Fishing about and about fishing

 

(Opening lecture, Marine Session, Symposium on Transformations

of Middle Eastern Natural Environments. Middle East Studies Center,

Yale University, New Haven, USA. 1998).

 

GENERAL

The marine areas of the Middle East extend over 5 major marine basins: Levant

Basin (Eastern Mediterranean), Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, ArabianSea, Gulf of Oman,

and the Persian or Arabian Gulf. Although, in verygeneral terms, the issues in

marine environment of the Middle East aresimilar to those of other seas, a closer

examination reveals certainpeculiar features. Among them are the Suez Canal with

its dense ship traffic, the huge amounts of crude oil, fuels, and petro-chemicals

carried through the canal and other Middle East marine areas, the two semienclosed

basins (the Red Sea and the Persian/Arabian Gulf), the peculiar tropical

biotopes such as, e.g., coral reefs, and the inadequate regional and sub-regional

cooperation in environmental matters, due to historical, political, and cultural

reasons.

Numerous studies describe the environmental changes that have occurred

throughout the Middle East during the last few decades (Ben-Tuvia, 1985;Ben-

Yami and Glaser, 1974; Caddy, 1993b; Caddy and Oliver, 1996; Golikand

Goldsmith, 1986; Inman and Jenkins, 1984; Nir, 1989; Vadiya and Shenuda, 1985).

This includes the development and effect of polluted and eutrophicated areas, and

the physical effect of engineering projects.

The main issues in the Middle East marine environment are:

(1) Pollution (municipal, industrial and agricultural waste and effluent) originating

from densely populated areas with high population growth rate (particularly in the

Southeastern Mediterranean) (Shehadeh and Feidi, 1996);

(2) Coastal erosion and other effects of engineering projects (Inman and Jenkins,

1984; Nir, 1989);

(3) The state of fishery resources and their exploitation (Caddy, 1933b, Caddy and

Oliver, 1993);

(4) Conservation of marine and coastal biotopes and endangered species, and the

biota migration through Suez Canal (Ben-Tuvia, 1978, 1985; Ben-Yami and Glaser,

1974; Russ, 19996);

(5) Oil spills;

(6) Pollution due to shipping.

MUNICIPAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND AGRICULTURAL EFFLUENTS

These are the most common and major sources of marine pollution that may

contain a great variety of nutrients, untreated bio-wastes with the accompanying

bacterial and viral presence, pesticides and other toxins including heavy metals

and other chemicals. They may be abnormally acid or basic for the marine

environment into which they are poured. They may fuel interactive physical and

chemical processes both existing in the system and unforeseen and awaken by the

pollution. Such may be, e.g., synergistic creation or transformation of poisonous

materials and re-accumulation of contaminants, with the resulting unpredictable

and accumulative effects to which some species may be more sensitive than other

(Patin, 1992). Areas particularly affected by this sort of pollution can be found along

the coast of Israel and Gaza, the Nile Delta, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Persian

(Arabian) Gulf.

Some interests, often centered in developed, industrial countries, are looking for

areas where anti-pollution legislation is either weak or not enforced to set up plants

that would not be permitted in their own countries at low investment costs. There is

at least one such example in the Haifa Bay, Israel.

MARINE AND COASTAL FISH FARMING

Coastal and marine fish farming, the latter being rather recent and otherwise

beneficial though controversial development, are producing pollution which may be

harmful to environment mainly in semi-enclosed bays and inlets.

Coastal fish farms effluents contain mainly nutrients, but also chemicals sometimes

misapplied (Berg and Lavilla-Pitogo, 1996). Marine cage farming is usually

introducing into its immediate environment waste feed and fish faeces. Other

undesirable elements may include antibiotic and chemical residues from disease

and parasite treatments. Marine fish farming development in the Red Sea

(Shehadeh and Feidi, 1996) may create environmental problems, if sites are not

well chosen and culture practices environment-friendly, especially with respect to

coral reefs.

HOSTILITIES

Oil pollution resulting from separate accidents or hostilities, so far occurred mainly

in the Gulf where the world's most dramatic, though perhaps not the most

damaging oil spill was caused on purpose by the Iraqi government during the 1991

Gulf War. An estimated 11M barrels of crude were released into the sea and

quickly spread affecting and endangering hundreds of kilometers of mainly Saudi

coastline. In cleaning efforts, an estimated 13% of this amount was recovered.

