Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
because it increased the general environmental awareness and prepared-
ness through regional cooperation and transfer of knowledge. However,
its impact on behavioural change among target groups is not so clear
(Skjaerseth, 1996, 2002).
Kütting (2000a, ch. 5) is also critical of MAP. Even though admit-
ting that the regime has been successful in starting and maintaining a
cooperation process for a signii cant period of time in a region tradition-
ally characterized by many political conl icts, she i nds that overall it can
not be considered as successful in terms of either institutional or environ-
mental ef ectiveness. Moreover, she argues that basically MAP faced the
typical North-South divide that underpins so many global environmental
problems, although in this case at a regional scale. She also considers that
MAP has been rather disregarded by the international relations academic
community because traditional international relations research focuses
on matters of national economic interest when examining international
agreements and this was not the case in MAP, as it was formed due to
environmental concern. She even asks the question why MAP 'exists at
all since there is an apparent lack of motivation?' (Kütting, 2000a, p. 7).
Overall, Kütting suggests that MAP may have been a political success but
in terms of amelioration of the environmental problem, it has not of ered
a lot (Kütting, 2000b).
MAP may have succeeded in completing some activities but it is not
clear how much can really be assigned directly to it. As mentioned earlier,
the most important part of the Mediterranean Action Plan is that which
deals with combating pollution from land-based sources, since these are
the main polluters of the Mediterranean marine environment. More than
20 years after the LBS Protocol's entry into force, its ef ectiveness cannot
be clearly estimated. There have been several noteworthy actions, such as
construction of sewage treatment plants in many Mediterranean cities,
nevertheless, it is quite likely that some of these actions would have been
taken anyway.
In conclusion, the focus should be on areas where the Mediterranean
Action Plan has undoubtedly been successful. Even if it has not achieved
an enormous change in the state of the biophysical environment, it has
certainly enhanced cooperation, stability and security in a traditionally
unstable and politically heterogeneous region. Moreover, MAP has pro-
moted environmental awareness and capacity-building especially in the
less developed countries of the southern Mediterranean. In some ways
the political, rather than scientii c, success of MAP is ironic as it was the
expert scientii c 'epistemic community' that i rst created the international
collaboration responsible for launching the Barcelona Convention. But
the legacy is diplomatic rather than scientii c.
