MED NEWS 02/2021
Editorial
By Tatjana Hema, Coordinator of the UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention Secretariat
Continuity, enhanced integration and renewed commitment
On 1 July 2021 I assumed my duties of Coordinator of the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP), taking over from Gaetano Leone, who recently retired after seven years of outstanding service at the helm of the UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention Secretariat.
As many of you know, I am not new to MAP. I have worked in the Secretariat for several years and in various positions. I see in my latest appointment by the UNEP Executive Director an expression of appreciation for the work that the entire MAP-Barcelona Convention Secretariat, including the Regional Activity Centres (RACs), has competently delivered. I also see a clear message on the importance of continuity. As I embark on this new professional journey, I am determined to draw upon the leadership of the Contracting Parties and build on what UNEP/MAP has achieved with a view to addressing the triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution that the Mediterranean is grappling with.
The goal is to divert current trajectories towards more sustainable and resilient paths. The new UNEP/MAP Medium-Term Strategy 2022-2027, to be examined for adoption this December at the 22nd Meeting of the Contracting Parties (COP 22) in Antalya, Turkey, will guide our collective efforts to achieve this crucial mission in line with UNEP’s mandate and within the framework of the global agenda and the commitment that it has generated.
I am fully aware of the complex nature of the issues in hand. Luckily, we have a robust platform for a stronger collective effort. UNEP/MAP has delivered a vast body of assessments, and devised strategies, action plans and concrete measures to help Contracting Parties accelerate the transition to sustainability across a wide thematic spectrum: from Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP)—as the linchpin of circular economies—to curbing marine pollution and expanding the protection of marine and coastal species to achieve Good Environmental Status. The vision is clear, but the journey ahead is challenging.
Fostering political commitment is essential to the transformational changes needed in all sectors. This will be among the priorities that I will be pursuing in my new role. Implementation and enforcement of the Barcelona Convention and its Protocols, breaking the silos through greater integration at all levels, and effective collaboration and outreach are critical to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Mediterranean region.
I will strive for a nimble, efficient and forward-looking UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention system that responds adequately to existing and emerging challenges in the Mediterranean and serves the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention and its Protocols at the highest standards.
I am confident that COP 22—the first meeting of the Contracting Parties to take place after the global pandemic rose on the Mediterranean horizon—will serve as a new push for effective multilateralism and coordinated action among Mediterranean countries and the European Union.
Gender equality and enhancing the way we listen to and work with youth in the Mediterranean will also receive adequate attention. As we step up efforts to spur a post-COVID green renaissance in the Mediterranean, we must and will do more to ensure that no one is left behind in the delivery of the UNEP/MAP Programme of Work and the projects that we implement with our partners.
LESSON LEARNED: TORRE GUACETO – ENFORCEMENT WORKS
Established in 1991, the Marine Protected Area (MPA) of Torre Guaceto covers an area of 2.227 hectares along the Adriatic coast of Italy. The first protection measures date back to 1970, but legislative action for the protection of the area started in earnest in 1981 with the declaration of Torre Guaceto as a “Wetland of International Interest” under the Ramsar Convention. 
Six years later, WWF Italy carried out the feasibility plan for the establishment of a marine reserve, which became a reality on 4 December 1991 by virtue of a ministerial decree. The newly established MPA of Torre Guaceto was entrusted to the Coast Guard of Brindisi. In 2000, Torre Guaceto became the first example of integrated management of a protected coastal zone in the country.
Local fishers felt strongly about their right to make a living in the area where their ancestors had casting their nets for centuries. When the enforcement of no-take measures began, they found themselves at loggerheads with the authorities. From 2000-2001 all fishing activities had been banned in the entire MPA area and frictions between local fishers and the authorities ensued.
