ABSTRACT
The results of the first estimates of the Blue Plan (see Chapter 14) are now already testable. In a sense, they make chilling reading in that they show very little has changed in the ways that socio-economic change is driving environmental change since the early 1980s when the predictions were made. The trend scenarios for the year 2000 fit much more clearly with what has happened compared to the alternative scenarios, in which much more social and political cooperation would have led to conditions in which pressure on the environment was much less marked. This outcome is in spite of the changes that have seen integrated policies being developed via the Barcelona Conventions and the Mediterranean Action Plan (Chapter 17). At the same time, the sorts of predictions that are being made for potential climate change show significant impacts will take place (Chapter 20), often in areas that are already marginal and experiencing the greatest rates of population growth (Chapter 14). Using the shared experiences of the characteristics of the Mediterranean together with the localized approaches discussed above, it is clear that the kind of cooperation envisaged by the Blue Plan is absolutely fundamental in providing the means by which environmental sustainability can be maintained. Regional security and stability will become increasingly entwined in the twenty-first century with environmental issues in the Mediterranean.
