The fishing grounds are relentlessly exploited, while creatures such as the monk seal, the marine turtles and the dolphins are in real danger of disappearing from the sea. The last virgin land is being invaded by developers. The political tensions that have always plagued the Mediterranean are aggravated by the presence of nuclear arms. The governments of the coastal states, encouraged by the United Nations, have been promising to do something to stop the degeneration of the sea under UNEP's Mediterranean Action Plan, which had been launched in 1975. But very little was achieved. It seemed the governments of the Mediterranean were reluctant to move from words to actions until obliged to do so by the force of popular opinion. Helping to bring this about was and is the aim of the Mediterranean Campaign.

In 1984, Greenpeace set up a research programme to help to define what their Mediterranean campaign should highlight. The campaigners settled on four issues on which they could back their arguments and actions with documented facts. These were: the quantity and nature of the fishing taking place in the Mediterranean, and its effect not only on fish but on other marine life; the pollution from industrial, urban and agricultural waste; the threat to wildlife habitats in the sea and on the coasts and islands; and the catastrophic presence of nuclear installations, weapons and waste.

The Mediterranean Campaign began in earnest in May 1986, the Greenpeace flagship Sirius toured the region and was in action, harassing the nuclear waste transport Mediterranean Shearwater in the Strait of Gibraltar as it made its way loaded with spent radioactive fuel from Italy to the UK. Seven days later, the Sirius's crew were dropping artificial 'reefs' into the sea around Malaga to foil illegal trawling. The next day the target was a ship stripping red coral with the infamous 'Italian bar'. On 6 June, Greenpeace activists were protesting against the destruction of the wildlife sanctuary of Cabrera, off Majorca, by Spanish military manoeuvres. Such was the success of her 1986 tour that the Sirius became the Campaign ship for the Mediterranean, during the late eighties early nineties.

THE 'ITALIAN BAR'
One of the most destructive forms of 'fishing' in the Mediterranean is that for red coral. Traditionally, divers, or ships using a drag called the ' St Andrew's cross', have taken the coral from the bed of the Mediterranean; but in recent years Spanish and Italian boats had begun to strip the coral by dragging the 'Italian bar' - 6 metres long, 40 centimetres across and weighing over a tonne - across the sea bottom. The bar smashes into the reefs and breaks them up, damaging far more coral than the nets attached to it collect, and destroying everything else alive in its path. The campaign against coral fishing with the Italian bar began in on 24 May 1986. when the Sinus sighted the coral-stripper Ricomar at work The Ricomar's captain at once began to raise the bar, but Greenpeace activists reached the ship in inflatables and clambered onto it . The captain then dumped the bar back into the sea dragging one campaigner under the water. As he was being rescued, another activist took his place on the bar when it re-emerged. The Ricomar then abandoned its attempt to gather coral and the action was called off. The campaign against the boats using the Italian bar must be one of Greenpeace's speediest successes on record, the combination of direct action and unceasing publicity had had their desired effect in just four months. The Italian bar was banned from Spanish waters late in 1986, but it is still used surreptitiously elsewhere in the Mediterranean.

.. PIRATE LONGLINERS
At the start of summer each year, bluefin tuna come into the Mediterranean from the Atlantic to spawn. Under agreements made through the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT), there is a closed season on tuna fishing as, since 1980, stocks have fallen by 60 percent.

But in June 1988. near the Spanish coast, the Sirius came upon a fleet of large fishing boats using longlines to catch tuna. Over 100 kilometres long, each line had between 1,500 and 2,000 hooks. The catches included not merely tuna but sharks and protected sea turtles. The ships, with English and Spanish names, were registered in Venezuela and Honduras - neither of which is a signatory to ICCAT. These 'pirate' ships change name and registration number overnight and do not show any registration port on their hull. All of them, however, had formerly belonged to a Japanese company, Foku Toku Maru. The crews were all Korean, Japanese or Taiwanese. In Las Palmas, in the Canaries, Japanese buyers took the ships' catches. And a Japanese government inspection vessel was with the fleet at all times. Greenpeace announced their belief that the ships still ultimately belonged to the Japanese, who were simply side-stepping the law. Other pirate boats operate under Turkish, Sierra Leonese and Panamanian flags, but are owned by Korean and Taiwanese companies. During the tuna closed season in 1989 the Sirius confronted the pirate boats, and on one occasion was nearly rammed. In another action wooden turtles tuna and dolphin were hooked on a longline by Greenpeace, much to the surprise of the fishermen on a pirate longliner when the substitute catch was hauled aboard.

ARTIFICIAL REEFS
Greenpeace's campaign against inshore trawling not only halted a destructive and illegal practice in some areas of the Mediterranean, but gave a positive boost to the wildlife Greenpeace were trying to protect. Italian and Spanish trawlers used persistently to fish within 5 kilometres of the coast and at depths of less than 50 metres, disturbing fish nursery areas and threatening the Posidonia seagrass beds that provide a valuable habitat.