The introduction of regulated fishing activity based on an agreement between the fishers and the MPA authority eventually put an end to the dispute. Fishers who adhered to what became in 2005 as a “co-management protocol” committed to the protection of predator species, fish in juvenile stages and benthic communities and habitats. The community could now fish in buffer zones surrounding two no-take zones demarcated in the area.
In order to reduce the impact of fishing activities, the community accepted to use shorter trammel nets (1 km-long as opposed to the usual 2-3 km) with larger mesh size (3 cm), and to haul the nets only once every week. They also agreed to reduce fishing as soon as signs of overfishing would be detected. Data routinely collected through the monitoring of fishery yields and catch composition would keep the MPA authority and the fishers abreast of the impact of fishing on the natural resources of the area.
The science-based monitoring continues uninterrupted since 2005, thus helping manage fishing activities in an adaptive co-management experiment that makes the Torre Guaceto MPA a success story in the Mediterranean. In 2009 the site was included in the List of Specially Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance (SPAMIs) established under the SAP/BD Protocol of the Barcelona Convention.
According to the Torre Guaceto MPA authority, every euro invested in conservation, yields a return of around 11 euros in shared benefits. This and the rigor of management applied at the MPA are credited for a steady increase in social acceptance and recognition.
THE PLIGHT OF MEDITERRANEAN ECOSYSTEMS
Two flagship reports supported by UNEP / MAP - Barcelona Convention System and released this year, the State of the Environment and Development in the Mediterranean (SoED) and the First Mediterranean Assessment Report (MAR1), reveal that the Mediterranean is in collision with nature.
The ‘twin reports’ point out that the global triple crisis due to climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution has already caused a hefty toll on ecosystems with increasingly acute impacts on human wellbeing. Making peace with nature in the Mediterranean would entail addressing the root causes of the environmental crisis.
In the context of the recovery from COVID-19, evidence-based policies should invest in ecosystem restoration while paving the way for more sustainable and resilient economies that decouple development from ecosystem degradation. The UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention Secretariat has labelled this ambitious but feasible outcome thanks to “green renaissance in the Mediterranean”.
THE ECOSYSTEM APPROCH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
The Ecosystem Approach refers to an overarching principle embedded in the work of the UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention system but also to a visionary roadmap of "a healthy Mediterranean with marine and coastal ecosystems that are productive and biologically diverse for the benefit of present and future generations".
As part of the Ecosystem Approach roadmap, the Contracting Parties have adopted eleven Ecological Objectives that address key elements of the Mediterranean marine and coastal environment. These objectives constitute the backbone of a harmonized regional system that allows UNEP/MAP and the Contracting Parties to take the pulse of Mediterranean ecosystems: the Integrated Monitoring and Assessment Programme of the Mediterranean Sea and Coast and Related Assessment Criteria (IMAP). 
Introduced by UNEP/MAP and adopted by the Contracting Parties in 2016, IMAP has transformed the way in which monitoring and assessment of the status of the marine and coastal environment are conducted. Components of UNEP/MAP support Mediterranean countries in this endeavor by providing technical expertise and capacity building, but also by delivering pilote projects in order to bolster at national level command of monitoring and assessment tools and methods .
UNEP/MAP and the Contracting Parties are building together the monitoring and assessment infrastructure needed for evidence-based ecosystem restoration in the Mediterranean. The Coordinating Unit of UNEP/MAP is currently implementing three EU-funded projects seeking to remove hurdles to the full implementation of IMAP for the benefit of the entire region: EcAp MED III, IMAP-MPA and Marine Litter MED.
ENFORCEMENT OF LEGAL INSTRUMENTS TO BOOST ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION
The UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention system has made significant progress in building a robust legal framework that supports the restoration of dammaged marine and coastal ecosystems and ensures the protection of healthy ones. However compliance and enforcement - or not - of legal instruments constitute areas where swift and resolute action by the Contracting Parties can deliver significant benefits for the region and its peoples. This is a crucial building block for a green renaissance in the post-COVID era.