Fortunately, and against some rather pessimistic forecasts, nature quickly restored

the ecosystem and within 6 months the marine life thrived again. Multiple

experience seems to indicate that the warm, tropical marine ecosystems are able

to deal faster with oil pollution than the cooler ones, owing to both more intensive

solar radiation and faster bacterial activity.

FISHERIES

Fisheries resources play important economic role, especially in the countries of the

southern Arabian Peninsula and in Egypt. Although, some of these resources are

currently under pressure of often excessive fishing effort and other anthroprogenic

factors, none of them are currently considered seriously over-exploited, (Caddy and

Oliver, 1996;Feidi, 1996; Sanders and Morgan, 1989). Since most of the fish stocks

are straddling in waters of more than one country, international and regional fishery

management are part of the issue.

The combined effect of intensive fishing activities and the progressive enrichment

(eutrophication) due to run-off of nutrients and other polluting agents on fisheries in

the semi-enclosed Mediterranean has accelerated over the last decade. This

ongoing change is now a matter of concern to Mediterranean countries, in

particular in view of the ecological calamity that in early 1990s befell the Black Sea

and its fisheries, which evidently has been triggered and fed by man-made pollution

(Zaitsev, 1993; Caddy, 1993; Ben-Yami, 1994) which combined with a devastating

intrusion of an exotic predatory comb-jelly.

Coastal pollution and the resulting eutrophication are playing an ambivalent role

respective fisheries in oligotrophic (poor in nutrients and of low primary production)

seas. Stable and even growing Mediterranean fish landings can only be explained

in the terms of man-made enrichment of its waters. Such enrichment is, for

example, compensating for the reduction of nutrients supply by the Nile River since

the Aswan High Dam construction, and apparently represents the main cause for

the increasing landings in Mediterranean fisheries(Caddy, 1993b, 1996). The

collapse of the 18,000 to 25,000 t/year seasonal sardinella fishery off the Nile Delta

after 1964, when the Nile's nutrient-rich outflow was severely reduced, brought this

fishery down to 550 t in 1966. Since the eighties, however, sardinella and other

small pelagic catches in Egypt's Mediterranean waters keep growing and reached

about 50% of the pre-Aswan period. Also catches of some demersal fish have

grown significantly. These and other yield increases appear to be a result rather of

anthropogenic enrichment than of the predominantly inadequate fishery

management.

TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

Tourism development, most recently along the coasts of the Gulf of Aqaba (Gulf of

Eilat) is a quite separate issue. Its environmental impact is often under-estimated,

resulting in inadequate sewage treatment infrastructure. Often inadequate planning

is due to the transitory character of the tourist population, and in spite of the fact

that it may exceed by far that of the permanent residents.

From the point of view of environmental protection all projects involving massive

increase of the density of coastal population in onearea, whether permanent or

transient, should be treated as a single one. One way to assess the eventual

damage and at the same time to set limits on the proposed development is: (a) to

assess the existing contribution to marine pollution in terms of person/day/pollution

factors; (b) to assess the maximum sustainable pollution intake throughout the

affected marine area (approximate pollution carrying capacity - GESAMP,

1986;Krom and Cohen, 1991); (c) to determine the additional number of

persons/day that the ecosystem affected can sustain without permanent damage to

coral reefs, water transparency, etc., taking into consideration the existing and

additional means of sewage treatment; (d)upon such determination, to allocate the

allowable additional population among the various projects. In areas, such as the

Gulf of Aqaba, such an approach would call for international cooperation.

CORALS

In the Middle East marine environment corals still abound and thrive. Coral reefs

represent rather sensitive biotope, vulnerable not only to anthropogenic but also to

natural causes. Pollution of any kind and coral piracy can bring about, directly or

indirectly, as the straw that breaks camel's back, the death or degradation of a reef.

Dead coral reefs are often found covered with sponge growth or algal turf, while

multi-species bleaching of coral reefs, recently reported from the southern Persian

Gulf (Dr. Roger Uwate - private communication), is the result of breakdown of the

symbiosis between the corals and Zooxanthellae algae. Coral bleaching has been

ascribed to several reasons, most often to warming of the seawater. Seasonal

floods carrying sediment that overlays coral reefs is another natural cause for reef

degradation. The question would marine reserves be the solution for saving coral

reefs (Russ, 1996), is, therefore, an interesting issue.