The organisation's tactics in this case were less to confront trawlers directly than to make it impossible for them to fish in certain waters. In the first action, in May 1986, the Sirius dumped 35 artificial reefs - steel drums filled with concrete - in shallow waters east of Malaga, where divers had found evidence of illegal trawling. Any boats fishing in the area would find their nets snagged on the steel bars projecting from the drums, making it impossible for them to continue. Such was the success of this operation that both the Italian and the Spanish authorities began their own artificial reef programmes, installing more sophisticated concrete barriers that deter illegal trawling, but at the same time provide a haven for fish and other marine life.

MEDITERRANEAN DRIFTNETS
Greenpeace began a campaign against driftnetters in Italy in 1988, and against the Spanish boats in 1989. A typical Greenpeace action in 1989 saw the organisation in alliance with Spanish longline fishermen, angry that the continued use of driftnets was threatening their own livelihoods. On 10 July the Sirius and 40 Spanish longline boats sailed together into Cartagena to proclaim loudly their objection to the illegal fishing.

The campaign bore fruit in 1990. In July, the Italian government declared a ban on the nets and agreed to compensate the fishermen so that they could re-equip their boats with less destructive gear.. Following Greenpeace's campaign, countries such as Italy, Spain and Algeria are now strongly in support of a total ban on driftnets.

DOLPHIN DIE OFF
Between July and September 1990, the bodies of some 250 striped dolphins were washed up along the coasts of Spain and North Africa. The striped dolphin is a creature of the open sea, so the corpses that came ashore were thought to be but a fraction of the total dead. Scientists estimated that as many as 6,000 dolphins may have died.

Greenpeace reacted by channelling funds to the University of Barcelona to investigate the cause of the deaths, and alerted the Spanish-National Institute for Nature Conservation and the regional governments. The environmental research vessel Toftevaag, under charter to Greenpeace, assisted the Sirius in monitoring the dolphin populations on the high seas, while on land a fleet of vans began collecting corpses, which were held in cold storage. Greenpeace's work helped to spur official institutions into action, and in September 1990, scientists, government officials and members of Greenpeace met to co-ordinate efforts. Research has since revealed that many of-the dolphins were infected with a virus similar to the one that precipitated the death of thousands of North Sea harbour seals in 1988; in addition, all of the dolphins examined had liver damage characteristic of chemical poisoning.

It is likely to be very difficult to unravel all the causes of this die-off However, it is known that many synthetic compounds that accumulate in Mediterranean marine mammals do strongly suppress the immune system in other species. As the animals become sick and unable to feed, they draw on the energy reserves in their blubber, which is where most of the accumulated pollutants also reside. Fat 'mobilisation', therefore, leads to the rapid release into the bloodstream of comparatively large amounts of substances such as PCBs and DDT - which could further attack the animals' immune systems and livers. In the Mediterranean dolphins, levels of PCBs were as high as 500 parts per million (one dolphin had levels as high as 2,800 ppm), making them among the most highly contaminated mammals in the world. Under the slogan 'Zero 2000', Greenpeace have called for a complete halt to toxic discharges into the Mediterranean by the end of the century.

PIGS AND PESTICIDES
In Italy, Greenpeace had focused on the effects of nutrients and other pollution entering the Adriatic Sea from the River Po. Alerted by massive blooms of algae in the sea, in 1989 the Sirius, accompanied by the oceanographic vessel Daphne II, began a well-publicised sampling exercise of waters around the mouth of the Po. Armed with this evidence, and research indicating that 45 percent of the nutrient pollution in the Adriatic comes from intensive animal farming, Greenpeace decided to target the huge pig farms in the Po valley for action in 1990. On 11 April, for instance, volunteers hung banners on the roof of a giant farm in the Comacchio valley that houses 26,000 pigs - which produce as much 'fertiliser' as about 172,000 people might in a year.

MEDITERRANEAN BLUE? TOXIC THREATS
In 1986, Greenpeace had little opportunity to tackle other sources of toxic waste, although in July they drew attention to the poison being poured from the Penarroya factory into Portman Bay, Murcia. Probably the most scandalous source of pollution in the Mediterranean was the Penarroya company's factory in Portman Bay, Murcia, in south-eastern Spain.

Every day for nearly 30 years the Portman plant spewed 7,000 tonnes of toxic mud into the bay. By the late 1 980s the bay, where once boats of 5 metres' draught could sail, had become a solid mass of poisonous mud. Roughly 50 million tonnes of waste laden with cadmium, lead, zinc, cyanide and sulphuric acid had been deposited in that time, and the continental shelf for tens of kilometres around the bay was utterly devoid of life.