There is an opportunity to harness efforts for a post-pandemic recovery in order to accelerate enforcement and compliance of these legal instruments under the Barcelona Convention and its Protocoles at the national level: This would represent the best chance for the Mediterranean Region to make peace with nature, at a hitherto unprecedented pace and scale, but also would constitue a well-defined and straightforward path that would translate into a ‘quantum leap’ towards sustainability and resilience in the entire region.
MedProgramme: A LANDMARK CONTRIBUTION TO THE UN DECADE ON ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION
The GEF-supported “Mediterranean Sea Programme (MedProgramme): Enhancing Environmental Security (2020-2025)” is a response to the challenges affecting densely populated coastal regions and their ecosystems. UNEP/MAP led the elaboration of a set of seven child projects that will deploy more than 100 coordinated actions at the regional and national levels. 
The MedProgrammme will reinforce the capacity of ten Mediterranean countries (Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Montenegro, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey) in order to reach their environmental objectives under the Barcelona Convention and other Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs).
An unprecedented partnership for regional cooperation has rallied behind the MedProgramme’s execution to address pressing challenges in the region, including the high pressures exerted on water (aquifers, in particular, as a major water resource in contexts of scarcity) and on habitats, biodiversity and landscapes. The emission of nutrients and wastewater, solid waste, marine litter and microplastics, as well as industrial waste are also addressed. National and transboundary interventions will seek to achieve environmental security in the entire Mediterranean region through the reduction of land-based pollution in coastal hotspots, the enhancement of sustainability and climate resilience in the coastal zones, and the protection of marine biodiversity.
THE MULTIPLE FACETS OF ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION UNDER THE BARCELONA CONVENTION
A blue economy aligned with SDG 14 can pave the way for the green renaissance that we wish to see in the Mediterranean Region. In a paper on the blue economy in the Mediterranean, released in 2020, Plan Bleu, the France-based Regional Activity Centre of UNEP/MAP, highlighted the main issues and challenges constraining the region’s efforts to tap the potential of this economy that is a low polluting, resource-efficient and circular economy based on sustainable consumption and production patterns, enhancing human well-being and social equity, generating economic value and employment, and significantly reducing environmental risks and impact on biodiversity.
Zoonotic spillover has demonstrated in the most tragic of ways that the protection of biodiversity is not only critical to nature but also to human health. In the Mediterranean region, SPA/RAC, the Tunisia-based Regional Activity Centre of UNEP/MAP, is currently working on the development of the post-2020 Strategic Action Programme for the Conservation of the Biological Diversity and sustainable use of natural resources in the Mediterranean Region (post-2020 SAPBIO), which would lead to prioritizing and planning urgent actions at the regional and national levels for the sustainable management of Mediterranean biodiversity until 2030. The post-2020 Regional Strategy for Marine and Coastal Protected Areas (MCPAs) and Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs)—also under preparation—is expected to boost conservation in the Mediterranean Sea and coast. 
Article 10 of the Protocol on Integrated Coastal Zone Management in the Mediterranean (ICZM Protocol) of the Barcelona Convention indicates that the Contracting Parties “shall take measures to protect certain specific coastal ecosystems: wetlands and estuaries; marine habitats; coastal forests and woods; and dunes”. PAP/RAC, the Croatia-based Regional Activity Centre of UNE/MAP, is working to step up coastal ecosystem restoration. PAP/RAC has recently contributed to the formulation of green adaptation options—a set of solutions based on the Ecosystem Approach that range from reinforcing natural defenses, such as dunes and cliffs, to maintaining and restoring coastal wetlands and seagrass.
Coming from land and often from the coast, marine litter remains one of the most arduous challenges hampering ecosystem restoration efforts in the Mediterranean. The combination of overly tolerant existing regulations and unbridled production and consumption patterns generates excessive amounts of waste. It is estimated that 730 tonnes of plastic end up in the Mediterranean Sea every day.
