At a time when Mediterranean countries are embarking on ambitious post-COVID recovery schemes or, in other contexts, searching a way out of the economic setbacks that the pandemic has caused, the month of June offers two special occasions that should prompt decision-makers to invest in a more sustainable and resilient future: World Environment Day (5 June) and World Oceans Day (8 June).
This year’s observance of World Environment Day will mark the formal launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021 – 2030. Two days later, World Oceans Day will celebrate “The Ocean: Life and Livelihoods”. The two themes are intertwined, especially in the Mediterranean context.
Ecosystem restoration (assisting in the recovery of ecosystems that have been degraded or destroyed, and conserving the ecosystems that are still intact) is essential to preserving marine life and livelihoods.
In an event that the Mediterranean Action Plan of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP/MAP) recently co-organized with the Geneva Environment Network, the UNEP/MAP Coordinator told fellow panelists and the audience that, according to science, the Mediterranean is on a collision course with nature. The science that the Coordinator was referring to is encapsulated in two seminal reports backed by the UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention system: the State of the Environment and Development in the Mediterranean (SoED), produced by Plan Bleu, a Regional Activity Centre of UNEP/MAP, and the First Mediterranean Assessment Report (MAR 1) released by the independent network of Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change (MedECC).
The ‘twin reports’ indicate that the global triple crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution has already taken 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 a “green renaissance in the Mediterranean”.
