Key Threats: Mediterranean Basin

Threats to Biodiversity

• Natural habitats in coastal regions – including coastal dunes with high numbers of endemic plants – have been reduced to small refuges surrounded by urban and tourism-related developments. Studies suggest that 60-70% of the region’s population lives within 60 km of the coast, causing high levels of air and water pollution (Medail and Quezel 1997; Vogiatzakis et al 2005; Caffyn et al 2002; Smith 1997).

• Areas of Spain, Portugal, and southwest Morocco that have been sustainably managed for cork oaks, grazing, fuel wood and medicinal plants are being replaced by intensive agriculture and development. This threatens the large numbers of native species found in these areas, such as the Iberian lynx, barbary deer and Iberian imperial eagle (Blondel and Aronson 1999).
• Native fauna in northern Africa is under increased pressure from livestock. Some shrublands, for example, have been drastically modified by converting native vegetation to grassland for grazing (Blondel and Aronson 1999; Thiault 1955).

• Tourism-related pressures are blamed for an increasing frequency of fires in coniferous forests and shrublands in the northern Mediterranean region. This leads, in turn, to soil erosion and plant invasions (le Houerou 1981;Vogiatzakis et al 2005; Susmel 1973).
• Interior rural areas of the northern Mediterranean Basin countries are being abandoned as populations move to coastal areas for tourism-related employment. Between 1946-1979, this caused an 11% decrease in traditional grazing and cultivation systems that support native biodiversity (Blondel and Aronson 1999).
• Light-loving endemic plants are threatened by the resurgence of woody vegetation in rural areas which have been abandoned (Medail and Verlaque 1997; Ruiz de la Torre 1985).
• Water resources in coastal areas have been dramatically affected by the construction of dams for agricultural purposes. Dams also prevent beaches and dunes from receiving necessary silt inputs; for example, sediment from the Ebro River in Spain has been reduced from 4 million to 0.4 million tons per year (Vogiatzakis et al 2005).

• Forest ecosystems in Morocco have been reduced to 30% of their potential area due to over-exploitation by growing populations (Benabid 2000; le Hourerou 1992).

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