The Black Sea, yesterday, today and tomorrow
“The Black Sea has suffered a tragic decline in the last thirty years”. A conversation about the environment with almost anyone who has been living by the Black Sea or regularly visiting it for four or five decades will inevitably reach this conclusion. Each person from their own perspective, whether they are talking about fisheries, the state of beaches, the colour of the sea, its smell, the state of the economy, tourism or the coastal landscape, the conclusions are usually the same: something has gone badly wrong.
This publication has been prepared to take an objective and caring look at the situation in the Black Sea and help you, the reader, understand what is going on in the Sea and why it has happened. It will inform you what the Black Sea countries have agreed to do in order to repair the damage to the sea and protect it in the future. Most importantly, it will show how you and all of your family and friends who care, can help to ensure a clean Black Sea as part of a more prosperous future.
The information in this publication is based on seven years of co-operation between specialists from all six Black Sea countries (Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine). During this period, thanks to the support of governments, committed non-governmental groups, the United Nations Organisations and the European Union, these specialists freely exchanged their information and were able to complete new research where there were missing facts. The information gathered was sufficiently convincing to persuade all six governments to devise an innovative and practical plan that commits the countries to actions to protect the Black Sea over the next two decades and beyond. It is important that everybody concerned understands this “Black Sea Strategic Action Plan” and is prepared to play an active part in making it work and help the authorities to keep their promises to the Black Sea and the people who depend upon its health.
A healthy Black Sea, what does it mean to you?
It may not be immediately obvious why a healthy Black Sea should make a difference to your life. Firstly let’s take a look at some of direct benefits people may receive from the sea without destroying it:
We think there are some even more compelling reasons to protect the sea:
The Black Sea Action Plan acknowledges these reasons for protecting the Sea and tries to help everybody to exercise their rights and responsibilities. The overall aim of the Plan is to “enable the population of the Black Sea region to enjoy a healthy living environment in both urban and rural areas, and to attain a biologically diverse Black Sea ecosystem with viable natural populations of higher organisms, including marine mammals and sturgeons, and which will support livelihoods based on sustainable activities such as fishing, aquaculture and tourism in all Black Sea countries”.
Why marine mammals and sturgeons? Apart from humans, marine mammals and sturgeons are the highest life form sustained by the Black Sea. They are depicted on the logo of the Black Sea Environmental Programme but their presence is more than symbolic. Both depend upon a healthy, unpolluted and diverse, Black Sea ecosystem. Dolphins depend on the healthy connection of the Black Sea with the world’s oceans and sturgeon depend upon clean rivers, unobstructed by dams, for breeding as well as a clean Black Sea. The message is a clear one – humans can learn to co-exist with the most sensitive ecosystems in the Black Sea and develop their economic activities.
Reading this report …. and the Action Plan
In this report, we are explaining the main messages of the Black Sea Action Plan in a way that aims to be understandable. The texts in “boxes” have been prepared to provide some additional information about the Black Sea itself; we hope you will enjoy reading them. If you wish to read more, you will find some suggestions at the end of the report. The Action Plan itself, is not a long document and is well worth studying in more detail.
The Black Sea Action Plan focuses on three major issues How to:
The issues are closely interrelated, and they were only subdivided for convenience when drafting the Action Plan. The present text will follow the same scheme, periodically reminding the reader of the connections. We will also show how the Plan was developed, and how the countries are proposing to implement it.
If the Black Sea Action Plan is to be a success, everybody will have to be involved in implementing it. It isn’t somebody else’s job. Of course, some people have special responsibilities as specialists, politicians, business leaders, teachers, etc., but there is a role for everybody to play. Having so many people involved requires good co-ordination and this has to extend across borders and work in a transparent and non-bureaucratic manner.
In April 1992, following six years of negotiations, the six Black Sea countries signed the Convention for the Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution (known as the Bucharest Convention, because it was signed in Bucharest). This Convention contains important legal measures, which will be discussed in a later section. It also establishes a Commission with representatives from each country to ensure its implementation. For its day to day work, the Commission will have a Secretariat in the City of Istanbul (hence the term Istanbul Commission). In order to provide a practical programme of actions for cleaning up and protecting the Black Sea, the Black Sea Environmental Programme (BSEP) was founded in 1993. The BSEP was designed to work closely with the Istanbul Commission though some of its work is outside the boundaries of the Bucharest Convention. The BSEP was responsible for assisting countries to prepare the Black Sea Action Plan. In 1996, the Istanbul Commission agreed to implement the Action Plan through its Secretariat, which was to be functioning by January 1997. This process has suffered considerable delay and some governments have not yet released the funds needed to fulfil their commitments. This should not prevent implementation of the Action Plan however – much can already be done, as we hope you will understand from reading this guide.
A foreign newspaper once described the Black Sea as a “deadly soup of toxic waste”. Fortunately, co-operative studies by Black Sea and western scientists have shown this to be a gross exaggeration. The Black Sea is seriously ill but certainly isn’t dead. Understanding the problems and their causes helps us to try to solve them, prevent them from happening again and prevent new problems from emerging. We do not need to wait for the “patient” to die however, before taking action. Many of the measures in the Black Sea Action Plan are founded on the precautionary principle which states that “preventative measures are to be taken when there are reasonable grounds for concern that an activity may increase the risk of presenting hazards to human health, harm living resources and marine ecosystems, damage amenities or interfere with other legitimate uses of the sea”.
Prevention is particularly important, partly because it is much cheaper to stop pollution from happening than to try to clean up the mess later. This concept of anticipatory action is an underlying principle of the Action Plan. Another tool, termed the polluter pays principle, is also a fundamental concept behind the Plan. Simply expressed, it says that whoever is responsible for pollution should pay the costs of cleaning it up or preventing it. This hasn’t happened in the past and still isn’t being applied very well today. You will see later however, that in many cases the polluters aren’t company directors wearing black suits and carrying brief cases full of dollars; in fact all of us are “the polluters” and we have to share our part of the task of preventing pollution.
The Action Plan calls for a “State of the Black Sea” assessment to be made every five years in order to keep close watch on pollution levels and their trends. Enough information has been gathered as a result of the studies by Black Sea and foreign scientists to make the first assessment. This will be published as a book by mid 1999. This assessment examines the sources of pollution, the levels of potential pollutants in the Sea, their effects on marine organisms and the measures that are being taken to control them. Its conclusions are as follows:
The most significant process degrading the Black Sea has been the massive over-fertilisation of the sea by compounds of nitrogen and phosphorus, largely as a result of agricultural, domestic and industrial sources. This over-fertilisation, produces a phenomenon called eutrophication (see Box 2 for details), which has changed the structure of the Black Sea ecosystem. The nitrogen and phosphorus compounds (termed as nutrients) enter the Black Sea from sources from the 17 countries in its drainage basin, particularly through rivers. It is estimated that the six Black Sea countries contribute about 70% of the total amount of these substances flowing to the Black Sea as waste from human activities. Some of this amount and almost all of the remaining 30% (from the other eleven non-coastal countries) enter the Sea via the Danube River.
Another problem of major general concern is the discharge of insufficiently treated sewage, which results in the presence of microbiological contaminants. Such discharges constitute a threat to public health and in some cases pose a barrier to the development of sustainable tourism and aquaculture. In the Black Sea coastal region, waste from approximately 10,385,000 people goes into sewerage systems. They discharge an estimated 571,175,000 m3/year into the Black Sea or into downstream stretches of rivers and from there to the sea. Some Black Sea countries are trying to improve waste treatment but many of the existing treatment plants are not working properly.
Oil pollution continues to threaten Black Sea coastal ecosystems. Currently levels of oil pollution are not high in the open Black Sea but are unacceptable in many coastal areas and river mouths. Oil enters the environment as a result of accidental and operational discharges from vessels, as well as through land based sources (see Box 3 for additional information). According to Black Sea scientists, every year about 30,000 tons of oil enters the sea from domestic sewage plants, 15,500 tons from industry (including the oil industry), and 53,000 tons flows down the Danube River. The total annual discharge, some 98,500 tons, represents a wastage of nearly 15 million dollars at current world prices to which should be added the environmental damage which has not yet been quantified! Of course, recovery of the wasted oil is not feasible; the discharge of this quantity to the environment should be prevented. Oil spills from accidents at sea (averaging 110 tons/year) are relatively small compared with the sources identified above. The threat of a major oil spill is always present and increasing however, as a result of increased tanker traffic requiring the construction of new oil terminals. It would have disastrous impacts on sensitive marine and coastal areas.
Other toxic substances such as pesticides and heavy metals do not appear to pollute the entire Black Sea but appear as “hot spots” near well-identified sources. Heavy metals, such as cadmium, copper, chromium and lead, are usually associated with waste from heavy industry and the ash remaining from burning coal for generating electricity. Pesticides are mostly introduced through rivers and streams discharging from agriculture. However, as a result of economic decline the use of these substances has decreased considerably and no longer presents a major hazard in the sea, except where there use was very intensive in the past.
Radioactive substances have been introduced to the Black Sea in small quantities from nuclear power generation and in more significant amounts as a result of the Chernobyl accident in 1986. Current levels are twice as high as in the neighbouring Mediterranean, but are not regarded by international experts as being dangerous to the human population. Reservoirs in the Dnieper River however, still contain huge amounts of radioactive material locked up in their sediments. It will be important to keep a close watch on this situation in the future.
An unusual form of pollution from ships has seriously damaged the Black Sea ecosystem. This is the introduction of exotic species, species which are accidentally brought from another part of the planet and which adapt and flourish in the Black Sea, usually because they have no natural predators to control their numbers. The problem is mostly caused by ships emptying their ballast water near Black Sea coasts. Ballast water is the water a ship may take on board to give it extra stability after unloading its cargo, often in some distant part of the world. In 1986, a jellyfish-like organism, Mnemiopsis Leidyi was accidentally introduced, probably from the East Coast of America. The organism may grow up to 15 cm and consumes almost any of the tiny marine animals known as zooplankton which are an essential link in the marine food chain and include fish larvae. It has no predators in the Black Sea and quickly dominated the entire ecosystem. By 1990 there was about one billion tons (1,000,000,000) of Mnemiopsis in the Black Sea, more than the world’s total fish catch! It dramatically changed the structure of the ecosystem and contributed to the collapse of the Black Sea fisheries (see Box 5). Recently there has been some recovery of the ecosystem but the invader (and many other less conspicuous invaders) is still present in large numbers.
The final class of problematic pollutants is solid waste, dumped into the sea from ships and some coastal towns. As an enclosed sea, the Black Sea is particularly vulnerable to this form of pollution. Any floating or half-submerged waste inevitably finds its way to the shore somewhere and Black Sea beaches tend to have a high accumulation of garbage. This is unsightly and presents a risk to marine animals and humans.
The Black Sea Action Plan pays considerable attention to practical actions to implement the Bucharest Convention and stop all kinds of pollution. It recognises that resolving eutrophication requires action to reduce the nutrient loads entering rivers across the entire Black Sea basin. It calls upon all of the states in the basin to agree on common water quality objectives for the Black Sea and a strategy of stepwise reductions in loads until the objectives are reached. Later in this section, we will examine what this statement exactly means. The important consequence however, is that technical specialists from the 16 countries of the Danube basin and Black Sea coast, have been meeting together and sharing data since late 1997 and have now arrived at a common strategy for nutrient control. They will present their proposals to the Commissions responsible for implementing the legal conventions that already exist for protecting the Danube and Black Sea. International funding organisations have already expressed interest in offering support for such a strategy. This does not mean that the problem is solved but some of the foundations of a solution are now in place.
