Biological Resources of South Adriatic Aquatorium and Coastal Zone of Montenegro: Human Impact and Possibilities for Sustainable Exploitation

Abstract

The availability of biological resources, their diversity and quantity, structure and geographical distribution, as well as related questions, were always of prime economic, social, and political importance to humans. Regions of high biodiversity with all their applicative potentials are analytically incorporated in relevant geostrategic and geopolitical studies and regional sustainable developmental plans. It is pertinent to ask ourselves with which biological resources and how many of them do we possess, what is their current and potential values, how are they distributed, and what are their long-term perspectives of conservation, restoration, and sustainable exploitation? According to the IUEP-WCMC (UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre) criteria, the territory of Montenegro, together with the territory of other Balkan Peninsula countries: Greece, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Bulgaria, represents one of the six European or one of the 153 world’s centers of biological diversity. The territory of Montenegro is characterized by high genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity, which appeared as a response from living beings to the geological, geomorphological, climatic and hydrological diversity as well as complexity of historical changes that have occurred in this area during the past. Both the territory and South Adriatic aquatorium of Mediterranean part of Montenegro have high potentials for exploitation of some components of biodiversity. However, it is necessary to emphasize that the majority of natural ecosystems have been exploited for centuries and that their recent state is different from climatogenic, since they represent progradation-degradational derivatives of climazonal ecosystems still under anthropogenic pressure and constant stress. Concerning these facts, it is clear that in the present and future, exploitation of the components of biodiversity in the Mediterranean part of Montenegro has to be based on the principles of sustainability. Practically, this means that the components of biodiversity cannot be exploited without control, especially without a previous assessment of their quantity, model of use, conservation status, fragility, and renewable of resources. In this paper the threat and degree of human impact, possibilities and regime of biodiversity exploitation were presented, for each natural ecosystem of the Adriatic part of Montenegro, in general. For the purposes of preparing this paper, no special new field research was done, but a comparative analysis and synthesis are made by using existing scientific references, as well as actual relevant strategic documents of Montenegro.