Cleaning up the Med

THOUSANDS of volunteers armed with gloves, rakes and rubbish bags will tomorrow be simultaneously engaged in cleaning up 800 Mediterranean beaches.
The objective is to clean up the environment, but also to monitor the state of 46,000km of coastline using photography.

Clean up and Scoop the Med is a campaign promoted by INFO/RAC-MAP, the Information and Communication Centre of the United Nations Environment Programme – Mediterranean Action Plan, together with Legambiente and the Cyprus Centre for Environmental Research and Education (KYKPEE).

During the UN Meeting of the Mediterranean Commission on Sustainable Development, Cyprus will represent the 21 Mediterranean countries participating in the event at a news conference that will take place at Limassol Lady’s Mile Beach, where volunteers and members of the Mediterranean Commission will gather to officially inaugurate and promote the Campaign.

Data on solid waste pollution, drawn from the report ‘A sustainable future for the Mediterranean’, written by the UNEP/MAP Blue Plan, will also be disseminated. Furthermore, information will be provided for the launch of an official Mediterranean Day (MEDday) in 2007.

Clean-up the Med, the international campaign organised by Legambiente since 1995, has so far succeeded in mobilising more than 6,000 organisations, public institutions, schools and universities. It represents the basis for the creation of a network of environmental organisations operating within the Mediterranean basin: the Euro-Mediterranean Environmental Network (EEN). The EEN is made up of NGOs, public and private institutions (municipal councils, schools etc.) that co-operate to promote and support peaceful and sustainable development in the Mediterranean region. A number of organisations and institutions from Algeria, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, Palestine, Portugal, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey will take part in this international campaign.

For the 2006 edition, an innovative idea will be introduced to emphasise the social value of the initiative. Two activities will be rolled into one: Clean up and Scoop the Med. As well as cleaning the beaches of the 21 countries and classifying and quantifying the collected waste, volunteers will be encouraged to take pictures of degraded areas to help build an image database of the state of the Mediterranean environment.

The image database, a veritable annual monitoring scheme of the state of coastal health, will represent a piece in the large jigsaw puzzle of the state of the Mediterranean coastline. Over time an important record of the progress (or regression) made, beach by beach, coastal strip by coastal strip will be gathered.

Thus, the action aimed at raising the awareness of governments, industries and communities about local environmental issues, particularly waste minimisation, recycling and waste management, will be more decisive and incisive.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.