But what exactly is meant by stepwise reductions? The basic approach is rather simple. Firstly, it has to be recognised that the integrity of marine and coastal ecosystems and/or human health is threatened by pollution. The complete removal of the threat would be desirable but this sometimes cannot be achieved in the short term because the economic and social costs of the necessary measures are too great. So an interim strategy is necessary for pollution control. The coastal states (or those of the entire basin in the case of nutrients) first agree on a short-term target for reduction - an interim water quality objective. In this first step, the reduction in pollution load is agreed on the basis of what can reasonably be achieved within a given time frame. The agreement is made in such a manner as to allow each Party to find the most economically convenient approach for reaching the agreed target and clearly state the reductions it will make and the time frame for making them. The first reduction may be modest but the Parties also agree on a programme of research and monitoring to make a better estimate of the further reductions necessary to solve the problem completely. At the end of the first period, new targets may then be set with lower scientific uncertainty regarding the outcome. The steps continue until all Parties agree that the environment is adequately protected. At the same time, public understanding of the issues will also gradually improve as will their willingness to contribute to the solution.
Of course, some problems are so obvious that immediate action should be taken to solve them. A list of about sixty sources of pollution which resulted in “hot spots” (places where pollution levels are unacceptably high) was prepared and agreed by the six Black Sea countries as being the immediate priorities for action. Countries agreed to substantially reduce these inputs by the year 2006, seeking loans from financing institutes where necessary. In order to inform each other and the public of progress in removing these high priority sources of pollution, each country agreed to publish progress reports in 2000 and 2005 which will refer to each site. The Istanbul Commission will gather the information into comprehensive Black Sea reports which will then be reviewed by Ministerial meetings scheduled for 2000 and 2001.
The issue of insufficiently treated sewage was given special attention in the plan. Comprehensive national studies on this subject should be prepared by January 2000. The studies will examine both the costs (of improving treatment) and the benefits for public health, the natural environment and recreation of making the necessary investments. Again, the intention is that “the studies shall serve as a basis for taking decisions and implementing significant reductions the inputs of insufficiently treated sewage by 2006”. This may seem a long way ahead but, in practice, it takes quite a long time to obtain the necessary financing and complete the construction of treatment facilities.
A study of point sources of pollution to the Black Sea was completed by BSEP in 1996. It revealed a large number of small sources of pollution from a wide range of small industries, including such things as chemical plants, clothes and textile manufacture, metallurgical works and food processing. Many of the discharges from these plants are currently poorly regulated and existing regulations vary from country to country. It was agreed to try to harmonise the approach used by all Black Sea countries. After all, why should one country make its industries pay for their pollution whereas another could use the sea as a free waste disposal service? The strategy agreed follows the stepwise approach introduced earlier. Here is a timetable of the main steps, the texts are taken from the Action Plan:
|
Step |
What will be done |
Target for achievement |
|
1 |
Water quality objectives will be harmonised on the basis of the intended use of the water (e.g. drinking water, bathing, aquaculture, ports) |
mid-1998, to be reviewed every five years |
|
2 |
Procedures used for monitoring the discharge from point sources shall also be harmonised |
mid-1998 |
|
3 |
Each state shall adopt and implement, according to its own legal system, the laws and mechanisms necessary for regulating discharges from point sources. The basis for regulating discharges will be a licensing system, through which the harmonised water quality objectives can be applied, and through which effluent charges, based on the polluter pays principle, can be levied. |
by 1999 |
|
4 |
Each Black Sea state will also endeavour to adopt and implement efficient enforcement mechanisms in accordance with its own legal system. |
By 1999 |
|
5 |
Each Black Sea state shall ensure that the national agencies responsible for licensing, monitoring and enforcement are adequately staffed and that the necessary resources are available to them. Where necessary, training courses at local agencies will be organised. |
continuous |
|
6 |
Data regarding actual and assessed contaminant discharge measurements for point sources, rivers, and, where possible, diffuse sources, shall be compiled and freely exchanged every five years |
Next report in 2001 |
Harmonising the objectives and procedures doesn’t imply that all six Black Sea countries will adopt the same laws. This would be unrealistic as the laws of each country respond to many cultural, social and historical factors. Changing the laws is unnecessary, provided that the objectives are the same. The most important point is that the objectives can be reviewed and adjusted every five years according to the changing situation in the Black Sea itself. Existing polluters will be given licences to discharge strictly limited amounts of effluent. They will have to pay for the licences and for the effluent they release. The licences will be for a limited time period and the conditions will gradually be tightened, encouraging them to invest in new waste reduction or treatment processes. Exceeding the licence conditions would result in severe penalties. If they wish their businesses to remain profitable, far-sighted company directors will invest in environmentally friendly production procedures as these avoid producing large amounts of waste in the first place. Those who are not so innovative will pay for their waste twice: once during the production process (given that wasted raw materials cost a company quite a lot of money) and again to the regulatory authorities when it is discharged!
Another important feature of the proposals of the Action Plan is that “Each Black Sea State will consider the introduction of policies in which polluters are made to pay for compliance”. This means that the polluters will pay much of the cost of monitoring the sea for pollution.
The reader will notice that many of the dates in the timetable above have already passed. This does not mean that work has not begun. Harmonised water quality objectives have been prepared and training has been given to regulators, thanks to financial support from the Tacis programme of the European Union. The remaining work is behind schedule however and will require considerable effort by all governments if it is to be completed reasonably quickly.
The Action Plan doesn’t only consider the pollution that enters the sea from discharge pipes or rivers. It also has detailed provisions for preventing pollution from ships and for dealing with pollution from maritime accidents (see Box 3 for details). It also takes strong measures to control illegal dumping of waste into the sea. These include
· “a total ban on the disposal of municipal garbage in marine, shoreline and estuarine areas” by December 1996 with full enforcement by December 1999;
The final provisions on pollution of the Action Plan concerns future monitoring of the state of the Black Sea. Apart from the State of the Black Sea reports already mentioned, a Black Sea monitoring system will be established to generate data of reliable quality to check whether or not the provisions of the Action Plan and the Bucharest Convention are being implemented. The development of this system has been a legal requirement since 1994 under the Bucharest Convention but sadly, apart from Romania, no Black Sea country has a regular monitoring programme that fully conforms to the standards of the Convention. Existing programmes have collapsed owing to the lack of government finances. A few scientific institutions are struggling to make some of the required measurements, but there are important gaps in the information. International agencies such as the Global Environment Facility, UNDP, the World Bank and the Tacis and Phare programmes of the European Union, have equipped key institutions in Black Sea countries and provided necessary training in the use of the equipment. The fact remains however, that regular monitoring has not yet begun. Without reliable data it will be difficult to make the polluters comply with the new regulations.
It takes a long time to clean up a sea, especially when there are problems such as eutrophication, which is related to the way in which we, and our neighbours, produce or food and dispose of our waste. Don’t expect to go down to the sea and suddenly discover crystalline blue waters; the changes will come gradually over a period of years or even decades. There are some things however, which should change much more quickly:
Firstly, you should be better informed about the state of pollution in the sea. This should be of particular interest if you enjoy swimming in its waters, or are generally concerned about the fate of Black Sea wildlife. The Action Plan recognises that it is your right to be informed about the quality of the Black Sea’s waters. You should not have to search far for information – it should be readily available.
Secondly, you should see a visible change in the quality of water, particularly in popular bathing places, within the next five years. You should see much less garbage in the sea and the water should be free from unpleasant smells associated with poorly treated waste. This is because the Action Plan sets a tight agenda for investments in sewage treatment and also has strict requirements for reducing the discharge of solid waste into the sea. Some of the investments have already begun. In Romania, for example, new sewage treatment plants in Constanta and Mangalia are already under construction. A few places may already have adequate treatment plants but your local authorities should inform you about this. Much beach litter also comes from local people and visitors – you should also see anti-litter campaigns and hopefully participate in them yourself.
Thirdly, you should see a rapid reduction in the number of enterprises discharging untreated waste to the Black Sea. You may wish to question your local authorities about the agenda for removing any of discharges near the place where you live or spend your vacation. Perhaps you will read stories about heavy fines imposed on companies that do not comply with new regulations.
Finally, you should not see any oil on the beaches if the oil and shipping companies are taking their responsibilities seriously. You should not see any seabirds with oily stains on their bodies – they also have a right to enjoy a clean home.
It did not take modern science to discover that the Black Sea was very productive but had a somewhat lower diversity than the adjacent Mediterranean. A scene from Anton Chekhov’s play, “The Duel” written a century ago relates:
‘ … But tell me…. What is he after?’
‘He’s studying marine life.’
‘No, no, that’s not it, old man,’ sighed Layevsky.
‘From what I gathered from a passenger on the steamer, a scientist, the Black Sea’s poor in fauna, and organic life can’t exist in its depths owing to the excess of hydrogen sulphide. All serious students of the subject work in the biological stations of Naples or Villefranche. But Von Koren’s independent and stubborn. He works on the Black Sea because no one else does.’
Fortunately for us, many “independent” scientists, other than the fictional Von Koren, also studied the Black Sea, founding institutions such as the 101 year-old marine biological station in Sevastopol or only slightly younger centres in Constanta, Varna, Odessa, Kerch, and Istanbul. They discovered unique and productive ecosystems such as the Zernov Phyllophora field described in Box 2, or species such as the harbour porpoise, which does not exist in the neighbouring Mediterranean but is common in the Atlantic.
These venerable institutions also witnessed rapid changes in the ecosystem, suggesting its fragility. Already, by 1834, for example, the Monk Seal had started to decline and was observed for the last time near Nikita Cape to the east of Yalta, Crimea. These animals are easily disturbed by coastal development and, even in the biggest colony located in Bulgaria, their numbers dwindled to only 136 by 1936 and less than ten in the 1960s. Sightings are now anecdotal and they may already have become extinct in the Black Sea.
The Black Sea Strategic Action Plan takes a very broad approach to marine and coastal conservation. It responds to particular public concerns for the declining state of fisheries but also develops a more general approach to the protection of biological and landscape diversity. We will explain this approach in the next two sections and in the associated boxes.
Protecting the Black Sea’s fisheries
The Black Sea’s fisheries have been seriously damaged as a result of eutrophication, overfishing and the introduction of “alien” species such as Mnemiopsis (see Box 5 for details). It is obvious that the solution of the problem and the improved management of fisheries will require action on each of these issues. Unfortunately, in many regions of the world, fisheries management is limited to regulating the fisheries industry alone, rather than examining the broader ecological needs for restoring the “stock” of fish. This limitation is partly due to government structures, rather than a failure to understand the issues. Simply expressed, in many countries, one Ministry regulates the fisheries industry whilst another is responsible for protecting the environment and the two sometimes have difficulty working together.
The Action Plan tries to resolve this problem in an innovative and “holistic” (seeing the problem as a whole) manner. Its agreed actions at the ecosystem level are very clearly expressed:
Fish are an integral part of the marine ecosystem, fish stocks thrive in a non-polluted and protected ecosystem and the marine ecosystem profits from properly managed fishing activities. The measures to reduce pollution and to protect biological diversity, habitat and landscape, as agreed upon in this Strategic Action Plan, are therefore pre-conditions for the restoration of commercial fisheries in the Black Sea. In addition, spawning and nursery grounds require special protection. In order to rehabilitate ecosystems, which are of particular importance to Black Sea fisheries as a whole, Phyllophora fields and other critical nursery areas will receive special protection, spawning areas of anadromous species will be restored, and coastal lagoons will be rehabilitated. By 2000, each Black Sea State will develop at least one pilot project which will contribute to the restoration of areas vital to the recovery of Black Sea fish stocks.
Incidentally, anadromous fish are those species which spawn (lay their eggs) in the freshwater environment but spend much of the remainder of their lives in the sea. The survival of species such as sturgeon depends on them being able to freely swim up rivers to clean spawning grounds. Other species require access to clean coastal lagoons for reproduction. These examples illustrate that, if fisheries are to be restored, the boundaries for environmental protection may have to extend well beyond the Black Sea itself.
