Another voracious and painfully venomous predator, the nomad jellyfish, entered the Mediterranean in the 1970s. Now they form large swarms every summer, washing up on shores, endangering beachgoers and divers, blocking the water-intake pipes of power and desalinization plants. Swarms have reached the Straits of Sicily and are endangering Atlantic bluefin tuna eggs, threatening a fishery already on the verge of collapse.

Though we can’t remove invasive species, we do have the engineering expertise to stem the migration. The Panama Canal, which opened to shipping in 1914, offers an example of what might be accomplished. It operates a series of locks that function like sets of double doors, allowing ships to pass while making it more difficult for alien species to follow. Moreover, the fresh water of Gatun Lake, which forms a major part of the canal complex, provides a 21-mile barrier that impedes the migration of most saltwater species.

The Suez Canal once had its own salinity barrier, known as the Bitter Lakes. Previous expansions and agricultural wastewater dumped into the canal flushed it away, but recreating it could be cost-effective. Installing locks for the Suez Canal, located in a much simpler physical environment than the mountainous Panamanian region, should be easier and less costly than the $3.2 billion the Panama authorities expect to pay for modernized lock equipment.

Scientists and environmentalists have appealed to the European Commission to install locks and salinity barriers in the Suez Canal and have requested an environmental impact assessment. Despite Egypt’s assurances that the information would be provided by May, European Union officials say they have still not received a definitive report. But in discussions last October conducted by the United Nations Environment Program, the Egyptians reportedly said they would not sign an updated United Nations Mediterranean Action Plan unless language stating that invasive species are coming through the Suez Canal was removed. The MAP draft decision, with the language regarding the Suez Canal in brackets, goes to the Barcelona Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean for review in February.

Observers say that Brussels doesn’t want to lean too hard on Egypt because President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is cooperating in dealing with the refugee crisis. Many European Union member states with their own national interests in the Mediterranean see the Suez expansion as a sovereign decision by the Egyptian government and are loath to interfere.

But Egypt and its neighbors are losing sight of the big picture. For Egypt, with its large underemployed population, managing the fishing industry more wisely would employ more people and have greater long-term economic benefits than building expensive canal infrastructure that is vulnerable to a volatile global economy.

So, how can these competing interests be resolved? The problem may require new ideas and neutral leadership. In the mid-2000s, overfishing and environmental degradation was ruining fisheries off California. The Nature Conservancy bought up boats and licenses and leased these back to fishermen willing to employ more sustainable methods and use reporting software to help the NGO develop baseline data on the fishing stocks themselves. The result: Local fishermen are still fishing, and fish stocks are coming back. The program has been copied by several New England fisheries.