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The threat of chemical pollution, including oil ranked as the highest priority concern for
stakeholders as a whole (Fig. 7.14). The prioritization of this issue suggests that the
awareness level of chemical pollution is quite high and the causes are more clearly
understood than other issues addressed in Section 4.. Further, the image of oil spills spoiling
shores and threatening wildlife has a much more visceral visual impact than declining
biodiversity or nutrient enrichment. As a result, people may be inclined to associate
environmental degradation with such events, and may believe that the over all condition in
the Black Sea is because of pollution, whereas understanding the cause and effect
relationships of other sources of environmental/economic degradation are less accessible to
the general population. The over all perception of most stakeholder groups surveyed suggests
that this perception is common across most stakeholder groups. The individual stakeholders
surveyed shows that 81% ranked oil pollution as a high level concern.
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Figure 7.14 Stakeholders’ responses to the statement:“oil pollution in the Black Sea is
a high level of concern” |
All groups agreed with the statement that ‘oil pollution in the Black Sea is a high level
concern.’ This supports earlier findings of the high prioritization of pollution among
stakeholder groups reflected in Table 7.2. In terms of oil pollution, it appears that this is the
most prevalent perceived cause of pollution of the Black Sea. However, industrial waste is
also a concern. All groups disagreed that industrial wastewater treatment facilities work well
at the current time, and therefore these are perceived to be polluting the Black Sea waters.
There was a discrepancy between groups regarding the impacts of aging ships and poor
maintenance having negative impacts on the Black Sea waters. All groups except those in the
national shipping companies/agencies, shipping industry and the fishing industry felt that the
perceived deteriorating condition of ships caused problems in the Black Sea. This again
would be expected as they would be the two groups most likely to be contributing to these
problems. It is likely that these groups would prefer not to perceive themselves as
responsible for negative impacts on the ecology of the Black Sea.
In comparison, all stakeholder groups agreed that if new technologies were used there would
be less pollution in the Black Sea. This suggests that people are aware that declining
conditions and outdated technologies are responsible for the decline in Black Sea conditions
(Section 4.4.4). This also reflects a common belief that there are technological fixes to
environmental problems.
For methods to improve the conditions of the Black Sea, people consider that government
should be the primary means to schieve this. All stakeholder groups agreed that there would
be less pollution if enforcement was stronger and fines were higher for polluters, though the
manufacturing industry was only in very weak agreement. However, it should be taken into
account that individual groups generally are inclined to suggest that other groups are
responsible for pollution, rather than themselves. For example all groups agreed that
monitoring and enforcement of ship activities should be regulated more strongly, though the
harbor and port administrators and national shipping companies/agencies did not support this
as enthusiastically as other groups did. Similarly, all groups supported the statement that
‘activities in harbors should be strictly regulated’ but, again, shipping industry and port and
harbor administers did not agree with the same level of support as other groups.
This trend is also reflected in the issues pertaining to nutrient loading. It suggests that it will
be important not to assign blame to particular groups, but to target activities towards helping
them to shift their current practices to more environmentally sustainable approaches.
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