What is planned concerning the regulation of the fishing industry itself? The Action Plan states that “In order to rehabilitate the Black Sea ecosystem and achieve sustainable fisheries in the Black Sea, fisheries management policies need to be enhanced and fishing effort needs to be adjusted to the status of the stocks”. This means that better common policies are needed to avoid over-fishing. The Black Sea had an earlier Fisheries Convention, the Varna Convention, signed in 1961. It did not prove very effective for two major reasons. The first was that not all of the countries were involved (Turkey being outside the “COMECON”, Eastern Europe economic block, was excluded) and the second reason was that the agreement promoted data sharing but did not employ the data for agreeing on measures to regulate the catch. Stock assessments are technically rather difficult and require good data. All countries must contribute to this effort. Predictions of future fish stock sizes are even more complex, requiring great precaution. The recommendations of fisheries scientists are ineffective if the industry is not within a common regulatory framework.
As clearly stated in the Plan: “In this regard, the Black Sea coastal states are expected to expedite the adoption of the Fisheries Convention as soon as possible so as to develop a fisheries management system which consists of the following components: regular regionally coordinated stock assessments; national fishing authorisations for all Black Sea fishing vessels; a regional licensing system; and a quota system.” The new Black Sea Fisheries Convention is currently under negotiation and will provide elements of a regulatory framework. The idea is to find fair ways and means to share the exploitable fish stocks and allow for recovery of the fisheries. First it will be necessary to judge just how many fish can be taken from each population. Then, all vessels intending to fish will have to be licensed and will have to comply with certain standards regarding the type of gear they may employ. This will ensure that very small immature fish are not captured and that, by prohibiting highly destructive types of fishing gear, sensitive ecosystems are afforded better protection. For some overexploited stocks, it will be necessary to assign quotas - maximum amounts of fish that can be caught by a fleet or an individual vessel. Ways of enforcing the quotas need to be devised in order to prevent illegal fishing. This will need to be achieved in co-operation with fishing communities, raising their awareness that the regulations will help to protect their own future income as well as the Black Sea ecosystem.
Though all of the countries around the Black Sea have laws which protect certain terrestrial species or their habitats (the place where they live), there is no general legal framework for protecting the plants and animals in the Black Sea itself. The Black Sea may be considered as a single system, the integrity of which is important for some animals (such as dolphins or migratory fish) and as a number of smaller sub-systems, such as the Phyllophora ecosystem described earlier. Though these smaller ecosystems might appear to be self-contained, they cannot simply be protected by putting some kind of boundary fence around them, as they depend upon interactions with the wider environment. Furthermore, they often provide habitats for species that live in the wider Black Sea but depend upon the smaller systems for part of their life cycle. Phyllophora cannot be restored, for example, without controlling the wider problem of eutrophication. Local actions to help with its restoration must also include limitation of exploitation of existing Phyllophora beds, prohibition of dumping of waste and sediments, and strict control of trawl fishing (in which a net is dragged along the sea floor). Thus measures are needed at two levels: (1) Local regulations within a defined “conservation area”, and (2) Wider regulations to limit threats from the outside. Quite often the local regulations are within national boundaries whereas the wider regulations require international co-operation. This is why the Black Sea Action Plan is so important. It provides a mechanism for enabling conservation measures irrespective of national boundaries.
Until now, we have focused on the example of Phyllophora. This however, is not the only sub-system or species which requires urgent protection. How can Black Sea countries agree on what are the species or habitats to protect? The Black Sea Action Plan announces that “a regional Black Sea Red Data Book, identifying and describing endangered species, will be prepared and published by December 1998”. This objective has now been achieved and the Red Data Book is already at the publishers and will be widely available by June 1999 (ask your local library to request a copy from the address shown on the back cover of this report). It’s preparation required the co-operation of experts from all Black Sea countries and it should help each Black Sea country to agree upon new conservation strategies.
Having a list of endangered species is only the first step of course. The legal framework for protection is still missing. The Bucharest Convention, mentioned earlier, focuses entirely on pollution but is the only international law specifically designed to protect the Black Sea. In the Action Plan, the governments agreed to extend this law with a protocol on Biological Diversity and Landscape Protection, to be adopted by 2000. The protocol will fill the most important gap in Black Sea environmental legislation. However, there are already serious delays in the implementation of the Bucharest Convention. Without investments in measures to protect biological diversity and to enforce the new law, the protocol would prove ineffective.
So what can be done to take the necessary swift action to protect the biological diversity of the Black Sea? The Action Plan focuses on two practical issues: the restoration of populations of marine mammals and the protection of habitats and landscapes.
1. Protecting marine mammals
There are only four species of marine mammals in the Black Sea: the common dolphin, the bottlenose dolphin, the harbour porpoise and the monk seal. We have already described the sad fate of the monk seal - it is already almost certainly too late to save it. This is not the case with the other mammals however, although there is evidence to suggest that populations have declined very sharply in recent decades. Until 1966, dolphins were hunted in the Black Sea but numbers declined from over one million to under 300,000 and fortunately this practice was banned (the ban is reiterated in the Action Plan). The deterioration in the state of the Black Sea ecosystem must have also impacted their numbers but unfortunately we do not have a good estimate of present dolphin and porpoise populations. The Action Plan calls for regular population assessments to be conducted, starting in 1998. As yet, these assessments have not been funded. The Plan also calls for specific conservation measures including national centres and sanctuaries for rehabilitating marine mammals and the use of fishing gear which avoids the accidental capture of mammals, a particularly serious problem for the harbour porpoise.
2. Protecting habitats and landscapes
The dual concepts of protecting important natural habitats and the Black Sea landscape are a major feature of the Black Sea Action Plan (see Box 6). The best chance for conserving the biological diversity of the Black Sea will be by implementing a regional strategy for conservation areas. Black Sea specialists have already identified the habitats in most urgent need of conservation. Their recommendations are summarised in a series of books on Black Sea Biological Diversity published by the United Nations (see the reading list at the end of this book). Many of these recommendations are already being implemented with the support of governments, local communities and international donors. Much work is still to be done and developers seeking land to construct ports, oil terminals and hotel complexes are already threatening some of the sites identified. The Action Plan calls for some of these conservation areas to be managed as a partnership between government agencies and NGOs (non-governmental organisations). Local people should not be excluded from conservation areas but encouraged to participate in this work. Anybody can join an NGO and assist.
Protecting the flora and fauna of the Black Sea is a race against time. The Action Plan calls for the conservation message to be taken to schools and local communities in the region. Unless everybody living around the coast understands the importance of the natural environment, many habitats and species will soon be lost and cannot be replaced.
The Black Sea environment does not come to a sudden stop where the waves break on the shore. The Sea has a profound influence on the ecology of the land near the coast and its use by humans. Human use has a profound influence on the ecology of the nearshore sea. The municipalities along the Black Sea coast, together constituting the coastal zone, therefore have a very special role in protecting the sea. The future of many populations of plants and animals, as well as the welfare of human communities, depends on wise decision-making.
Sadly, there is much evidence of unwise planning along the Black Sea’s coasts. One economic use has often denied opportunities for development of another. For example, hundreds of kilometres of highways and railway lines have been constructed along the edge of the sea, limiting the development of coastal tourism or wildlife reserves. These highways themselves are in constant need of protection from winter storms and erosion. Ugly wave-breakers have been built in the sea for this purpose but this has further reduced the economic value of the coastal zone and damaged habitats and the landscape.
The specialists and officials who prepared the Black Sea Action Plan consider that, with proper care, human activities can be developed on the Black Sea coast without denying its use to other non-human inhabitants, or ruining the opportunities of future human generations to make wise use of the coastal zone. The following paragraphs will explain the tools they intend to use to achieve this aim.
One of the reasons that our coastal zones are often developed in such a chaotic way is that people have failed to recognise that the available space is rather limited and that they need to develop land and sea use plans which take into account all of the legitimate users. In our very structured society, different sectors of public and private administration often go about their business without talking to each other and certainly without discussing their long-term plans. Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is a rather sophisticated expression for what is a rather simple concept. It is a process for making planning and management decisions that takes into account all of the interests affected by each decision, including the interests of future generations of humans, and of the need to protect the natural environment.
In practice, implementing ICZM is not easy. It is rarely possible to satisfy everybody’s demand for use of coastal space. Building a port or industrial complex is clearly incompatible with developing tourist resorts. An airport is usually incompatible with a nature reserve. Planners have to make some compromises and create zones where particular kinds of activities are to be developed. Even in these cases, strict environmental standards must be ensured. Sometimes however, there are powerful interest groups involved that refuse to understand that the cheapest option may not be the most desirable for the sustainable development of a particular region. This is why ICZM has to be embodied in legislation and the legislation has to be enforced.
What are the tools available for implementing ICZM? One of the most powerful tools is the “environmental impact assessment”, a method of examining all of the potential impacts of a new development or policy (see Box 7). Another, described by the Action Plan is the establishment of “inter-sectoral committees for ICZM at the national, regional and local levels of public administration”. A typical local committee in an urban region may include the following representatives of sectors:
There are many other possibilities applicable to each region and circumstance. The Action Plan called upon the Committees to be integrated by the end of 1997. This has happened in some places. You may wish to enquire whether such a Committee exists in your own region and whether or not it has contributed to the design and implementation of “national plans for integrated coastal zone management” as agreed upon in the Black Sea Action Plan.
The way in which the national plans will be implemented depends on the legal system of each country. The Action Plan states that “Each Black Sea coastal state shall endeavour to adopt and implement, in accordance with its own legal system, by 1999, the legal and other instruments required to facilitate integrated coastal zone management”. Some countries have already started to take the necessary actions. New laws have been developed in Bulgaria, for example, and coastal zone management is already embodied in a Presidential Decree in Russia. The Action Plan also foresees the development of a Regional Black Sea Strategy for ICZM by December 1998. Most of the preparatory work for this strategy is already complete.
One rather serious problem affecting the coastal zone of all Black Sea countries is erosion and land degradation. Beaches are supplied with sand and pebbles from rivers but the construction of dams on many rivers has reduced this supply. On the other hand, deforestation has caused land erosion and increased the loss of soils to the sea in some places. Erosion results in very large economic losses and may result in conflicts between countries where changes in river flow affect the interests of the neighbour. The Action Plan calls for this problem to be studied and for countries to work together to solve it. The coastal zone does not stop at national boundaries and management plans should take into consideration the cross-border issues.
Many people, particularly politicians, are wary of new environmental policies because they are concerned that they would restrict economic activity with a consequent risk of price rises and unemployment. Certainly, some environmental laws are designed to make polluters pay for environmental protection or to take similar measures involving fees, fines or levies. These charges however, should not lead to economic decline if they are properly integrated into the economy. They should lead to the use and emergence of new environmentally friendly technologies and more sustainable employment opportunities.
The Black Sea Strategic Action Plan takes a positive approach towards promoting a “green agenda” for economic growth. It suggests that: “Aquaculture and tourism are two areas considered to have scope for economic growth in the Black Sea and to benefit the region in general. In order to avoid environmental damage resulting from these activities, and particularly damage with transboundary implications, their development shall be managed along common environmental norms to be established by 1999”.
Aquaculture consists of providing an appropriate environment for rearing fish or shellfish for human consumption. This can often be achieved by enhancing current natural conditions by providing clean water, shelter and a predator-free environment. This type of aquaculture may be very environmentally friendly and, in the case of artificially cultured mussel beds, may help to reduce the impacts of eutrophication. On the other hand, intensive aquaculture often involves overcrowded fish in cages, fed artificially and with the use of pesticide chemicals and antibiotics to reduce the diseases caused by overcrowding. This form of aquaculture is not environmentally or ethically acceptable.