In 2018, SCP / RAC, the UNEP / MAP Regional Activity Center based in Spain, helped identify over 100 actions to reduce marine litter, including activities that can be implemented in marine litter areas. marine protected areas (MPAs) to safeguard important ecosystem services.
Since 2020, SCP/RAC supports marine litter prevention and mitigation measures in three MPAs located in Italy and Spain. In the Miramare MPA (Italy), measures are now in place to curb littering caused by mussel nets. In the Spanish natural parks of Ebro Delta and Cabo de Gata-Níjar, SCP/RAC interventions focus on curbing marine litter originating from bars, festivals and other recreative activities, including the infamously ubiquitous beverage containers made of PET.
Promoting the concept of "Extended Producer Responsibility" (EPR), which is part of waste disposal measures, is an important concept that highlights the central role of the private sector in efforts to restore ecosystems. In the Mediterranean context, maritime transport is one of the sectors where industry plays a central role in bending the pollution curve and ensuring that growth does not come at the expense of the natural systems that underpin life and livelihoods. 
REMPEC, the Malta-based Regional Activity Center jointly administered by UNEP / MAP and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), is making progress in cleaner maritime transport in the Mediterranean. The possible designation of the Mediterranean Sea as a “Sulfur Oxide Emission Control Area (Med SOx ECA) would make it one of the busiest waterways in the world.
Emissions from ships contribute to the overall air quality degradation in the Mediterranean region, particularly in coastal zones. Emissions of Sulphur Oxides (SOx), in particular, can cause acid rain that harms ecosystems. They can also combine with other pollutants to generate fine particles, the inhalation of which can lead to respiratory and cardiovascular ailments.
The REMPEC endeavor is part of the implementation of the Regional Strategy for Prevention of and Response to Marine Pollution from Ships (2016-2021). In addition, the Ballast Water Management Strategy for the Mediterranean Sea (2022-2027), currently being prepared by REMPEC in consultation with SPA/RAC, will address the introduction of non-indigenous species (NIS) by shipping activities.
More than 1,000 non-indigenous species have already been identified in the Mediterranean. Invasive species disrupt the natural balance of ecosystems, and so do human-made pollutants released into the coastal and marine environment.
MED POL, the UNEP/MAP Programme for the Assessment and Control of Marine Pollution in the Mediterranean, is spearheading efforts in the formulation and implementation of pollution monitoring, control and prevention as well as regulatory measures aiming to bolster ecosystem restoration. The Regional Plan on the Reduction of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) from Urban Wastewater, which MED POL is currently upgrading, is a case in point.
BOD measures the amount of oxygen required or consumed for the microbiological decomposition of organic material in water: the more organic pollution, the less oxygen to sustain marine ecosystems.
The Regional Plan on Marine Litter Management in the Mediterranean—another instrument being upgraded by MED POL— and a new Regional Plan on Sewage Sludge Management are part of a raft of pro-sustainability measures to be considered by the twenty-second Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention and its Protocols (COP 22, December 2021, Antalya, Turkey).
The next Medium-Term Strategy (2022-2027) to be considered for adoption by the Contracting Parties at COP 22 will concentrate the UNEP/MAP expertise and resources on accelerating ecosystem restoration, among other green pursuits.
A GENDER-BASED APPROACH TO BIODIVERSITY MANAGEMENT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
As we mark International Day for Biological Diversity, it is important to recognize that understanding women and men’s influence on natural resources and differences in capacity, skills and knowledge is key to devising sustainable and inclusive solutions to biodiversity management challenges. Practitioners and policymakers must address gender-related differences in the design and implementation of those solutions in the wider context of sustainable development. 
The Convention on Biological Diversity addresses gender issues by identifying and assessing women and men’s differentiated roles vis-a-vis biodiversity, including different responsibilities, priorities, decision-making power, and knowledge, all of which affect how individuals use and manage biological resources. Read more.
