ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the scope for cooperation and the potential for conflict in the Mediterranean in three important areas: fishing, seabed mining, and pollution control. Increasing demands for Mediterranean fish are likely to create dangers of overexploitation, and lead to more national claims to exclusive fishing beyond present limits. International disputes arising directly as a result of national claims to exclusive fisheries have been rare in the past. Fish catches in the Mediterranean in 1978 totalled 786,535 tons, or about one per cent of the world catch. Mediterranean fisheries are notable for the great variety of species fished commercially, and for the unusually high value of the catch. Environmental protection has done much for inter-state cooperation in the Mediterranean since the early 1970s. Industrial and chemical pollution reaches Mediterranean waters through river flow, in the air, and directly from coastal industrial activities.
