The Black Sea region is suffering from continuing anthropogenic stress. The intense pollution by the surrounding countries that has now being going on for many decades has taken a heavy toll on the whole ecosystem including quality of the water and the sea-life. Under the current bad environmental conditions more than 160 million people in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russian Federation, Romania and Turkey are exposed to danger. Level of the sea water pollution exceeds the ecosystem’s assimilation capability. Thus, annually more than 100 000 tons of sewage, tens of thousands tons of oil products, tens of thousands tons of toxic heavy metals (copper, lead, cadmium, etc.) enter the sea.
The European Green Party defines two the most crucial problems that require urgent solutions: sea water pollution caused by human economic activity and strengthening of destructive processes related to abrasion and erosion of the coastal line.
The environmental catastrophe that occurred on November 11th 2007 in the Kerch Strait when 10 vessels (tankers and cargo carriers) sank in the strait or ran aground during a severe storm, including the Volganeft-139 is another striking demonstration of the real threat to the Black Sea ecosystem. Several tons of heavy oil and about 7 thousand tons of sulfur entered the sea. Currently thousands of tons of sand-black-oil mixture are just “stored” on the banks of the Kerch Strait, including Ukrainian and Russian sides. Floating oil spots that were found out in the coastal waters near the cities of Kerch and Kherson in March and repeated pollution of the beaches with oil products proves the fact that the Black Sea has been turning into a reservoir filled with oil.
Existing legislation aimed at protecting the Black Sea region, international cooperation within the frame of Bucharest Convention and others documents such as “Ministerial Declaration on the Black Sea Protection” 1993, “Strategic Action Plan on Rehabilitation and Protection of the Black Sea”, 1995, etc. that were countersigned and ratified by Ukraine have been neglected. Strategic Action plan was signed more than 10 years ago but so far it has not been really implemented.
The European Green Party is convinced that environmental problems of the Black Sea can be solved only provided increasing international influence on the governments of the Black Sea region countries.
Ecosystem of the Black Sea is in danger! The European Green Party calls upon Ukrainian government and governments of the Black Sea region to undertake urgent and efficient actions to improve the ecological situation in the region.
Urgent environmental measures are required to save the Black Sea from its further environmental degradation.
