Report Contents

Marine Litter in the Black Sea Region

2009

Chapter 6 - Gaps and Needs in Coverage of Marine Litter Management

6. GAPS AND NEEDS IN COVERAGE OF MARINE LITTER MANAGEMENT

The major gaps were already identified in Section 4.2 of the report by means of questioning National Consultants on ML about the outputs of ML-related projects and other relevant activities implemented in their countries in 1996-2006 (see Table 4.3). Besides, based on available knowledge, the National Consultants were requested to set priorities – “primary”, “secondary” and “next to 0” (least important) – in the proposed checklist of 18 actions (or, better, categories of actions) which can promote, in theory, the addressing and mitigation of ML problem. The request was accompanied with common suggestion to add any other activities to the list if necessary. However, most experts (except the Bulgarian one) did not apply to this option, and that is, probably, indicative of the checklist’s completeness. Results of the prioritization provided by the National Consultants are shown in Table 6.1.

According to the summarized scores based on individual estimates by the National Consultants, at least seven (but probably more) high priority actions should be taken into careful consideration. They are: (1) correction of waste management policy; (2) improvement of legal and administrative instruments; (3) development of sustainable ML management; (4) development of ML monitoring methodology; (5) national assessment of ML pollution; (6) preparation of proposals to prevent and reduce ML; and (7) preparation of awareness and educational tools.

6.1. REGIONAL LEVEL

The Special Session on ML was organized by the BSC Permanent Secretariat from 9-10 October 2006 in Istanbul within the 15th Meeting of the BSC Advisory Group on Pollution Monitoring and Assessment. This meeting, with participation of 22 national and regional experts on marine pollution, was conducted following the BSC Work Plan and the Memorandum of Understanding concluded in 2005 between the BSC Permanent Secretariat and the UNEP Regional Seas Coordinating Office in order to develop the Regional Activity on ML in the Black Sea within the framework of the BS SAP. Minutes of the ML Special Session are attached as Annex 8.

The pre-final draft of this report was presented as well as the National ML Reports. Special attention was devoted to the results of expert evaluation of priorities in coverage of ML problem on the national level (see Section 6.1). However, it was noted that the summarized “national” scores do not necessarily reflect the ML priorities on the regional scale. At the same time, participants of the meeting agreed that the major gaps and needs in coverage of ML management on the regional level descend from the national ones, thus, the regional gaps and needs could be summarized as follows:

(a) underdevelopment of waste management policy and, particularly, its incompleteness and low efficiency in respect of ML issues;

(b) imperfection and disbalance of legal and administrative instruments developed for solid waste and ML management;

(c) lack of common ML monitoring and assessment approach based on the standardized methodologies and assessment criteria;

(d) deficiency of practical measures destined to prevent and reduce ML pollution;

(e) technological lag in respect of contemporary methods and devices for collection, processing, recycling and disposal of solid wastes and ML;

(f) insufficiency of public awareness/education regarding ML problem;

(g) low level of involvement of general public and private sector in combatting ML pollution;

(h) gaps in professional knowledge on ML issues among managers and authorities involved in the protection of the Black Sea against pollution.

Table 6.1. Identification of priorities by national consultants on ML

(P – primary, S – secondary, U – unimportant, “—” – not assessed)