Studies by the Black Sea Environmental Programme (see the reading list at the end of this guide) revealed opportunities for low-cost environmentally friendly aquaculture in every Black Sea country. The European Commission’s Phare and Tacis programmes are currently funding projects in Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine to demonstrate how these recommendations can be put into practice and earn much-needed revenue for the coastal population. The Action Plan calls upon new legislation to be developed to regulate the activity and avoid the adverse effects mentioned earlier. It “should ensure that aquaculture itself does not present a threat to the environment and should address issues, such as, the location and density of cages, releases of commercial strains, imports and releases of exotic species, quarantining and matters of hygiene. Moreover, aquaculture projects shall be subjected to environmental impact assessments in which the potential effect of the activity upon biological diversity are given careful consideration”.
The other economic area offering major new opportunities for growth is tourism. This is a traditional Black Sea industry which began to fall into steep decline when eastern European citizens were allowed to travel more freely outside their borders following perestroika in the mid 1980s (though others were no longer able to afford seaside vacations). Part of the decline was due to the poor state of the Black Sea’s beaches and bathing water (see Box 4). It was calculated that the annual loss in tourism revenue from poor bathing water quality alone was over US$500 Millions annually. However, a large part was also due to the lack of investment in hotels, means of transport and entertainment in many places around the Black Sea. Some hotels became shabby with poor food, hostile staff and inflated prices. Coupled with the unacceptable environmental conditions, the reputation of many Black Sea resorts began to sink.
It is clear that in order for it to recover, the tourism industry in the Black Sea needs considerable new investment but this too must be accompanied by new attitudes. Complicated and unfriendly immigration and customs laws for example, can easily discourage foreign tourists. Furthermore, the industry needs to protect the landscape it depends upon. Some new investors have already understood this issue clearly and are happy to participate in environmental protection programmes and modern training schemes for staff. The BSEP tourism project, in co-operation with the European Union, was one of several initiatives that have led to new programmes of tourism training and investment. There is also a new area of tourism developing – that of eco-tourism. This emerging and lucrative activity includes such things as hiking tours in the Black Sea forests and mountains, bird watching in national parks or adventure holidays. A good example is a joint Ukrainian-Swiss venture that converted the magnificent sail training vessel Druzhba for high class tourism whilst still retaining its original training purpose.
The Black Sea Action Plan succinctly summarises the issues behind tourism development: “Eco-tourism should be stimulated in the region, amongst other things, through the implementation of concrete pilot projects in Black Sea coastal states. In close co-operation with the tourist industry and the national tourism authorities, environmental codes of conduct and training courses in sustainable tourism will be developed. The tourism industry, both for the benefit of the industry and for the benefit of the environment, needs to be more adequately planned with a view to incorporating concerns such as those related to water supply, sewage treatment bathing water quality, the use of natural resources and resort development into newly developed projects from the beginning. Moreover, it shall be required that tourist development projects be subjected to environmental impact assessments.’
Involving the public in environmental decision making
Many residents of the Black Sea region are becoming increasingly aware of the deterioration in the quality of their environment. There is still much misunderstanding of the problems and their causes but campaigns in newspapers, the television and in schools can gradually spread the information gathered by scientists to the general public. This is only the start however. What can the public do with the information? The important message is that something can be done to solve the problems and that whether or not actions are taken depends on public understanding, support and direct involvement in the solutions themselves.
Most people seem to think that solving environmental problems and protecting nature is somebody else’s responsibility. There is often a sense of hopelessness, “if we complain, nobody will listen to us and our time will be wasted”. For many families, it is already difficult to cope with the burdens of earning enough money to live reasonably and to solve the many issues, often bureaucratic, of day-to-day life. As we have tried to demonstrate in this report however, there are some things, which we can all do in our daily lives, that really make a difference to the environment and to general prosperity.
Certainly, solving some environmental problems is the job of government employees. They too sometimes have to cope with low salaries and many outside pressures. Though we should expect them to carry out their work in an efficient manner, we should also understand their limitations. For this reason, it is even more important to develop policies and regulations that are uncomplicated, not shrouded in a mist of bureaucracy, and with clearly defined responsibilities.
The Black Sea Action Plan is sensitive to these realities. It states that “Participation of all sectors of society is an essential requirement for the development of sustainable policies in the region. It requires the development of education projects, transparent and participatory decision making procedures and open rules on access to administrative and judicial procedures”. Certainly information on the environment should not be regarded as a secret. “Open rules of access” implies that members of the public will be able to take any complaints regarding violations to environmental law to the court and receive full support to pursue their case, even if the case is against governmental bodies or state industries. This is already happening in some places as people exercise their democratic rights. A group of people in Zonguldak in Turkey for example, recently took the local state-owned thermoelectric power station to court for discharging untreated ash to the sea. They won their case and the operators had to install appropriate equipment to control pollution. Many government officials are proud that people are willing and able to exercise their democratic rights in this manner.
In the past few years, many concerned Black Sea citizens have formed small independent groups in order to share their concerns regarding environmental issues and to take actions to improve the situation. These bodies, normally independent of political parties, are known as Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). Some of them are long established and include highly skilled environmentalists, often affiliated with larger international groups. Others are just beginning to show their creativity and strength. The Black Sea Action Plan recognises that “NGOs will continue to be closely involved in the development and implementation of both national and regional policies aimed at rehabilitating and protecting the Black Sea ecosystem and the sustainable use of its natural resources”. Perhaps you will be interested in the activities of one of your local NGOs - details of a useful NGO Directory are given in the reading list at the end of this report.
Though often strongly challenged by NGOs, the most forward-looking government officials have welcomed them as observers to many of their meetings. The NGOs have formed their own international forum in the Black Sea. During the Ministerial Conference which adopted the Black Sea Action Plan in 1996, representatives of the NGO Forum spoke of their strong support for the Plan and promised to be vigilant to make sure that all parties kept their promises. For their part, the Ministers agreed that “Each Black Sea State, in accordance with its own national legal system, will endeavour to adopt and implement, by 2000, rules which guarantee the right of access to environmental information, which provide for the right of the public and NGOs to participate in decision making, and which provide for the right of individuals and groups to appeal to administrative and judicial organs.”
The responsibility for environmental protection extends well beyond central governments and NGOs. When drawing up new plans and policies, it is essential to identify who are the persons who can make the necessary changes and who are the people affected. In the jargon of policy makers, these people are called stakeholders. Without identifying exactly how to involve them, new policies are usually ineffective. Until recently, many groups of stakeholders were left out of the decision making process. Associations of environmentally aware business people for example, can exert an important positive influence on their colleagues and combat malpractice by those outside their ranks. The Action Plan makes special mention of the role of municipalities, sometimes acting together through clubs of cities or unions of governors and enabling direct co-operation between towns or cities in different countries without having to struggle with the complicated protocols of central governments.
You will see from reading the boxes within this report that many of the actions needed to protect the Black Sea concern the lifestyles of the people who live in its basin. One of the most effective ways of changing human behaviour is through education, whether it is in the school or at home. It is particularly important that children understand such matters as where their food and drinking water comes from, how it is produced and transported and how their waste is disposed of. They also need to feel the need to protect the environment, not only from studying textbooks, but also by direct contact with nature through visits to protected areas and endangered or damaged ecosystems. The Action Plan recognises this need and recommends, amongst other things, the development of packages of educational materials about the Black Sea. Since concluding the Plan, a network of environmental educators has formed in the region. With very little outside funding, schools are now incorporating studies of the Black Sea in their teaching programmes. Some schools are adopting beaches and playing an active role in cleaning and conserving them.
The Action Plan also recommends that “each Black Sea State will publish a popularised version of this Strategic Action Plan, in its own language”. This is the document you are reading right now! Above all however, to be effective, the Action Plan needs to involve you the reader because, as we have demonstrated, you are also a stakeholder in saving the Black Sea.
Until now, we have said very little about the mechanisms for implementing the Black Sea Action Plan. This is because we considered that it is more important to first understand what the problems are and how they can be solved. However, saving an entire sea requires the combined actions of all countries in the region working together towards common objectives. Somebody has to co-ordinate all of this effort otherwise the outcome may be like an orchestra without a conductor. Also, very importantly, the money has to be found to implement the Plan. Box 8 discusses this critical point and is worth reading carefully. The present section will examine the way in which the international co-operation will be accomplished. Firstly, lets take a look at the bigger international picture.
In 1972, a conference was held in Stockholm in Sweden that brought together leading government officials from most countries in the world in order to discuss environmental issues. This Stockholm Conference led to an understanding that without new measures to protect the global environment, environmental degradation could be irreversible. It led to the creation of Ministries of the Environment in many countries of the world and to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). This in turn led to many new international legal conventions for environmental protection. In the case of the world’s seas and oceans, it was soon realised that they were often suffering pollution and a loss of species and habitats. Countries acting separately could not solve the problems and groups of countries within particular geographical regions met together to formulate Regional Seas Conventions, often assisted by UNEP. The first of these conventions, for the Baltic Sea, was formulated over 25 years ago. The Mediterranean Sea was also protected by a Convention subscribed almost 25 years ago. Unfortunately, this did not happen in the Black Sea as the countries were unwilling to co-operate until the political divisions of the cold war eased and glasnost occurred in the former Soviet Union in the mid-1980s.
The next big change in global environmental policies occurred at the time of another conference, this time in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. This was the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1982, the biggest gathering of Heads of State this century. On that occasion there was a clearer understanding that the development of human economic activities must be accompanied by measures to ensure that the world’s fragile natural ecosystems are not destroyed. It resulted in global conventions for protecting Biological Diversity and for avoiding Climate Change and a new financing mechanism for helping to solve transboundary global problems called the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It also produced a new type of policy document, Agenda 21, the agenda for sustainable development in the 21st century. This includes a detailed chapter on measures to protect seas and oceans.
On this occasion the Black Sea countries were ready and willing to co-operate. They had just signed the Bucharest Convention (which we introduced in an earlier section but explained that it has still not been implemented). However they still lacked the policies which would enable necessary measures to protect the sea. Agenda 21 provided a good model for a first Black Sea Ministerial Declaration, the Odessa Declaration. Indeed, the Black Sea was the first region to take up the challenge of Rio. This inspired the GEF and other donors, particularly the European Union, to provide more than US$17 millions support to the region to help implement the Odessa Declaration and to formulate the longer-term Black Sea Strategic Action Plan which is the subject of this publication. This new project, under the guidance of the United Nations Development Programme, was named the Black Sea Environmental Programme.
The Black Sea Environmental Programme (BSEP) was formally launched in June 1993. Its first task was to help to create a strong international network of institutions, specialists and other stakeholders. The BSEP established its headquarters in Istanbul with the support of the Government of Turkey. The Programme is governed by a Steering Committee that includes senior government officials from all Black Sea countries, the sponsoring organisations (the GEF and other donors), and representatives of the Black Sea NGO forum (as observers). In order to spread the technical responsibilities of the programme throughout the region and to make best use of the excellent specialists in the region, a system of Regional Activity Centres and Working Parties was devised. Each country agreed to sponsor one of its existing institutions as a regional centre for a particular field of expertise. The regional centres in turn organised Working Parties, specialist networks involving institutions from all six Black Sea countries. Using this structure, it was possible to bring together specialists who had sometimes not been able to co-operate previously. All of the institutions were provided with equipment (computers, analytical instruments, etc.) and specialist training and a new and productive dialogue began.
The Black Sea Regional Activity Centres are:
Additionally, the Programme Co-ordinating Unit in Istanbul took on the task of creating a Working Party on Information and Data Exchange.
The network of Activity Centres continues to receive considerable support from international donors, particularly the European Union (Tacis and Phare) and, in the case of Activity Centre 1, from the International Maritime Organisation. The Centres and their working parties gathered the information necessary for reviewing the state of the Black Sea and analysing the options for its recovery. The technical publications listed at the end of the book are just some of their important products. The information was brought together in a document called the Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis, which provided the technical recommendations for the Action Plan.
