Our Common Seas Coasts in Crisis

About this book

Originally published in 1990.

Most of the world's population lives on or near the coasts. Every nation not completely landlocked has used the sea as its supposedly self-cleansing garbage dump. Now the effects are being felt. There is not a coast in the world which is not dangerously polluted. Sewage, oil, plastics, industrial effluents, radioactive waste have been added to ungoverned development, all of which are busily destroying otherwise robust inshore eco-systems.

Hinrichsen, basing his work on United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) research and his own extensive travels, has described the situation in the Mediterranean, the Gulf, the Indian Ocean, the South-East Asian Seas and the Eastern Pacific. He covers both the disasters and the growing successes in dealing with them, and he points the way to the sort of international deal needed to rescue a vast resource in danger of complete destruction. His book is both a call to action and a sign of hope.

Contents

Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction

1. On Distant Shores
2. The Regional Seas of the Developing World
3. The Mediterranean Sea
4. The Persian Gulf
5. The Wider Caribbean
6. The South Pacific
7. The South-east Pacific
8. East Asia
9. South Asia
10. Eastern Africa
11. West and Central Africa
12. The Red Sea and Gulf of Aden
13. What Future for Regional Seas?

Bibliography
Index

Customer Reviews