Declining population of bottlenose dolphin. Common dolphin stable at 20,000-40,000. Black Sea Action Plan signed in 1996 by all six coastal nations. Plan includes promises for improved sewage control, regional conservation strategies, study of possible special environmental fund. But if trends continue, one of the great inland seas the Black Sea may someday have little worth saving.
Scientists consider the once-teeming sea one of the world's most threatened ecosystems.
Nearby beaches are almost permanently closed to swimming and fishing. A few miles away, a once-esteemed marine research station makes a little money using its seven vessels to ferry goods across the Black Sea to Istanbul, Turkey. It's the only way to raise funds, which once poured in from Soviet science academies. These are three pictures of the Black Sea that great body of water of Greek legend, Cold War strategizing and modern-day crisis. Larger than Italy, it sits strategically at the joining of Europe and Asia and is crucial to livelihoods in Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania and Turkey.