The BSEP extended its work to a wider audience through the NGO network. To celebrate the signature of the Black Sea Strategic Action Plan, the 31st October has been declared International Black Sea Day. NGOs use this day to organise additional events to make citizens aware of the need to restore and protect the Black Sea. They also use the event to remind everyone of the commitments in the Action Plan, particularly those which have not been respected.
The BSEP was a temporary arrangement in order to help the Istanbul Commission Secretariat (the organisation responsible for the implementation of the Bucharest Convention) to start operations. In the Action Plan, it was announced that the Istanbul Commission agreed to take on the responsibility of implementing the Plan and managing the network of Activity Centres. The working parties have already been renamed as its Advisory Groups. The problem is that the establishment of the Secretariat has been considerably delayed by lengthy discussions on the diplomatic and financial issues. Meanwhile, funding for the transition period has almost expired. This has considerably weakened project implementation. The orchestra is ready to play, the audience is becoming impatient but the conductor is still not on the stage.
Everybody involved in the BSEP is optimistic that the issue of co-ordination can be resolved during a second Ministerial Conference to be held in autumn 1999. In the meantime, countries have been preparing National Black Sea Strategic Action Plans which give details of exactly how they will implement the regional Plan. New international funding will be requested to help them with some aspects of this work but the next step largely depends on the countries themselves and the relative importance given to saving the Black Sea.
The Black Sea Action Plan will next be revised in September 2001, five years after its signature. The Action Plan promises that governments will inform the public about progress on implementation of the original Plan. As you will have seen from this guide, there are a large number of deadlines to be met before that time.
There are many committed people who are convinced that the Black Sea Action Plan can save the Black Sea. Most specialists would agree but are quick to point out that the Plan itself is just a worthless piece of paper if it is not implemented. The current pressure on the financial resources of governments in the Black Sea region is enormous and the economic situation is less favourable than had been expected. How can you ensure that the Action Plan is implemented?
The first step is to think carefully about the things that you can do yourself within your own circle of family and friends. We have made some suggestions in the boxes illustrating the present guide. Most of these suggestions will cost relatively little time and money but really make a difference to the environment.
The next step is to exercise your democratic rights to investigate what your own community, local and regional authority and government is doing to implement the Action Plan. Most towns and cities have environmental officers or pollution inspectorates. They are often very helpful and knowledgeable. If you are not satisfied with this information or with the actions being taken, you can write to your Black Sea Commissioner (the person in your country responsible for implementing the Bucharest Convention and Black Sea Strategic Action Plan). These are normally senior officials of the Ministry of Environment or equivalent body. The Bucharest Convention was ratified by all the parliaments of the Black Sea countries and is part of the law in your country. Government policy is partly determined by your elected representatives. You may wish to contact them if you consider that more attention should be dedicated to protecting the environment. You may also wish to express your feelings if you do not like the way the environment is treated in the place where you live.
There are many other ways in which you can help to protect the Black Sea. You may wish to join an NGO, participate in a public hearing or just to pick up a few pieces of litter next time you go to the beach (even if it is someone else’s litter). Sharing the information in this guide with your friends or local schools would also help. Next time you see a glorious sunset or sunrise across the Black Sea you will feel a much happier person if you have done something to protect it.
Box 1.The most isolated sea
The Black Sea is one of the most remarkable regional seas in the world. It is almost cut off from the rest of the world’s oceans but is up to 2212 metres deep and receives the drainage from a 420,000 square kilometre basin, covering about one third of the area of continental Europe. Its only connection is through the winding Bosphorus Straits, a 35 Km natural channel, as little as 40 metres deep in places. Every year, about 350 cubic kilometres of river water pour into the Black Sea from an area covering almost a third of continental Europe and including significant areas of seventeen countries: Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Yugoslavia. Europe’s second, third and fourth rivers (the Danube, Dnieper and Don) all flow to the Black Sea. The Bosphorus has a two layer flow, carrying about 300 cubic kilometres of seawater to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean along the bottom layer and returning a mixture of seawater and freshwater with twice this volume in the upper layer. If you find it difficult to imagine a cubic kilometre of water, this amount would fill 2.5 billion bathtubs or half a million Olympic swimming pools!
To get an idea of the isolation of the Black Sea, it would take about one thousand years to replace all of the salt water at the present flow rate through the Bosphorus. The water flowing in through the salty bottom layer of the Bosphorus doesn’t mix very easily with the fresh water pouring into the Black Sea from the rivers. The Black Sea itself has a surface water layer about one hundred metres deep which is much fresher that the water below it. Mixing between the two layers occurs very slowly; the sharp gradient between the two is maintained by river and rain water flowing into the surface layer and Mediterranean water flowing into the bottom water.
This is a key to the Sea’s uniqueness. In the seas and oceans of our planet, tiny plants grow in the surface waters where there is enough light and essential nutrients. They are then eaten by microscopic animals or die naturally and their remains fall to lower layers of the sea where they are decomposed by bacteria. The growing plants release oxygen to the water and the bacteria use oxygen to decompose them again. The mixing of water in the sea ensures that there is enough oxygen to supply the needs of the bacteria and thus to complete the cycle. In the case of the Black Sea however, the slow mixing does not provide enough oxygen to supply the needs of bacteria and related processes, with the result that the oxygen in the lower layer has been completely used up. The metabolic requirements of some bacteria can be satisfied by using the oxygen in sulphate, a natural component of seawater. This process generates hydrogen sulphide, a soluble poisonous gas commonly associated with the smell of rotten eggs. Hydrogen sulphide is present in the entire lower layer of the Black Sea and it is the world’s largest “anoxic” (without oxygen) basin. As a consequence, 87% of the volume of the Black Sea is devoid of marine life (except for some forms of bacteria).
The knowledge that just one hundred or so metres below the surface of the sea, the water contains a huge amount of toxic gas, has triggered many expressions of concern. Could this water mix to the surface causing a huge human catastrophe? Are the reductions to the river flow to the sea as a result of dam construction going to bring this toxic layer dangerously close to the surface? The answer, fortunately, is no. There is no evidence that the protective surface layer is becoming thinner and the risk that hydrogen sulphide will break through the surface is negligible. Press reports that this will happen should not be taken seriously.
Box2. Green threat to a Black Sea
The first environmental challenge to be highlighted in the Action Plan is a phenomenon called eutrophication, regarded by many experts as the most significant cause of the Black Sea’s environmental decline since the 1960s. Unravelling the story of eutrophication leads to some disturbing conclusions about our own role in the decline of the Black Sea and many other regional seas.
Eutrophication means the over-enrichment of water bodies with organic matter. The most important source of organic matter in the sea are the tiny floating plants which grow in all surface waters where there is enough light and essential nutrients, particularly the nitrogen and phosphorus compounds upon which all plant life depends. These tiny plants are called phytoplankton and there are thousands of species of such plants, each with special requirements for light, temperature, nitrogen, phosphorus and complex combinations of other essential nutrients such as iron and vitamins. Some phytoplankton species, known as diatoms have glass-like shells and have an additional requirement for dissolved silica. In the sea, different plant species bloom when conditions for them are right, and later fade to be replaced by other species in much the same way as flowers and grasses in a meadow. They are often grazed, eaten by tiny marine animals known as zooplankton. These in turn are consumed by larger animals in a food chain which often ends with fish or mammals such as dolphins, seals and humans. Almost all animals in the sea share a common requirement for oxygen. Enough oxygen dissolves in seawater to sustain marine animals, except for mammals and some reptiles, which come to the sea’s surface for air.
In shallow areas of the sea, where the seabed is bathed in light, larger plants and algae may grow in underwater meadows. These too can form the base of a food-chain but also provide shelter for a myriad of animals which live attached to the sea floor or arrive as visitors, sometimes remaining during an important stage in their reproductive cycle. The North-western part of the Black Sea is largely below one hundred metres depth and always received a good supply of nutrients from the rivers Danube and Dnieper, Europe’s second and third largest rivers. It was virtually covered with underwater meadows. One species alone, a red algae called Phyllophora, dominated an area with the combined size of Belgium and the Netherlands. The meadow, named Zernov’s field after its Russian discoverer, was the home to a unique and highly productive ecosystem of plants and animals. Incidentally, the red algae were also harvested by humans for their agar, used as an ingredient for ice cream!
Sadly, the above text uses the word “was”. During the 1970s and 1980s, the NW Shelf ecosystem rather suddenly and catastrophically collapsed. Vast amounts of dead plants and animals covered the beaches of Romania and western Ukraine; between 1973 and 1990, losses were estimated as 60 million tons of bottom animals including 5 million tons of fish. At market prices, the fish alone might have been worth US$ 2 billions, but a monetary value cannot be placed on the real loss of such a unique ecosystem.
Why did this occur? The catastrophe appears to have been a consequence of eutrophication. During the late 1960s, there was a major change in agricultural production often called the “Green Revolution”. This involved the use of large amounts of fertilisers and pesticides to sustain high crop yields. Intensive animal farms were also established to provide a cheaper source of meat (one farm in Romania, for example, had more than a million pigs). Discharges of waste nutrients from these agricultural activities, and from domestic and industrial sources across the Black Sea basin, entered rivers and streams and eventually found their way to the Black Sea itself. The seagrass and algal beds of the north-western shelf were unable to absorb such large amounts of nutrients and large quantities of phytoplankton began to grow, shading the light from the larger plants below. Deprived of light, the meadows began to die. The huge amount of additional decaying organic matter at the sea floor, and associated bacteria, used up the dissolved oxygen resulting in a dead-zone where all the bottom dwelling fauna was asphyxiated.
The effects of eutrophication were felt across the entire Black Sea. Though it is estimated that 70% of the dissolved nutrients produced by human activity came from the Danube River alone, there are no innocent countries and coastal eutrophication is observed in areas well away from the influence of the Danube. Indeed, the whole sea suffered changes in the structure of its ecosystem during the last three decades and eutrophication is one of the factors which has contributed to this change. Organisms which are specialised in feeding on surplus organic matter have appeared in large numbers all around the Black Sea coast but these are often regarded as “dead end” species as they do not serve as fodder for zooplankton and the rest of the food chain. In many respects, the “fertilisation” of the sea with nutrients has made it poorer and not richer.
The nitrogen and phosphorus compounds triggering eutrophication come from all over the Black Sea Basin, a huge area of Europe spanning parts of seventeen countries and including about 160 million people. A study by the Black Sea Environmental Programme suggests that, in 1992, 70% of the nutrients were coming from the six Black Sea countries (three of which - Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine - discharge much of their nutrient load through the Danube) and the remaining 30% comes from the non-coastal countries, mostly of the upper Danube. Studies by the Danube Basin Environmental Programme suggest that about half the nutrients discharged to the river are from agriculture, one quarter from industry and a similar proportion from domestic sources. The current loads of nutrients entering the Black Sea from the Danube has fallen in recent years due to the collapse of the economies of most lower Danubian and former Soviet countries, the measures taken to reduce nutrient discharge in the upper Danube countries, and the implementation of a ban in polyphosphate detergents in some countries. Current phosphate levels appear to be roughly the same as in the 1960s but total nitrogen levels are still at least four times as high as those observed during that period. There is evidence of some recovery in Black Sea ecosystems but this remains limited. It is widely considered that nutrient discharges are likely to rise again, with consequent damage to the Black Sea, unless action is taken to implement nutrient discharge control measures as part of the economic development strategies.
Much money and energy is used to manufacture the fertilisers applied in agriculture. The loss of these substances to rivers and the sea is an economic loss as well as the cause of a serious environmental problem, also with major costs. Methods are available to economise on fertiliser use and improve land use and waste treatment in order to reduce these losses. Restoration of natural wetlands, efficient in nutrient removal, is another way to improve the situation with the added benefit of providing a habitat for wildlife and protection against flooding. Both the Danube and Black Sea Environmental Programmes are working together to study the most cost-effective solutions and to finance this work (see main text for details).
