Mediterranean pollution remains largely ignored
Lebanon among biggest polluters
By Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
Saturday, April 04, 2009
BEIRUT:
Despite linking 21 countries and attracting a third of the world's annual tourism, the problems of pollution and overfishing in the Mediterranean Sea have remained largely overlooked, with environmentalists in Lebanon saying their government has not shown sufficient commitment to protecting the body of water. Campaigners have long called for policies to combat pollution in the Mediterranean, but it was only after Israel's bombing of Lebanon's Jiyyeh power station during a 34-day conflict in 2006, which released 15,000 tons of unrefined fuel oil into the sea, that major efforts to clean up Lebanon's coastline began.
The oil spill, often referred to as Lebanon's biggest environmental disaster, affected approximately 150 kilometers of coastline, as well as Syria and Cyprus. But rather than sparking a sustained clean-up effort, the burdens of the Mediterranean were quickly forgotten again, campaigners say.
Decades of unsustainable coastal urbanization and unregulated dumping of untreated domestic and industrial waste have transformed the Mediterranean into one of the world's most polluted seas.
Some 57 percent of Lebanon's sewage water is "directly disposed of on the shores without any treatment whatsoever," the country's Green Party has said, noting some 28 industries also dumped their waste into the sea without treatment. It is unclear how accurate the figures are, however, as no national water management body exists.
"Lebanon is one of a few countries where nearly all sewage goes into the sea," said Ali Darwish, general secretary of environmental organization Greenline. An average Lebanese citizen consumes 80-100 liters of water every day, he said, meaning some 200,000 cubic meters of untreated sewage water found its way into the Mediterranean daily. These levels lead "the Center of Water Resources to consider the level of pollution of most beaches to be above the permissible level set by the World Health Organization," Greenpeace Lebanon has noted.
Aside from sewage, dumpsites dotting Lebanon's coastline also contribute to the Mediterranean's woes. The most notorious of these is the Sidon dump, which regularly collapses, sending tons of plastic bags and hospital and animal waste into the water. "Addressing the problems associated with dumpsites, and providing suitable alternatives through an integrated waste management strategy, including a network of sanitary landfill sites, waste recycling and composting, should clearly be a national priority," a 2007 UN Environment Program report, "Lebanon post-conflict Assessment," remarked.
Pollution also placed a burden on the national coffers.
A 2005 report by the World Bank found pollution and degradation of Lebanon's coastlines and natural resources cost the country about $565 million every year. But according to Darwish, "the governments of Lebanon, since 1991, have rejected civil-society efforts to initiate plans to construct sewage treatment facilities" along the coast. "Lebanon has laws ensuring a minimum protection of the environment, so the government is clearly not fulfilling its duties."
Lebanon is party to the Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea against Pollution, which strives to eliminate land-based pollution sources and establish marine reserves, as well as the Convention for Biological Diversity, which stipulates that "marine and coastal protected areas should be part of a wider marine and coastal management framework."
However, little attention has been paid to the conventions.
The country only has one marine reserve, instigated not by the government, but Greenpeace.
The reserve, a pilot project in Byblos, was initiated after extensive consultation with the local municipality and fishermen, said Greenpeace Lebanon's Ocean campaigner, Yasmin al-Helwe.
No fishing or dumping is allowed in the area: only swimming, environmentally friendly boating and diving. The reserve, encompassing 1.2 kilometers of sea, provides a clean and safe haven for fish to reproduce. Marine reserves are especially important at a time when over-fishing threatens to kill off hundreds of marine species, Helwe, said.
"If you talk to fishermen, they say that a decade ago, they would catch tons of fish." Today fishermen are lucky to catch even a fraction of that, she said, forcing many fishermen to employ destructive fishing techniques like dynamiting. The project has met with enthusiasm from the area's fishermen, who are keen to safeguard their livelihoods.
But a marine reserve had to be preceded by proper enforcement of environmental laws and the introduction of a national fresh and waste-water management strategy, said Darwish.
"What's the use [of marine reserves] when you have untreated and chemical waste being pumped into them?" he asked.
Daily Star