Shipping and Ecology (Sustainability)

More than 2500 years ago, waterborne transportation constituted the dominant mode of trading, at least in the Mediterranean Sea region, which encompassed many highly populated cities along the shoreline. At that time, the most powerful Greek cities established colonies with which they kept close political, economic, cultural, and trading relations. Later, European trade extended into Asia and North Africa based on land routes, travel on which, however, was time consuming and restricted with respect to the bulk of the goods transported, and thereby expensive.