Solving the problem of eutrophication requires an examination of our own values. We are using the sea for disposing waste from intensive and chemically dependent farming practices on land. In the short term, this saves money and provides us with cheap food but it is not sustainable. Improvement in practices will require an additional cost, which may have to be met by the consumer. The alternative will be a continued deterioration in the health of our coastal seas.
Box 3. A Sea of Oil
In March 1994, a dramatic accident occurred in the Bosphorus strait, very near the entrance to the Black Sea. The 100,000-ton oil tanker Nassia, collided with a cargo ship, the Shipbroker which exploded and ran ashore, killing most of its crew. The stricken Nassia caught fire and released over 1000 tons of oil to the sea, causing extensive environmental damage. This incident, one of many which occur in the busy and winding Bosphorus, is a sharp reminder of the risks involved in transporting oil and the poor state of preparedness of Black Sea countries in the event of an accident.
In 1995 alone, almost 1,500 large tankers navigated the Bosphorus travelling to or from Black Sea ports. Since then, traffic has increased further due to the “early” oil shipments from the Caspian oil fields. The risk of more accidents has increased.
Scientific studies have shown that most of the oil entering the sea does not come from oil spills though these have catastrophic effects where they occur. There are many other sources of oil that require proper regulation. Here are some of them:
Although all of these sources can be controlled, many current control measures are not working effectively and it is common to see oily wastes polluting the waters and shorelines of harbours. In some cases, as much as 1% of the bottom sediment in polluted harbours has been measured as oil! Fortunately, oil levels are not very high in the open Black Sea but many sensitive Black Sea ecosystems are perilously close to polluted harbours and are already showing signs of damage.
The 1973 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, (MARPOL 73/78), has been ratified by all Black Sea countries. It declared the Black Sea as a “Special Area” for protection where countries agreed to apply more rigorous environmental standards. Surprisingly, these provisions have never been applied, partly because of a lack of port facilities for receiving and treating oily wastes and garbage from visiting ships. This is even more surprising, when you think of the billions of dollars worth of oil and cargo crossing the Black Sea and the few millions of dollars, which should be invested to enforce MARPOL. Furthermore, the money invested could be recovered rather quickly as higher port charges can be levied for Special Areas.
Present port reception facilities are inadequate for protecting the environment according to international standards. The Black Sea Action Plan includes a new commitment by governments to enforce the Special Area provisions of MARPOL by 2002. In order to do this, it was agreed to install harbour reception facilities for ships garbage by December 1999, for oil by December 2000 and for chemicals by December 2002. The use of the facilities will be compulsory. Powerful private companies make most oil shipments. The Action Plan calls for close co-operation with the private sector. It is hoped that they will make the necessary investments to protect the Black Sea as well as to profit from it.
In order to provide additional measures for protecting the Black Sea from ship wastes, it was agreed that all countries should develop a similar approach towards inspecting ships and for reporting and applying sanctions to those found to be violating MARPOL. Proposals for these measures were to be formulated by December 1998. This did not happen but, thanks to financial support from the International Maritime Organisation and the European Union, the process is gradually getting underway.
Furthermore, Black Sea countries lack adequate contingency plans, equipment and trained staff to deal with oil or chemical spills. Contingency Plans describe exactly who does what in the event of an accident, and where the necessary equipment will come from and how it will be transported. According to the BS-SAP, National contingency plans should have been ready and adopted by December 1998, but in most cases, this has not happened. These plans are to be developed together with the public and private sectors and as far as possible financed by the shipping, oil and gas industries. A regional Black Sea Contingency Plan should be ready by December 2000. It makes sense to reduce the risk of accidents and to consider alternative ways of transporting oil and chemicals. If ships are the best solution, the industry, and the consumers it supplies, must pay the cost of protecting the environment in the most efficient and effective manner.
You can also help to protect the Sea from oil pollution. Every year, thousands of tons of oil enter the sea from the illegal disposal of used engine oil, mostly by people pouring it down the drain. The oil from just one car engine is sufficient to pollute 56,000 tons of seawater! If you or your family have a car, find out how your used engine oil is disposed. Ask your local authorities whether they have an approved disposal site. Don’t contribute to oil pollution in the Black Sea. Encourage other people to act responsibly, they probably haven’t realised the problem.
Box 4. Is it safe to swim in the Black Sea?
It is unusual to find a deserted beach in summer in the Black Sea. Almost everywhere, people are seen strolling, sunbathing, picnicking or swimming. A more careful look at the beaches however, reveals many differences. Some consist of yellow sand neatly raked every day in the early morning to remove litter; others are cluttered with garbage, broken bottles and even medical waste. The sea itself may be any colour from crystal clear blue to dirty brown. Surprisingly though, people can be seen swimming, almost everywhere. Sometimes children can be seen jumping from the end of pipes that are discharging smelly wastewater to the sea.
Most of the animals in coastal seas need clean water. Bacteria from human sewage may be concentrated in shellfish even though the animals themselves may not become sick.
Over a decade ago, medical researchers established a relationship between sewage in the sea and a number of human diseases such as intestinal and throat infections, hepatitis-A and fungal infections of the skin. Of course, not everyone who swims in a dirty sea will become sick every time. The risk of getting sick is higher. This can be compared to the risk of catching a cold from the infected person sitting next to you in the bus. If you see that the person is sneezing, you can reduce the risk by choosing another seat. How do we know which beach to choose in order to reduce the risk of getting sick from swimming?
Most popular beaches in Europe are the subjects of regular monitoring of indicators of sewage pollution. This involves taking samples, measuring the numbers of certain kinds of bacteria and comparing the results of the analysis with national or international standards. The measurements have to be repeated rather often (usually weekly in the swimming season) as the conditions in the sea can deteriorate quite suddenly when the local sewage treatment plants suffer breakdowns or are unable to cope with a large number of visitors. The aim of the measurements is to inform the public of the water quality and hopefully improve their use of the sea for leisure. The results are published in local newspapers and posted clearly on every beach. Failure to meet the agreed standards puts pressure on the local authorities to improve sewage treatment as people choose to visit beaches which are clean and local commerce loses money near dirty beaches.
Unfortunately, this is not the current situation in the Black Sea. Certainly measurements of water quality are made but the standards applied are different in each country and the frequency of sampling is often insufficient to protect human health. Results are rarely published but health authorities try to close beaches when sewage pollution reaches dangerous levels. These warnings are often ignored, especially by visitors who have paid a high price for their vacations. Perhaps they are unaware that there may be other beaches that are much cleaner and do not present such a risk to their health or that of their children. Without open access to the public health data, visitors lack the information to make the choice.
In the Action Plan, Black Sea governments agreed to take urgent action to solve this problem. They agreed to develop a “uniform measurement technique for bathing water quality with a common quality assurance support mechanism” by December 1997. Furthermore, the Action Plan states: “Based on harmonised criteria, information on the state of bathing water suitable for advising the public on the potential risks to their health shall be made widely available to the public during the active tourist season, starting in 1998. Frequency of sampling and analytical methodology should be sufficient to inform bathers of conditions which may pose health risks. Additionally, a colour coding system for bathing water quality maps shall be developed and such maps shall be published annually starting January in 1999.”
So far, none of this has happened. Worse still, in many places beaches continue to be covered with garbage, also constituting a major health hazard. Children are keenly aware of this and the children’s painting competitions frequently show the sea and beaches covered with human waste and the fish and animals in the sea suffering the consequences. Why are older generations so insensitive? Some towns actually dump their garbage on the beach intentionally in order to avoid the higher costs of alternative land disposal. The Black Sea Action Plan clearly states that “A total ban on the disposal of municipal garbage in marine, shoreline and estuarine areas shall be imposed by December 1996. Each Black Sea state shall develop a plan setting out the manner in which comprehensive enforcement of the ban will be attained by December 1999.” Ultimately this enforcement depends on you. Do you know where your garbage is disposed?
Keeping the sea clean is a responsibility in which everyone has a part. If you visit the beach, make sure you take away everything you brought with you. Encourage others to do the same. Find out where wastewater is discharged and avoid swimming downstream. Avoid swimming for a few days after heavy rains – most storm water contains sewage and is untreated. Ask the local authorities whether they publish water quality reports – you may be pleasantly surprised.
Box 5. Gone fishing
There is no doubt that the Black Sea’s fisheries have deteriorated dramatically in the past three decades. The diversity of commercial fish caught has decreased over this period from about 26 species to some six. The volume of fish caught has actually increased, despite a near collapse in 1990, but this is almost entirely due to the large anchovy fishery of Turkey. What are the factors responsible for the loss of the Black Sea fishery? We will present some of the evidence to help you reach your own conclusions:
(1) Changes to the ecosystem as a result of eutrophication
There is not enough evidence to relate most pollutants to the decline of fisheries. In the case of eutrophication however, there is clearly a loss of habitat and food for certain kinds of fish. It is important to remember that the requirements of fish change considerably as they grow from drifting eggs and larvae to juveniles and then to adults. Their life cycle may cover much of the Black Sea; firstly at the mercy of the sea’s currents, then sheltering in bottom vegetation before migrating long distances to feeding and breeding areas. We have shown in Box 2 how the eutrophication process led to a loss of entire ecosystems such as the red algae Phyllophora, which was the habitat for a large number of juvenile and bottom dwelling fish, as well as some large predators such as turbot. We should not be surprised that the turbot fisheries collapsed when the Phyllophora beds disappeared. If you cut down the trees in a forest, the bears will go away or die out, even though bears do not eat trees! The lack of oxygen on the bottom of shallow areas impacted by eutrophication also led to massive loss of bottom living animals. By 1980 in the waters off the coast of Romania, the average weight of bottom living animals per square metre had decreased to only one thirtieth of the amount recorded in 1977! Species such as sturgeon which “graze” on small bottom-dwelling animals, were clearly deprived of an important food source.
In the case of eutrophication however, the initial increase in phytoplankton actually provided more food for some fish, mostly the small short-lived species such as anchovies and sprats. However, in terms of fisheries economics, these are rather low value species – though anchovies are tasty, they do not command the same prices as bluefish, bonito or turbot.
It is important to remember that eutrophication isn’t the only phenomenon responsible for the loss of fish habitats. Many species migrate to wetlands or upstream to rivers. Some migrate through the Bosphorus to the Sea of Marmara and beyond. Anything that destroys or disturbs these habitats will have an impact on fish populations.
A number of exotic animal species, introduced by accident from the hulls, bilge or ballast tanks of ships, have flourished to the detriment of the Black Sea's characteristic fauna. The voracious predatory sea snail Rapana thomasiana, for example, arrived from waters around Japan in the mid-1940s and devastated beds of Black Sea oysters. It is one of a list of some twenty-six species introduced through human activity (accidentally or intentionally) since the beginning of the century and which have profoundly altered the Black Sea ecosystem. In the mid-1980s, Mnemiopsis leidyi, sometimes known as the comb jelly, arrived in ship’s ballast waters. This species was brought from the eastern seaboard of America and, without predators, flourished in the eutrophic Black Sea environment where it consumes zooplankton including fish larvae. This massive population explosion had an enormous impact on the Black Sea's ecosystems and commercial fish stocks. The loss of zooplankton allowed huge populations of phytoplankton to develop in a series of blooms that reduced the mean Secchi depth (the maximum depth to which a white disk lowered into the sea from a ship remains visible) from the normal average of twenty metres, to only five metres. Anchovy catches plummeted in 1990 to only 60,000 tons. The anchovy stocks have now recovered, despite the continued presence of Mnemiopsis, but other fish species remain seriously depleted.
