisms involved in enforcement including those undertaken by the Mediterranean countries under the Barcelona Convention and its Protocols.
