“We call for immediate action from the Ministry of Environment to assess the severity of this spill via an urgent survey and monitoring programme and to put in place a plan to minimize the impacts on the environment and public health. Based on the assessment results, the authorities should provide safety guidance to the Lebanese people especially with regards to fishing and swimming activities. This incident adds up to the long list of spills that have been threatening the rich marine biodiversity and impacting the populations of the Eastern Mediterranean region and is yet another facet of the destructive nature of our global systems’ addiction to fossil fuels.”
Now we have a chance to turn things around, by putting the most vulnerable and important parts of our oceans off-limits to destructive industries. Governments at the UN are starting work on a Global Ocean Treaty that will introduce laws to protect the oceans by creating sanctuaries.