In 1996, the BSEP made a survey of fishing activities in the Black Sea, covering the period 1975-1995. The aim was to provide a reliable database that would assist the scientific management of sustainable fisheries. The collected data included: weight of landings by species; market prices; structure of the fishing fleet; fishing effort and the infrastructure at the fishing ports. The survey quantified the major trends in the fishery. There was a dramatic decline in landings from some 850,000 tons in the mid-80s to a low of 250,000 tons in 1991, since when some recovery is evident, to 517,000 tons in 1995. However, the economic return has not recovered, because, as mentioned earlier, the main improvement is in the low-value anchovy stock while higher valued species have remained depressed or continued to decline. The total value of landings at first point of sale, based on 1994 prices, has fallen from US$ 626 million in 1985 to around US$ 250 million in 1993-5. On the structure of the fleets, the survey showed a general increase in the number of fishing vessels in most categories, especially those based in the western part of the Black Sea. Thus the fishing effort increased while the catches and earnings declined, confirming the greatly reduced economic return from fishing activities in the region since 1985. Of course, these statistics cannot consider other factors such as illegal fishing and use of inappropriate gear that catches fish before they have reached their reproductive age.
The message from these rather simple statistics is more effort, less fish - a situation typical of over-fishing. Certainly, there is evidence that some species were overexploited in the past. A further analysis of the data however, reveals that the present situation isn’t quite so simple. The fleet of small/medium sized vessels (50-100 tons) in Russia actually decreased from 67 to 2 between 1975 and 1995. Large decreases were also registered in Georgia (where the fleet virtually disappeared), Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria. These fleets collapsed partly due to the lack of fish and difficulties in overcoming the transition to a market economy. Much of the anchovy population moved to the Turkish coast, less impacted by eutrophication and Mnemiopsis, and the Turkish fleet expanded considerably to benefit from this fortuitous situation. Some Turkish scientists consider that this expanded fleet is already over-fishing.
You may have found the above information confusing. It doesn’t actually say which of the three possible causes led to the collapse of the Black Sea fisheries. The answer is that all three causes contributed to the decline and that the only way to restore the fisheries is to work towards solving all three problems. This is why the approach taken in the Black Sea Action Plan is so important.
There is one thing you can do to help the Black Sea’s fisheries. You can help to prevent illegal fishing of protected species or those in serious decline. For example, if you live in Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania, you should avoid purchasing wild sturgeon, it is in danger of disappearing. Sturgeon sold in Russia and sometimes in Ukraine is usually from fish farms, which release juveniles to rivers or to the Sea of Azov – the wild population has virtually disappeared. In most countries Turbot has a closed season where fishing is banned. Help to respect it. Illegal fishing would stop if nobody purchased the fish. Black Sea trout is another endangered species. Find out about other protected or endangered species in your country.
Box 6. Conserving the beauty of the Sea
The extraordinary paintings of the great Russian Master, Aivazovsky, feature Black Sea coasts and seascapes in the 19th century. The rare sale of one of these paintings attracts collectors from all over the world, willing to pay millions of dollars for these romantic and dramatic images of Black Sea.
As the one hundredth anniversary of his death approaches, it is difficult to imagine how Aivazovsky would feel about the modern Black Sea landscape. The evidence of human development is almost everywhere. Ugly “blockhouse” constructions, chaotic industrial plants, crumbling piers and jetties and summerhouses squeezed together in monotonous lines, have replaced many of the pristine coastlines. The remains of rapid development projects of the 1950’s and 1960’s are decaying away and the developers are moving on to build more modern constructions in “undeveloped lands”. The Black Sea landscape is gradually disappearing together with critical habitats for plants and animals. Landscape and biological diversity, beauty and ecology, are intimately connected.
Fortunately, it is still not too late to act. There are still many parts of the coastline that have retained their natural beauty but are in urgent need of protection. Firstly though, it should be recognised that a free-market economy does not imply the automatic right to buy and destroy protected areas for development projects. All Black Sea countries have designated “conservation areas”, but some lack the resources to enforce the necessary planning restrictions, often having to defend them against very powerful and influential groups of people who are uninterested in conserving nature or protecting the long term interests of local residents. For the developers it is cheaper and easier to cut trees than to demolish ugly old blockhouses and replace them with elegant modern constructions. There are plenty of opportunities for careful development in Black Sea countries but planning rules must be established and enforced.
Some of the Black Sea countries have taken very positive steps to preserve their natural heritage. Both Romania and Ukraine have established the Danube Delta as a Biosphere Reserve for example. The Danube Delta is a unique and very sensitive wetland, the second largest delta in Europe. It supports populations of Dalmatian pelicans, migratory birds and many unique plant and animal species. However, at the same time it is undergoing careful exploitation for “environmental friendly” tourism (ecotourism). The lessons learned from this successful conservation programme can be applied in other Black Sea countries such as Georgia where the sensitive Kolkheti wetlands are designated as a conservation area of regional as well as national importance.
The Black Sea Action Plan recognises that “there is a serious risk of losing valuable habitats and landscape and ultimately, the biological diversity and productivity of the Black Sea ecosystem”. It proposes to widen the existing legal Convention for the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution (the 1992 Bucharest Convention) to include a new Protocol on Biological Diversity and Landscape Protection. “The aim is to present the Protocol to the 2001 Ministerial Meeting for signature, after which governments can initiate the national ratification process”. In the meantime, it recommends that: “In marine and coastal areas, and in particular in wetlands, new conservation areas shall be designated and the protection of existing conservation areas enhanced. In drafting their National Biological Diversity Strategies, Black Sea states shall take into consideration the integrity of the Black Sea system, by, for example, designating conservation areas which are of regional significance.”
The Plan provides a number of additional technical recommendations for developing a regional strategy for conservation areas (including legal and funding issues) and updating it regularly. It also calls upon “Each Black Sea state, by 2000, to revise, and where applicable adopt, in accordance with its own legal system, national laws, regulations and planning instruments for the protection of conservation areas. These laws, regulations and planning instruments shall conform with relevant international instruments, including the Regional Strategy for Conservation Areas. The national instruments, amongst other things, should identify the responsible management authority and the responsible government agency; include procedures for the identification of conservation areas; require that management plans be developed for each conservation area; set standards for managing conservation areas; and, where appropriate, establish procedures for public participation and partnerships between governmental agencies and NGO’s for the management of conservation areas.” Finally, it states that “Each Black Sea State, where appropriate with the support of bilateral or multilateral agencies, shall ensure that the authorities which manage conservation areas are adequately staffed and that the necessary resources are available to them”.
Clearly, if these measures are taken and enforced, the future of the Black Sea coastal landscape will be assured. However, there are still many problems to be overcome and it is often difficult to convince Ministries of Finance to provide or borrow enough money to make Conservation Areas a reality. Increasingly however, they understand that this is an important investment for the future.
Caring for the landscape does not exclude towns and cities. In addition to natural landscapes, care must be taken to conserve the most beautiful buildings in Black Sea towns and cities and make streets and public places clean and attractive. Perhaps your town or city is untidy and public places are being allowed to deteriorate. When money is short, people concentrate on their own needs, even though collective action to solve the problem may be inexpensive. If you live in an apartment building, have a look at the public areas and hallways. Are they clean and tidy? Arriving every day to a dingy hallway is depressing. Isn’t this part of your home? Whose responsibility is it to maintain it? Ultimately it is yours, though solving the problem requires energy and ingenuity from yourself and from your not-so-willing neighbours. The same is true for the landscape; it is also part of your home. Its conservation depends on your motivation to act through democratic processes.
Box 7. You can prevent environmental damage from development
Sometimes we are surprised to hear of the decision to build a new factory, harbour, tourist resort or oil terminal right next to the seashore. How can such a decision be made without considering the interests of local people or the need to protect nature? The Black Sea Action Plan states that: By 1998, all Black Sea coastal states will adopt criteria for environmental impact assessments and environmental audits that will be compulsory for all public and private projects. The coastal states will co-operate to harmonise these criteria by 1999 and where possible, to introduce strategic environmental assessments. What is an environmental impact assessment and how should this contribute to preventing damage to the environment?
The purpose of an environmental impact assessment (EIA) is to ensure that the environmental effects of a proposed project are fully considered before it is implemented. EIA can be applied to individual planning projects or to official policies, plans and programmes in which case it is know as a Strategic Environmental Assessment. EIAs are part of the legislation of all Black Sea countries but they are conducted in different ways in each country using different criteria regarding what is and what isn’t assessed and how the assessment is performed. Countries agreed to make these criteria similar by 1999 but the deadline has passed and the agreement has yet to be concluded.
An EIA will assist in deciding whether a project should or should not go ahead and, where it does go ahead, assist in drafting conditions and legal agreements which regulate it. The EIA is a process that gathers sufficient information about the project to assess its risks to the environment. This results in an environmental statement, which is a public document. At this stage, there should be a full public hearing before the planning authorities reach a decision to permit or prohibit the development.
Have you ever seen an announcement of a public hearing? They certainly happen in the Black Sea region but are often very poorly announced and even more poorly attended. This is very unfortunate because they represent an opportunity for you to exercise your democratic rights and to help with the decision making process which will shape the future in the place you live.
Here is a checklist of the usual stages in an EIA:
1.Screening: Local or state authorities examine each new development proposal to determine whether there is a legal requirement for an EIA.
2.Scoping There is an initial analysis with wide consultation on what should be covered by the assessment, economic and social considerations, geographical boundaries of the likely impacts, who and what might the project affect.
3.Alternatives. The assessment is supposed to examine all the alternatives to the project.
4.Description of the proposal and the present ecological and socio-economic conditions of the site being developed.
5.Forecasting of the likely effects of the development based on the best available scientific expertise.
6.Significance of different impacts. What are the social costs of the impacts in terms of sustainable development. How can the impacts be reduced or eliminated?
7.Production of environmental statement - This is a non-technical summary to facilitate consultation (by the public) - It should be relatively short, jargon free with a more detailed technical annex.
If you have doubts about a particular project in your region, ask to see the Environmental Statement (sometimes called the Environmental Expertise) at your local environmental inspectorate or regional planning office. Who prepared the EIA? Was there an independent mechanism for reviewing its quality? Was a public hearing held (ask to see the report)? Who made the decision to go ahead?
Box 8. Who will pay for protecting the Black Sea?
By now you may well agree that the Black Sea is worth saving and can indeed be saved but the obvious question is: who will pay for the measures included in the Action Plan?
The answer to this question is not a simple one. Most of the Black Sea countries are facing severe economic hardship. Releasing funds from the central budget depends on the priority given to environmental protection and whether or not this is seen as a key to the future prosperity of a country. Environmental economists are quick to point out that the economic value of the natural environment is very large and that many countries are “selling off” their “environmental capital” (the forests, landscapes, biological diversity, marine ecosystems) in order to cover short-term expenditures and debts. Few are investing in the future.
The measures in the Action Plan are carefully designed in order to create sources of funding as well as to spend money. This however, involves putting into place efficient mechanisms to levy those who are using the natural environment without paying the cost of the services. Economists call this “free riding”. Waste disposal without environmental protection is “free riding”. So too is fishing without paying the cost of maintaining fish habitats and monitoring and managing the fisheries themselves. The problem is that most people benefiting from the environment are surprised by the idea that they should pay for what has always been free. Well, it was never really free because current economic loss from environmental degradation is the cost of past and present bad practices.
In some cases, putting in place the necessary mechanisms such as treatment plants, wetlands restoration works, fisheries surveillance vessels, or preventative measures for avoiding pollution, will require capital expenditures. Sometimes countries decide to take loans in order to pay these costs. How are bank loans for environmental protection decided?
Investment projects first need to be prioritised initially according to whether or not they address real environmental concerns. Loans addressing both development and environment are likely to be more attractive for those borrowing the money. Then, two other issues need to be settled, whether countries are willing to borrow money for the projects and whether they are able to pay back the loans, since a loan is not a free gift and must be returned with interest. The project itself must also be evaluated in terms of the suitability of the technology applied and whether indeed a technological solution is appropriate in the first place.
