{"id":331681,"date":"2025-08-09T23:01:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T23:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/331681\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T23:01:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T23:01:10","slug":"what-environmental-challenges-does-the-mediterranean-face-dw-08-09-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/331681\/","title":{"rendered":"What environmental challenges does the Mediterranean face? \u2013 DW \u2013 08\/09\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Libyan coastal city\u00a0of Sirte, Mokhtar al-Rammash prepares to take his beat-up plastic boat out on another fishing trip. Untangling his worn and fraying nets, he points to the waste-scattered surface of the sea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“These nets now catch only plastic,” he said. “It feels like we’re cleaning the sea instead of earning a living from it.”<\/p>\n

Plastic trash<\/a>, which according to the United Nations\u00a0enters the Mediterranean Sea at a rate of 730 tons a day, is not his only concern. After decades of fishing the waters that connect southern Europe and North Africa, he said industrial trawlers that “take everything, even the small, juvenile fish,”\u00a0are sweeping the sea “clean every day.”<\/p>\n

Added to that, he said sewage released by towns near the Libyan capital,\u00a0Tripoli, is killing fish and sponge populations, while\u00a0coastal reclamation is disturbing breeding grounds for certain species.<\/p>\n

“What’s happening here isn’t normal,” said al-Rammash, adding that it sometimes feels as if Libya<\/a>\u00a0has no sea on the doorstep. “We have one of the longest coastlines in the region, yet we import fish from abroad.”<\/p>\n

\"AMokhtar al-Rammash, who has been fishing in the Mediterranean for decades, has seen devastating changes in the seaImage: Islam Alatrash\/DW<\/p>\n

Al-Rammash said he and other fishermen hope the Libyan Environment Ministry will take action to protect the sea and what he describes as “a continuous destruction”\u00a0of their only source of income. “We’ve sent letters and demands, but no one replies.”<\/p>\n

Shared struggles<\/p>\n

Along the coast near the\u00a0Egyptian city of\u00a0Alexandria, Haj Abdel Nabi\u00a0sits on the dock inspecting his own nets. Now in his 60s, he recalls a time\u00a0when the sea provided a rich catch.<\/p>\n

“In the past, we used to come back with 100\u00a0kilograms of fish, but today we get only 10\u00a0and sometimes, we return with nothing at all,” he said.<\/p>\n

He also said the trawlers are at least partly to blame, with a single vessel hauling “more than all the local fishermen combined.”\u00a0Like al-Rammash, he said he has taken his concerns to the municipality and the Environment Ministry, but so far he has not received a reply.<\/p>\n

\"AFishers are struggling to compete with bigger boats that take a bigger catchImage: aapsky\/Depositphotos\/IMAGO<\/p>\n

Environmental reports from Algeria<\/a>, which shares a coastline with Libya and Egypt, have shown ongoing depletion of species such as pilchard, which is important for the country’s fishing industry.<\/p>\n

Algerian authorities told DW that 1,300 tons of “sardine seeds” \u2014\u00a0juvenile fish which are smaller than 11 centimeters (4.3 inches) in length \u2014\u00a0are caught annually, often illegally. Researchers warn that catching juvenile fish undermines populations and disrupts the marine food chain.<\/p>\n

What are the solutions?<\/p>\n

As local fishers\u00a0like Mokhtar al-Rammash and Haj Abdel Nabi feel\u00a0the combined weight of the problems facing the Mediterranean, Egypt<\/a>\u00a0has presented a national plan to improve its coastal environment.<\/p>\n

The plan, presented at a conference in July, would to restore two coastal lakes and build around 70 kilometers (about 43 miles) of shoreline\u00a0protection in the form of sand dune dikes. Cairo is also aiming to reduce plastic use through extended producer responsibility that would impose fees on manufacturers and importers of plastic bags.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why recycled ocean plastic is (often) a lie

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/video><\/p>\n

Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad also announced initiatives to provide additional income for fishermen, involving them\u00a0in marine waste collection and recycling, as well as monitoring water quality for pollution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0“Protecting the Mediterranean is no longer an environmental choice. It’s a social and economic necessity,” she said.<\/p>\n

It is also a climate necessity<\/a>. Scientific studies show that oceans have absorbed about 90% of the excess heat generated by human activity since the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, placing additional stress on fragile marine ecosystems. And experts say that increasing temperatures, declining rainfall and sea-level rise are among the factors impacting the Mediterranean Sea<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Are global ocean protection commitments enough?<\/p>\n

Algeria recently announced a project that would\u00a0digitize fishing activity monitoring and connect its ports to electronic tracking systems in cooperation with the Union for the Mediterranean,\u00a0a 43-state intergovernmental organization.<\/p>\n

In June, 55 countries signed the High Seas Treaty, which aims to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030. This milestone in global ocean governance \u2014 which among other things will create protected areas and regulate activities such as fishing, shipping and deep-sea mining<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 will come into effect once 60 countries have ratified it. This could happen by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

\"AFishers who rely on the sea for their living say the waters need to be better managedImage: Islam Alatrash\/DW <\/p>\n

June also saw 170 countries come together in France to announce the Nice Ocean Action Plan.\u00a0It calls for involving fishers\u00a0in environmental data collection, banning deep-sea fishing in fragile ecosystems\u00a0and supporting blue economy projects as a path to sustainable development.<\/p>\n

European countries have pledged to invest \u20ac1 billion (about $1.2 billion)\u00a0in ocean protection initiatives over the coming years. This includes support for countries in the\u00a0Global South<\/a>, stricter marine conservation, and advanced monitoring of pollution<\/a> in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

But those who live from the sea are not all convinced by protection promises. “It’s hard to believe when some of the biggest funders are also the world’s worst polluters,” Samir Sheikh al-Zaghnani, a former Tunisian captain and now independent environmental activist, told DW.<\/p>\n

Fishermen like al-Rammash would like to be more directly involved in protecting the waters around them. “We know the sea, and we can protect it, but we don’t have the tools,”\u00a0he said. “If they keep giving us promises while giving others the nets, there’ll be nothing left for us.”<\/p>\n

This article was originally written in Arabic. It\u00a0was produced as part of the 2025 UN Ocean Conference\u00a0Fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the Libyan coastal city\u00a0of Sirte, Mokhtar al-Rammash prepares to take his beat-up plastic boat out on another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-331681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115001300470750804","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}