POSSIBLE EFFECTS OF MARINE POLLUTION

Eutrophication which in seas with low natural productivity, such as Azov Sea and

the Mediterranean, initially enhances marine organisms populations later may lead

to major ecosystem damage with associated collapse of whole ecosystems.

Pollution may reduce bio-diversity and cause harmful genetic changes, especially

in the sensitive ecosystems of coral reefs in the Red Sea/Indian Ocean system and

the brackish and hypersaline lagoons in Egypt. It may reduce water transparency

due to algal and medusae blooms detrimental to other marine organisms and to the

tourist and recreational industry in coastal areas, in particular in the Levant Basin

and along the shores of the Sinai Peninsula.

Another danger is the occurrence of heavy metals and other poisonous substances

in marine food. Special attention must be paid to the presence in the run-off issued

by the existing and developing industries in the area, especially such contaminants

as mercury as to which effect on environment there is now little argument, and

more problematic ones as, e.g., cadmium, (Enserink et al., 1991; Simpson, 1981;

Talbot, 1989; Nogawa, 1984).

Countries of the Middle East have a joint interest in protecting their waters from

pollution, in particular from non-biodegradable contaminants. They can be grouped

by areas where joint regulation and enforcement would benefit all involved, as: (i)

Eastern Mediterranean; (ii) Red Sea; (iii) Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea and Gulf of

Oman; (iv) the Persian (Arab) Gulf. In particular the last area is ecologically

vulnerable and hence the importance of environmental protection throughout the

whole Tigris-Euphrates river basin whose waters flow into the Gulf.

MIGRATION, BIO-DIVERSITY AND EXOTIC SPECIES

In some areas of the Middle East the native marine life, apart from being exposed

to the stress of pollution and destruction of feeding and breeding habitats, has to

bear the risks of competition due to intended or incidental introductions of exotic

organisms, of freak blooms of exotic and local ones, and of diseases and their

carriers, such as the new Noda virus which is the cause of viral encephalopathy in

seabass, a fish cultured in the area, or the viruses that have been plaguing shrimp

farms in Southern Asia.

Introductions and immigrations of exotic wild and farmed species may affect the

bio-diversity in the marine ecosystem. This issue has been long actual in the

Mediterranean where numerous migrants from the Red Sea, including several tens

of fishes, have been continually settling in the Levant Basin in niches occupied by

native species (Ben-Tuvia, 1978,1985; Ben-Yami and Glaser, 1974; Golani and

Ben-Tuvia, 1989), and more recently also, for example, in the Gulf of Aqaba where

the Mediterranean gilthead seabream raised by Israeli cage farmers in Elat already

found its way into the wild.

COASTAL CONSTRUCTION

Environmental effects of coastal and other marine constructions are usually

detrimental in biological and physical terms, to the coastline, low delta areas, and

inshore biotopes, and only too often predictable but neglected. One reason is the

steady increasing prices of land and, hence, development load in heavily populated

coastal areas. Also the actual and potential ecological damage due to major

engineering projects influencing the flow of major rivers, especially with respect to

the Nile-Suez Canal area and the Shatt-al-Arab, represent a major issue (Inman

and Jenkins, 1984; Vadiya and Shenuda, 1985). One conspicuous example is the

coastal erosion in Egypt in the wake of the High Dam construction at Aswan.

Harbours and marinas: Many harbours, marinas, and similar projects wrongly

planned, both already completed and still in the planning stage have become or

may yet to become ecological calamities. In Israel, these are the Ashdod harbour

and the marina at Herzlia. Also the coast of Gaza is already heavily eroded due to

the rather minor structures existing there, (Golik and Goldsmith, 1986). Any major

construction, such as deepwater harbours, especially if based on sea

walls/breakwaters protruding seawards, would most certainly substantially

accelerate the coastal erosion, endangering not just the beaches, but also coastal

roads and residential areas, (Nir, 1989). At such sites innovative solutions such as,

e.g., offshore harbours connected with the coast by bridges allowing free flow of

water may represent a more reasonable option.