The “shopping list” of proposed investments usually contains a range of projects from large and expensive industrial wastewater treatment plants costing tens of millions of dollars to very small loans for upgrading existing municipal utilities. Funding some of the projects may prove to be very difficult. International financial institutions (IFIs), such as the World Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, are often shy of the mega industrial projects because of uncertainties whether industries that may still be state owned can operate profitably. The industries themselves are sometimes unwilling to take loans, fearing that the cost of waste treatment may make them unprofitable, if indeed they are in the first place. Some plant directors have little fear of state environmental legislation, as it is usually cheaper to pay or ignore fines than invest in new treatment technology. Public pressure is minimal in many cases, partly as a result of fear that actions may result in job losses.
At the other end of the spectrum, many wastewater treatment plants have not functioned for some years owing to the need for a major overhaul or missing pumps. The IFIs often have difficulty to deal with the US $0.5 - 1 million loans needed to restore and upgrade them and the countries in the region have no experience in dealing with small-scale donors. As a result, nothing gets done unless a costlier replacement plant is proposed.
Most loans therefore, tend to focus on such projects municipal utilities (sewerage, waste disposal or drinking water supply) but sometimes with industrial plants. They still have to cross the barriers of “willingness to borrow” and “ability to pay”. Again, inspectorates of pollution may not be adequately empowered to enforce revenue-gathering charges and fines from industry. Economic instruments for paying for municipal services, drinking water and waste disposal, often don’t work very well. In some cases, local economies are so depressed that the users cannot afford to pay the full costs of utilities. It is necessary to reform all parts of the economy together in order to distribute the benefits as well as the costs. Social interests cannot be ignored. The cultural and social value of protecting the natural environment may be incalculable in economic terms. In collaborating with the IFIs, BSEP is seeking to encourage packages in which, together with a loan, grants are included for strengthening economic instruments, monitoring and enforcement and public awareness of the benefits of paying for services. The economic instruments are also needed to pay for maintenance, which is often ignored but is equal to the capital cost of a plant over its lifetime.
The final barrier however, is often the selection of the technology itself. For example, in one particular Black Sea coastal resort, a municipal garbage incinerator in a built by a foreign company using “best available technology from Western Europe”. It stands idle, two years after completion. Prior to construction, the manufacturers failed to study the different composition of local garbage from that of their own country. The incinerator was unable to reach the high temperatures needed to operate safely in an environmentally acceptable manner.
In many cases measures for avoiding waste can reduce the design capacity of municipal utilities. Water losses in many Black Sea countries are huge; not only from leaky supply systems but also from users who have not understood the value of this commodity.
Money for “end of pipe technology” is only a small part of the problem of putting together an effective programme for environmental protection. The Black Sea Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis, formulated in 1996 and widely published earlier this year, clearly shows the need for three other fields of action requiring initial investment and policy actions: investment in protected areas; new environmentally-friendly business ventures; and, basin wide initiatives for controlling transboundary contamination from non-coastal countries.
All of these measures require the co-operation and financial support of central and local governments. Sadly, thus far this support has been well below that which is necessary to implement the measures agreed in the Bucharest Convention and the Black Sea Strategic Action Plan. International donors such as the Global Environmental Fund, the European Union and several other countries, have been providing short-term assistance to help keep the process alive, but this assistance cannot continue for many years and assumes that Black Sea countries will soon carry the process forward themselves.
You can invest in the future of the Black Sea. Paying taxes and asking your local elected representative to encourage spending on environmental issues is one positive action. Here is another: Look carefully at your water use. Does your family leave the water running when brushing teeth? Is water running down the toilet for lack of a plastic valve? Invest in a new one. Reducing water use saves energy and money, reduces the loading on sewage treatment works and protects rivers and the sea. Purchasing phosphate-free detergent is another good investment to help combat eutrophication. You can make a difference.
Glossary: Some terms employed in the action plan or this guide
If you are accountable to a person or group of people, you must be prepared to explain and justify your actions to them.
A measure of the variety of the Earth's animal, plant, and microbial species; of genetic differences within species; and of the ecosystems that support those species. In the 20th century, the destruction of habitats is believed to have resulted in the most severe and rapid loss of diversity in the history of the planet. Over 100 world leaders at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro signed the international Convention for the preservation of biodiversity
Improving the expertise and skills of personnel in relation to the responsibilities and tasks which they will carry out.
An area where special planning regulations are applied or human activities regulated, with the specific objective of protecting nature or an archaeological heritage.
A plan developed in order to prepare emergency services and potential human victims in the case of a major accident or natural disaster. The Plan should help to reduce the potential environmental impacts of such a catastrophe. In the Black Sea, the major concerns requiring such planning are oil or chemical spills from ships and accidents in the operation of nuclear power generators.
Substances which are introduced into the environment in a dispersed manner as a result of human activity. Such substances may for example, be introduced through the atmosphere or from extensive agriculture.
In environmental texts, this term is generally employed to indicate a place with exceptionally high levels of pollution. Occasionally it is confused with the activity (e.g. industrial plant) which causes the pollution.
These include taxes, fees, levies, fines and the payments of incentives in order to encourage a change in behaviour towards the environment or to raise funds for resolving environmental problems.
To make sure a law or regulation is obeyed. Enforcement is often associated with punitive sanctions but may also be achieved through voluntary agreements or incentives.
A term commonly employed by the Global Environment Facility to describe the additional funds required by a project to deliver global benefits over and above national benefits (paid by national funds).
International Financing Institutions (IFIs)
International development or investment banks and related financial institutions (e.g. the World Bank, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development).
A planned target which indicates a specific point of achievement in a policy or project. It is convenient for monitoring progress towards an overall objective.
Non-Governmental Organisation. A group of concerned persons who form an independent, non-profit organisation pursuing a particular agenda or objective (e.g. environmental conservation, industry associations).
A direct discharge to a water body. This may be in the form of a pipe discharging effluent or may be the discharge point of a contaminated stream or river. In many texts the activity causing the effluent is also described as the point source.
Installations designed for receiving the waste (liquid or solid) from ships. Such installations usually includes equipment to process the waste for its reuse or disposal in an acceptable manner.
People with an interest or involvement in a project or environmental issue, and/or who are affected by its results.
There are many different definitions of this concept but the basis of these is that improvements in the quality of life should not be gained at the expense of the natural environment or that of future generations.
Preventative measures are to be taken when there are reasonable grounds for concern that an activity may increase the risk of presenting hazards to human health, harm living resources and marine ecosystems, damage amenities or interfere with other legitimate uses of the sea, even when there is no conclusive evidence of a causal relationship between the activity and the effects. In other words greater caution is required to protect the environment when information is uncertain, unreliable or inadequate.
The quality of making something easily understood and recognised. A transparent policy is one which is understandable with no secrecy.
The Black Sea Environmental Programme has made a major contribution to the knowledge base on the Black Sea by assembling information from throughout the region by the efforts of the members of its various Working Parties. It also published the Black Sea Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis, the Strategic Action Plan, regular newsletters and specialist reviews. The following materials are available from the Project Implementation Unit of the BSEP, local UNDP offices in the Black Sea region, or from UN Publications in New York:
Strategic Action Plan for the Rehabilitation and Protection of the Black Sea, Istanbul, 31 October 1996. 29p. English
Black Sea Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis, Istanbul, 1997, 142p. English. ISBN 92-1-126075-2, UN Publications, New York.
Saving the Black Sea. Official newsletter of the Global Environment Facility Black Sea Environmental Programme, Issues 1-6 (1994-98), English and Russian.
Black Sea Environmental Series. Thematic Regional Studies published by UNDP through UN Publications, New York. Volumes available are:
Vol. 1. Black Sea Bibliography (English), 1995.
Vol. 2. Marine Aquaculture in the Black Sea (English), 1996.
Vol. 3. Biological Diversity in the Black Sea: A study of change and decline (English), 1997.
Vol. 4. Black Sea Biological Diversity: Romania (English), 1997.
Vol. 5. Black Sea Biological Diversity: Bulgaria (English), 1997.
Vol. 6. The Most Blue in the World, by Y. Zaitsev (an introduction to the Black Sea). In Russian, 1998
Vol. 7. Black Sea Biological Diversity: Ukraine (English), 1998.
Vol. 8. Black Sea Biological Diversity: Georgia (English), 1998.
Vol. 9. Black Sea Pollution Assessment (English), 1999.
Vol. 10. Black Sea Red Data Book (English), 1999.
Black Sea Studies. Research Report Series, including the socio-economic Black Sea Environmental Priorities Studies. Available from UN Publications, New York:
Vol. 1. Ukraine: Black Sea Environmental Priorities Study, 1998
Vol. 2. Turkey: Black Sea Environmental Priorities Study, 1998
Black Sea NGO Directory. A useful catalogue of 124 Black Sea NGOs including profiles and contact addresses. Available from the BSEP PIU in Istanbul.
Black Sea Geographical Information System. CD-ROM based system, giving summaries of scientific information on the Black Sea in the form of maps. A useful tool for schools. Requires a 486 or Pentium PC. Available from BSEP-PIU or UN Publications.
Information on the Internet. If you have access to the Internet, you may wish to try the following web sites containing both general information and detailed scientific data:
http://www.grid.unep.ch/bsein/ - this is full of useful data, satellite images and the Red Data Book, there are useful hyperlinks to other web pages
http://www.blackseaweb.net/ - here you will find the Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis on line and other useful information
http://www.domi.invenis.com.tr/blacksea/ - the site of the Black Sea PIU, includes the Strategic Action Plan
Some specialist publications by other agencies
Conservation of Black Sea Wetlands: A review and Preliminary Action Plan. International Waterfowl and Wetlands Research Bureau, Publication 33, 1994, 76p (English and Russian). ISBN 0-9505731-6-7
Environmental Management of Fish resources in the Black Sea and their Rational Exploitation (Authors K. Prodanov, K. Mikhailov, G. Daskalov, C. Maxim, A. Chashchin, A. Arkhipov, V. Shlyakhov and E. Ozdamar) Studies and Reviews. General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean. No. 68. Rome, FAO. 1997. 178p.
General historical, philosophical and cultural texts
Black Sea by Neal Ascherson. Jonathan Cape, London, 1995, 306p. An award winning popular account of the history and cultures of the Black Sea region.
The Black Sea in Crisis. Religion, Science and the Environment (Editors S. Hobson and L.D. Mee). World Scientific, London, 1998, 262p. The outcome of a floating symposium of over 300 religious leaders, scientists and policy makers in the Black Sea in summer 1997.
Laurence Mee is Visiting Professor of Marine Policy at the University of Plymouth, UK. He has been working on scientific and policy issues in the Black Sea since 1991. He chaired the inter-ministerial negotiations for the Odessa Declaration (1992-93) and was Co-ordinator of the GEF Black Sea Environmental Programme from 1993 to 1998. In this position he led the team preparing the Black Sea Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis and chaired most of the negotiations on the Black Sea Action Plan. He is a Member of the Ukrainian Academy of Ecological Sciences, Honorary Member of the Georgian Academy of Ecological Sciences and a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation.
This guide was prepared thanks to the support of a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts in Partnership with the New England Aquarium. Publication in Russian, Georgian and Ukrainian languages was facilitated with the support of the Tacis programme of the European Commission. Every care has been taken to present an objective vision of the Action Plan. Interpretations of the Plan are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of Governments, International Organisations, Non-governmental organisations or the Pew Charitable Trusts or Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation. All photographs are by the author or from the BSEP archives, unless otherwise indicated. The author wishes to thank his former colleagues at the Project Implementation Unit of the Black Sea Environmental Programme for their useful comments on the text. He is particularly indebted to Olga Maiboroda for her encouragement and careful analysis of the texts.
This guide is dedicated to Academician Prof. Yuvenaly Zaitsev on his seventy fifth anniversary. Prof. Zaitsev has spent a great part of his life understanding the Black Sea and communicating his understanding to others, particularly the younger generation. His natural curiosity, creative dedication and patience is an example to all those who care about the Black Sea.