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9/24/2007 11:14:00 AM
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The southeastern Mediterranean is getting poorer and more polluted |
Italy - The Institute of Studies on the Societies of the Mediterranean (ISSM-CNR), part of Italy's National Research Council, held a conference in Napoli (Naples), Napoli Province, Italy to release its 2007 report.
Italy - The Institute of Studies on the Societies of the Mediterranean (ISSM-CNR), part of Italy's National Research Council, held a conference in Napoli (Naples), Napoli Province, Italy to release its 2007 report. The main finding: poorer countries and those in the south are being hit harder by environmental problems than richer countries and those in the north. In the northern Mediterranean region, the rate of deforestation has slowed significantly, but greater population growth in the south has led to more forests being turned into farmland, said ISSM-CNR Director Paolo Malanima. More water resources are concentrated in the north, while Libya, Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority are water-stressed by international standards. Desertification is much more advanced on the African-Asian side of the Mediterranean: 75% of the land surface of Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya is desert and 60% of the land surface of Greece, Spain, and Italy is at risk of becoming so. Southern watercourses are far more contaminated, largely because the intensification of agriculture to feed the growing population has spilled fertilizers and pesticides into soil and groundwater. Malanima declared that more cooperation was needed in the areas of technology transfer and scientific communication between the two sides of the European Union.
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