Pollution in the Mediterranean: A Regional Response

Pollution of the Mediterranean Sea has been an issue of significant political, economic and environmental concern for more than a decade. It has more recently become a regional issue with politically diverse coastal states and a wide variety of international agencies implementing cooperative programs of scientific research, education and training, planning, and treaty drafting. Being a regional issue, the pollution problem has facilitated discussions between nations on several levels and governments have found it politically advantageous to use the issue for a variety of purposes.This paper will provide an overview of the Mediterranean pollution problem, covering the nature of the problem, what has been done to date and what remains to be accomplished