Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic region management systems

Atlantic Ocean Region includes the Baltic, the Mediterranean and the Black Seas. In each of those seas are practiced local and national, often traditional management systems. In many cases these systems may be quite different from those practiced in the various parts of the Atlantic proper.

As far as fisheries management is concerned, also the Atlantic Ocean proper ought to be divided into two major areas: the North and the South. In the former, formal, government(European Commission in Europe) administered systems dominate, many based on TACs and quotas and many other rules, often well enforced. In the South, on the African side,apart from a few countries, fisheries management, if any, is based on traditional ways, which may include some sorts of effort control. On the American/Caribbean side, management systems vary, ranging between the former two.

Current environmental issues

Endangered marine species include the manatee, seals, sea lions, turtles, and whales. Drift net fishing is killing dolphins, albatrosses and other seabirds (petrels, auks), hastening the decline of fish stocks and contributing to international disputes. There is municipal sludge pollution off eastern U.S., southern Brazil, and eastern Argentina, oil pollution in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Lake Maracaibo, Mediterranean Sea, and North Sea, and industrial waste and municipal sewage pollution in the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and Mediterranean Sea.