Greenpeace first moved against the plant very early in the Mediterranean campaign, at the end of July 1986. After warning the factory of their intention, six Greenpeace volunteers from the Sinus attempted to block the discharge pipe, and three of them chained themselves to it to stop anyone removing the bung. In fact, the activists did not entirely stop the flow - so that a spray of effluent shot 30 metres into the air as pressure built up behind the bung, making a picture that illustrated better than anything the filth that Penarroya was pouring into the sea.

In June 1987 Greenpeace exposed the hypocrisy of the Spanish government by dumping a tonne of toxic mud from Portman on the steps of the Ministry of Public Works in Madrid while, inside the building, the minister was celebrating 'World Day for the Environment' with the press. The organisation followed up this action with others and, at the end of the year, began legal proceedings against the company. Local fishermen and townspeople joined the campaign with direct actions of their own.

Finally, Penarroya abandoned the plant, selling the site and the contaminated bay to a tourist development company that intends to build houses and a golf course there. On I April 1990, the Spanish General Secretary of the Environment ceremonially halted the discharge from the pipe. Greenpeace regard the issue as won for all practical purposes - but they are still pursuing the Penarroya company in the courts in the hope of making them pay for the untold damage they caused the Mediterranean during their time at Portman Bay.

HABITATS UNDER THREAT
From 1986 Greenpeace drew attention to two particularly glaring examples of places where human activity was in danger of destroying the refuges of protected species - some of them unique in the Mediterranean. The small archipelago of Cabrera. south of Majorca, is a refuge for several endangered species: among the birds, the rarest is Audouin's gull, and others include Eleonora's falcon and the fish eagle. Here too was the last shelter in the Balearics of the Mediterranean monk seal, last seen on the islands in 1977.

None of this meant much to the Spanish military, which in 1973 began to use the islands for their manoeuvres. Several times a year, 1,500 men, with heavy vehicles and artillery, arrived to bombard the archipelago with 500 tonnes of munitions. Navy ships used the islands in their target practice, and in some years the air force too joined in the bombardment.

Greenpeace's aim - supported by scientists, the World Wide Fund for Nature, regional environmental organisations such as the Balearic Ornithology Group, and the public - was to have Cabrera declared a national park, so ending the destruction and offering total protection to the wildlife there.

The organisation's first move, in June 1986, was to telegraph the Spanish Minister of Defence to object to the impending manoeuvres, in doing so they made front-page news in the Spanish press. After the Sirius anchored in Cabrera's natural harbour, interrupting the manoeuvres, the Spanish government agreed to suspend military activity on the islands until an enquiry had established the exact nature of the damage being done. But the next September saw troops and equipment embarking at Palma for Cabrera. Volunteers from Greenpeace and the Balearic Ornithology Group chained themselves to the ship to delay it.

In November 1987 a demonstration of 5,000 people in Palma, with written support from more than 40 organisations, showed how strong public feeling was over the issue. At about the same time, Greenpeace revealed that the government's own scientists had condemned the manoeuvres and were also pressing for Cabrera to become a national park. Once more the manoeuvres were cancelled and, since then, each time the military have attempted to resume their exercises, Greenpeace have stopped them by their peaceful protest.

Political progress may have been slow, but already Cabrera's wildlife was benefiting from Greenpeace's success in halting military activity there: in just two years, the colony of Audouin's gulls, for example, had doubled in size. At last, in October 1988, the Balearics declared Cabrera a national park, but the Ministry of Defence continued to battle for its 'right' to open fire at will on the islands' environment. Finally, in September 1990, the Spanish parliament voted unanimously in favour of declaring Cabrera a national terrestrial and maritime park. However, the fact that the military has declared that it still wants to carry out some limited activity in the park is giving environmentalists cause for concern.

A NUCLEAR-FREE MEDITERRANEAN
Activists from the Sinus board the nuclear waste transport, Mediterranean Shearwater in Anzio harbour, Italy, on 24 October 1988. The action prevented the ship loading its cargo for nearly two days. The Mediterranean Shearwater regularly carries up to 30 tonnes of radioactive waste through the crowded Mediterranean for reprocessing at Sellafield in the UK If the ship suffered a major fire or collision when fully laden, it would release as much radioactivity as did the Chernobyl reactor in 1986.

The entire Mediterranean now exists in the shadow of the nuclear threat from the four nuclear arsenals and nuclear-powered ships of the French, Soviet, US and British navies, from the nuclear-armed air forces of those countries, all of which have bases in the region, and from the nuclear programmes of various Middle Eastern countries. The Gulf crisis that began in the summer of 1990 only increased the risks associated with all this potentially devastating hardware.

