Batroun is an outpost of beauty in Lebanon. The next generation of environmental activists want to make sure it stays that way. Georges “Junior” Daou belongs to the next generation of Lebanese. A long time nature-lover, he has devoted himself full time to rejecting toxic waste in Beirut, consistent oil spills that degrade the Mediterranean […]
NATO’s “steel fish” may not be works of art like this, but they have a very important goal: to catch oil spills. Pollution issues in the Mediterranean Sea have reached a point where the future of this historic body of water will be in serious doubt without environmental protection. A new project called “steel fish” […]
New parks will give relief to Tel Aviv’s crowded beaches, and save the environment! Israel’s announcement that it will create a new network of land and sea parks in order to protect its coastal escarpment is a boon for beach-lovers too. A harbinger of what might happen should the Gaza artificial island project take root, […]
Greenpeace is taking industry to task for releasing factory-generated effluent into the Mediterranean Sea off Lebanon’s coast. Environmental activists have stopped up a pipe that is gushing toxic waste into the Mediterranean Sea. So soon after the recent kerosene spill in Lebanon, Greenpeace is holding the local firm Sanita responsible for the ensuing toxic sludge in order to […]
Forty years in the making: Turkey still intent on building the country’s first nuclear reactor on this serene spot on the Mediterranean Coast. Cyprus says the zone falls right on a fault line. Despite the insanity and the imminent meltdown of Japan’s nuclear facilities now going from bad to worse, countries in the Middle East […]
Tiny pieces of plastic invisible to humans is likely behind the death of thousands of Mediterranean mammals, turtles, and fish. Maurice once speculated whether the Mediterranean has a plastic waste situation comparable to that of the Pacific, an issue particularly sensitive to our favorite eco-hunk David de Rothschild. His hunch – informed by empirical evidence […]
Is King Herod’s “City by the Sea” doomed once again? Man-made developments have put Caesarea at risk. The ancient sea port and other archeological sites in the Israel coastal community of Caesarea is being threatened by encroaching sea water due to a lack of natural sand, according to Zeev Margalit, Architect and Director of Conservation […]
If temperatures continue to increase and icecaps melt, scientists say a one meter rise in sea level will swallow the Nile Delta. In order to protect the good life: big cars, up to three or four or more in one family, massive homes, fancy food, and five star trips to the Bahamas, (all unavailable to […]
The new species, marivagia stellata, previously not known to science, doesn’t sting but is symptomatic of the environmental woes facing the Mediterranean Sea A new species of jellyfish found off Israel’s coast the summer poses no threat to bathers but should serve warning to the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea about the dangers posed by […]
The warmer colors (red, purple) represent parts of the planet that are likely to experience the worst drought within the next few decades. In some places, 2010 was the hottest year on record. Saudi Arabia – with its enormous swath of desert – was particularly hard hit, while Egypt stewed during a series of blackouts […]
For the first time in history, Israeli architects who designed Tel Aviv’s Port took best design at the European Biennial of Landscape Architecture Awards. The port of Tel Aviv had been an abandoned concrete pile for years before Mayslits Kassif Architecture turned it into one of the most hopping spots in Israel’s seaside city. Every […]
Along with a coral reef that scientists did not know existed, this shipwreck is one of two discovered by Nautilus robots in September. When the Nautilus of Titanic fame left Haifa in early September, the researchers on board aimed to scour deeper beneath the Mediterranean Sea’s surface than had previously been possible. Within two and a […]
Despite recent beach cleanup efforts, much more needs to be done to protect the Mediterranean. Meet Dr. Ruth Yahel, a marine ecologist for the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, who specializes in studying and protecting Israel’s Mediterranean marine environment. She said that the Med is “going through an enormous change, and that 50% of the […]
It’s like finding an oasis in the middle of the desert: Haifa University explorers discover coral reefs 700m beneath the Mediterranean Sea’s surface; will they be able to protect the reef from oil and gas exploration? The scene of bickering between Israel and Lebanon over gas fields, and potentially harboring a giant garbage patch, the […]
Scientific heavyweights to scour the Mediterranean Sea Floor in a first of its kind research mission We worry about the possibility of a giant trash heap floating in the Mediterranean, and about the effect that this and Israel’s new gas fields will have on marine life. We are also concerned that various oil exploration projects […]