STATE OF MARINE ENVIRONMENT

Pollution enters the marine environment through dumping, through discharges from the operations of ships, through land-based sources, and through the atmosphere (pollutants end up in the atmosphere from land-based sources). The GESAMP has determined that only 10 percent of marine pollution comes from dumping and 1 percent is a result of sea-bed activities. The main culprit of marine pollution (77 percent) is pollution coming from land-based sources.

Despite the plethora of national and international instruments devoted to the prevention and elimination of sea pollution, the results, in terms of environmental improvement, are mixed. According to a GESAMP study:

The GESAMP report has placed emphasis on the increasing global problem of eutrophication, that is, the increased biological production in coastal and near shore waters, because of the input of nutrients from sewage and agricultural fertilizers. According to the GESAMP, eutrophication is “among potentially the most damaging of all human influences on the oceans, in terms both of scale and consequences.” The GESAMP has warned that excessive nutrient inputs “can turn marine areas into wastelands.” The GESAMP has determined that sewage is a problem of high priority in all regional seas.