Greenpeace's first direct action against the military nuclear threat in the Mediterranean came in September 1987, when three inflatables made a brave attempt to stop the nuclear-armed destroyer USS Comte de Grasse from docking in Palma harbour. From 1988, actions followed thick and fast. None of the nuclear navies escaped the attentions of Greenpeace's campaigning ships, from the nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the French carrier Foch - both of which violated Spanish law by bringing nuclear weapons into Spanish harbours - to the British navy's submarine base at Gibraltar.

One of the more intriguing discoveries of the campaign was the anchorage in the Gulf of Hammamet, 35 kilometres off the Tunisian coast, where in June 1988 the Sirius came upon five Soviet nuclear warships hove to in midocean - a reflection of the USSR's lack of naval bases in the sea - along with a nuclear-armed US frigate, which was apparently keeping a watching eye on the Soviet flotilla. Volunteers promptly went into action against both navies, and succeeded in painting the international radiation symbol on the Soviet aircraft carrier Baku and on the US frigate Thomas C. Hart, despite being buzzed by a Soviet launch and sprayed by American fire hoses.

In the same month Greenpeace volunteers staged the organisation's first action in the US submarine base at La Maddalena, Sardinia, against the presence of nuclear cruise missiles. Both the Italian and US governments had publicly denied the missiles were at La Maddalena, although the tenders serving the base had been specially re-equipped to carry them three years previously. Greenpeace believed that at least 90 cruise missiles were handled by the base between 1986 and 1988. In addition, samples of the seabed showed a higher level of radioactivity than is normal in the area, which could only have come from the American submarines.

There were two more actions at the base in 1989. Then in February 1990 the Italian parliamentary group for foreign affairs approved Greenpeace's resolution calling for the publication of all data on the radioactivity at La Maddalena - thus acknowledging the nuclear presence for the first time.

SPREADING THE WORD
Greenpeace's successes in the Mediterranean by the end of 1990 had been profound in their effect. Not least had been the increasing awareness largely through headline-making direct actions - throughout the region of the urgency of the environmental issues affecting the sea. The Greenpeace office in France had been revived; the Sirius had received an enthusiastic reception on much of its tour of North Africa in 1989 and when it visited Malta during 1988-1990 and Cyprus in 1990; plans to open a new office in Greece were all but complete - all these things lent hope to the future. Greenpeace France had collapsed after the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand in July 1985, as national interest dominated environmental concern. But in February 1989 the climate was such that the office could reopen. Public membership then was just a few hundred; in the course of 1990, some 23,000 people supported Greenpeace France by their donations.

The revitalised French connection within Greenpeace, and the growing awareness of environmental issues throughout France, should be regarded as particularly significant in view of the European Commission's determination to apply the standards of cleanliness it has set for the North Sea to the Mediterranean by 1992. Greenpeace France have already made their presence felt in the Mediterranean campaign, publishing a detailed report on pollution in the Rhone, which contributes to the contamination of the Mediterranean, and identifying the organisations responsible, and acting against the chemicals company Rhone-Poulenc in July 1990, when volunteers blocked discharge pipes and strung a 40-metre satirical banner outside the company's plant.

GREECE
Early in 1991, the organisation's most important new move in the region was to open their first office in Greece. Athenians are already well aware of the polluted air that chokes their city, thanks to the plethora of automobiles and the output from local industry. And few Greek cities treat their sewage before dumping it into the sea. For Greece as a whole, agriculture poses a major threat to the Mediterranean, from fertilisers and pesticides and from olive oil processing plants. The contamination of Greek waters by oil is particularly severe - and it is this issue that the Greek office has adopted as its first campaign. To environmentalists, Greece also represents a crucial stepping stone to greater influence in the eastern Mediterranean.

In a region as culturally diverse and as politically unpredictable as the Mediterranean, Greenpeace have had an impact that is far out of proportion to their size and resources in the years since their campaign on behalf of the sea began in 1986. There have been major successes in Spain and Italy. The new Greek office promises to help to spread the organisation's message beyond western Europe.

INTO AFRICA
One of the more delicate tasks the Greenpeace Mediterranean campaign set itself for the late 1980s was to make its aims known in North Africa. There were two major problems to face. First, there was the possibility of an unsympathetic reaction to what is still widely perceived as a 'Western' organisation from peoples who until recently had been colonised by European countries. Second, the political realities of North Africa are quite different from those of Western Europe, and the concept of disinterested and impartial non-governmental organisations is not a familiar one.

In October 1989, when the Sirius set sail from Alicante for a five-week tour of ports in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, its aims were accordingly modest: to let people, and governments, know as neutrally as possible about Greenpeace and their aims, and to discover what environmental problems there were in the region and attitudes towards them, so that Greenpeace could formulate appropriate responses to them.