United Nations Environment Programme

Oil Spill Reaches Syrian Coastline

4 August 2006



The oil spill that has already polluted over 80 kilometres of the Lebanese coastline has reached the Syrian coastline and is spreading further north. Satellite imagery from the European Commission (EC) now shows that the oil slick has entered Syrian waters and has already contaminated approximately 10 kilometres of coastline north of the borders between Syria and Lebanon. “It is nearly three weeks since the bombing of the power plant and the initial satellite imagery unfortunately confirms that the oil spill is of a significant magnitude and spreading. …”, said United Nations Under-Secretary-General Achim Steiner, the Executive Director of UNEP, speaking from Nairobi. 

Natural resources in occupied Palestinian territories under constant pressures

United Nations Environment Programme 23 January 2003

Already stretched thin by the demands of a dense population coping with decades of conflict, natural resources in the Palestinian Occupied Territories are under constant pressure from water pollution, climate change, desertification and land degradation, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) says in a new study.