SHIPPING

Pollution generated by shipping, notably oil tankers, (particularly along the shipping

lines leading to and from the Suez Canal, the Straits of Baab-el-Mandab, the Gulf

of Oman, and Shatt-al-Arab) contaminates both sea and beaches. It is partly

caused by emptying and washing ships' bilges and oil and fuel tanks at sea, and

partly by waste and litter, some of it of practically indestructible plastic materials,

jettisoned by ships (Golik and Gertner, 1989). Much of this pollution arrives at

beaches in the form of tar-like product and as ordinary garbage. Some marine

animals swallow plastic bags, bottles and cups, rubber bands, etc., while other may

wrap themselves up in them. Some die.

The Suez Canal alone is crossed by some 20,000 vessels, annually, that carry

about 14% of the world's trade. This includes 2,500 tankers. The average amount

of crude oil originating mainly from the Gulf, but also from local production, passing

daily the Suez Canal is approximately 800,000 barrels. The Suez Canal has been

deepened recently to the depth of 17.5 m, which makes it navigable for all but the

largest oil tankers. The load of the oil traffic on the canal seems, however, to be

subsiding owing to the increasing use of the Suez-Mediterranean Pipeline

(SUMED) and to a much lesser degree the Trans-Israel Pipeline (TIP). This does

not necessarily reduce the risk of contamination, because the oil to and from those

pipes is carried by ships, and the operations of pumping into and from the pipes

may in fact be increasing this risk.

The crude-oil load on the Suez Canal environment is also due to the local

production centering predominantly on the Gulf of Suez basin. Further development

of oil refineries and petro-chemical industries has been projected in Egypt.

FUTURE RESEARCH NEEDS AND COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT

In all areas, but especially, in enclosed and semi-enclosed bays, gulfs, and lagoons

there is a need for "preventive" research and surveys, one objective being the

assessment of their environmental capacity to absorb waste originating from

human activities (GESAMP, 1986), with special attention to heavy metals and other

poisonous substances. It should cover the water at all levels, the sediments and

the flora and fauna, (Caddy, 1993). Routine monitoring and regular scientific

research represent an essential condition for rational decision making and should

be introduced in all marine areas to prevent unpleasant surprises, including

environmental effects due to global warming (Everett, 1995) and ozone depletion

(Baker, 1991) especially on sensitive ecosystems.

At the same time we should bear in mind the widely discussed limitations of

environmental sciences, whether when it comes to the reliability of environmental

capacity assessments (Krom and Cohen, 1991) or to forecasting of the influence of

natural and man-caused changes on whole ecosystems and their separate

components.

No doubt the worldwide movement towards integrated coastal zone management

(ICZM) which appears more and more essential in view of the multiple users of

coastal waters and beaches, and the associated resources, will arrive also in the

Middle East. Coastal development and protection are largely a national issue which

is mainly related to environmental degradation of shores, including coastal lakes

and lagoons, mangrove areas, beaches, and coral reefs. This issue may become

international where major coastal construction project in one country may cause

beach degradation in another, or where pollution originating in one country is

contaminating beaches and inshore waters of its neighbour.

CONCLUSION

In view of the fast rate of population growth, industrial and tourist development, and

crude oil production and transportation, issues in marine environment whether of

the usual sort or specific to the Middle East will increasingly require national

attention and international cooperation among neighbouring countries. In some

areas (Persian Gulf, Gulf of Aqaba, Southeastern Mediterranean) without such

cooperation whole marine ecosystems may collapse. Efforts towards establishment

or reinforcement of such cooperation, notwithstanding political situation, must

continue and sub-regional meetings in the areas of: 1.Gulf of Oman and

Persian/Arabian Gulf; 2.Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, and Gulf of Aden; 3.Red Sea;

4.Levant Basin, might represent a good start to further such cooperation.

*Ben-Yami, M. 1999. Middle Eastern marine environments: an overview of

anthroprogenic impacts. Pp. 365-374 in Albert, J., Bernhardson, M. and R. Kenna

(Eds.). Transformations of Middle Eastern Natural Environments: Legacies and

Lessons. Bull.Series (103). Yale Univ., New Haven, USA. 1998.

****************

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