Laurence David Mee, Ph.D.

Research

Laurence David Mee died in 2014. He was most recently the director of the Marine Institute at the Scottish Association for Marine Science in the United Kingdom. Mee used his Pew fellowship to address marine degradation in the Black Sea region, where most of the countries are facing a difficult transition from totalitarianism and centrally planned economies as they enter global markets. Mee believed that economic and social changes in the region had presented opportunities to introduce sustainable practices. To pursue this, Mee developed a public version of the 1996 Black Sea Strategic Action Plan and organized regional workshops for environmental educators. As a result of his fellowship, Mee made considerable progress toward greater protection of the Black Sea environment. This period saw the launch of a new $90 million phase of the Global Environment Facility-funded Black Sea Environmental Programme, the largest multidonor initiative for international waters since the 1992 Rio Summit. Thanks to the widespread distribution of Mee's publication "How to Save the Black Sea," regional environment ministers renewed their commitment to the Black Sea Strategic Action Plan in 2002. Mee also co-wrote two papers on pollution in the Black Sea, as well as a paper on the Black Sea and the Danube as a single system.