Med programme to eliminate sea pollution

Mediterranean civil society, local authorities and the private sector are set to play a leading role in an ambitious regional programme to eliminate the existing massive land-based pollution of the sea.

A Mediterranean Open-ended Platform to implement National Action Plans (NAPs) for a Cleaner Mediterranean Sea was launched here last week at the end of a two-day Mediterranean Multi-stakeholder Forum of nearly 90 participants, including a Nature Trust Malta representative.

The forum was organised by the UN Environment Programme's Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP), the Global Environment Facility and the Mediterranean Information Office (a regional network of environmental NGOs).

In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Times, MAP co-ordinator Paul Mifsud stated that "governments need the support of civil society and the private sector to ensure NAP implementation - since this will involve important policy choices for example siting and construction of waste treatment plants, and introduction of economic instruments to achieve NAP goals."

"This successful forum will be followed by similar multi-stakeholder consultations in several Mediterranean countries as from next year," he added.

Addressing a broad range of urban, agricultural and industrial wastes dumped into the sea, with 50 per cent reduction and eventual elimination targets set respectively for 2010 and 2025, the NAPs have been developed from initial national diagnostic analyses and baseline budget pollutant inventories drawn up with MAP assistance in each country. These data have in turn generated lists of priority actions and investment portfolios.

"NAPs of the 21 Mediterranean nations which are Contracting Parties of the Barcelona Convention will be submitted for formal endorsement by environment ministers at the forthcoming 14th conference in Portoroz, Slovenia between November 8 and 11," Mr Mifsud continued.

"The NAPs will undergird MAP's ongoing SAP MED programme (Strategic Action Programme to address Pollution from Land-Based Activities in the Mediterranean Sea), aimed to deliver fulfilment of national commitments under the Protocol on Land-Based Sources of Pollution of the Barcelona Convention."

NAP implementation will be supported through a dedicated $75 million 'seed money' investment fund recently set up by the World Bank, Mr Mifsud indicated, with other donors invited to contribute. Fifteen million dollars will be specifically earmarked for biodiversity protection, to support the SAP BIO regional project co-ordinated by MAP's Regional Activity Centre for Specially Protected Areas based in Tunis.

The NAPs will be an integral part of the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development (MSSD), also submitted for endorsement in Slovenia. The MSSD was adopted in June by MAP's Mediterranean Commission for Sustainable Development in June after extensive multi-stakeholder consultations.

Next month's Euro-Mediterranean 10th Anniversary Summit in Barcelona should also generate further indirect support for the NAPs, Mr Mifsud said. Heads of state or government are expected to adopt a European Commission proposal for a Euro-Mediterranean Initiative to Depollute the Mediterranean by 2020.

Under a joint programme of work to be signed shortly by MAP and the European Commission's Directorate-General for the Environment, working relations will be strengthened and include specific joint actions with three of MAP's Regional Activity Centres.

Malta's NAP has been finalised, and is awaiting the formal approval of the Minister for Rural Affairs and the Environment," Professor Victor Axiak, head of the Biology Department of the University of Malta's Faculty of Science, told The Sunday Times. Professor Axiak, who drafted the Malta NAP's diagnostic analysis and baseline budget in co-operation with MEPA, indicated that Malta's major land-based marine pollutants were untreated sewage - with sea dumping to be eliminated by 2008 under its Treaty of Accession to the EU - and waste from coastal engineering works relating to construction of marinas and jetties.

"In fact, legislation and related MEPA rules already cover the latter, but have to be enforced for existing and future projects, with better inter-departmental co-ordination," he said.