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Marine Pollution
Addressing Shipping Related Marine Pollution in the Pacific Islands
Region
by Anthony Talouli
SPREP Marine Pollution Adviser
1. Background
“The Pacific islands maintain resource access rights and management
responsibilities over 30 million square kilometres of ocean - equivalent
to the combined land areas of Canada, China and the USA. The total population
of the Pacific islands is only 6.7 million people, and only 2.6 million
if the largely inland population of Papua New Guinea is excluded. There
are at least 11 square kilometres of ocean for each and every Pacific
Islander. Jurisdictionally, the sea is nearly 200 times more significant
to the average Pacific islander than it is to the average global citizen” (Adams
et al 1995)
This quote to me encapsulates the paramount importance of the oceans
and its resources to pacific island countries and territories (PICTs).
For many PICTs the ocean is their only significant natural resource and
the good governance and sustainable management of their ocean resources
is the key to their economic and social well-being.
Ever since the first settlement of our islands our cultures and ways
of life have been intertwined with the oceans. Our forefathers were master
mariners - the first people to navigate the open oceans while the rest
of the world was still clinging to their coastal waters. The ability
of these first pacific mariners to find, settle and put in place regular
trade routes between minute islands within our immense ocean realm must
rank as one of the finest achievements of humankind. It is even more
so with the fact that the only navigational aids that they had to achieve
this was their intimate knowledge of the stars, currents and wind. Our
way of life then was in harmony with the ocean and our natural environment.
Today this intertwining of our way of life with the ocean still exists.
However with the advent of increasing and changing patterns in population
and a development oriented economy with increased commercial activities
the impacts of our activities on the ocean are more significant. On land
all our main cities and towns are on the coasts and most of the commercial
activities (primary industries and industrial) are primarily on the coastal
fringe. At sea shipping and fishing are the primary activities. The ocean
plays a role in all these activities, we need to ensure that we keep
our oceans healthy so that it is able to continue supporting these activities.
1.1 The PACPOL Programme
SPREP and the International
Maritime Organization (IMO) formulated and approved the Pacific
Ocean Pollution Prevention Programme (PACPOL) in 1998 as a joint 5-year
programme to address shipping related marine pollution. Funding was secured
in 1999 and the programme is currently being implemented to run from 2000-2004.
The programme is currently planned for strategy review in 2008 finding
out what are the new priorities from the pacific islands countries and
territories for another 5 year programme.
The Government of Canada through its Canada-South Pacific Ocean Development
Programme (C-SPOD) provided principal funding for the PACPOL Programme.
The International Maritime Organization provided supplementary funding
through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with SPREP provided that
SPREP manage IMO’s technical Co-operation Programme within the
Pacific Islands region. Other donors fund specific activities within
the PACPOL programme.
Canada’s C-SPOD funding programme to the whole region ended in
2004. IMO has continued to provide funding for the continued implementation
of the PACPOL Programme.
1.2 Need for the PACPOL Programme
Marine Pollution is recognised as one of the four main threats to the
world’s oceans. Shipping is a significant source of marine pollution.
The relevance of activities implemented through the PACPOL programme
has continued to be high on the agenda of the SPREP Meetings.
At the global level recent marine
spill incidents and the new threat of invasive marine species continue
to highlight the need to address the environmental impacts of shipping.
Pacific Island Countries need assistance in addressing their obligations
under recent IMO legal instruments such as the Convention
on Anti-fouling Systems; Protocol
on Hazardous and Noxious Substances; Bunkers Convention and most recently
the Ballast
Water Convention and the Ship
Wreck Removal Convention.
1.3 The Shipping and Fishing Sector within the Region
Shipping along with fishing, are the most intensive human use of the
world’s seas, being active across all maritime zones and jurisdictional
boundaries. Any activity relating to the governance of the seas must
therefore take account of shipping and fishing as the major human uses
of the ocean realm.
Today shipping is truly global, multi-national, and gargantuan. Shipping
carries more than 90% of world trade and as such underpins the continued
economic development of global human society, and is a vital force for
the delivery of globalisation of the world economy. Currently, there
are approximately 85,000 commercial ships registered on the books of
flag States, transporting around 5,400 million tonnes of cargo across
the oceans each year. The modern global shipping fleet comprises a bewildering
array of ship types and sizes, from super tankers to car ferries to bulk
carriers to aircraft carriers, container ships and cruise liners, not
to mention all types of fishing vessels. Equally bewildering, is the
diversity of cargoes carried. Try to identify one object or event around
you that is not shipping-dependant.
In the pacific islands region shipping can be divided into three main
types:
- Domestic shipping – shipping that takes place exclusively
within a single states’ Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ)
- International
shipping – shipping that occurs from one state’s
port to a second state’s port.
- Transit shipping – shipping
that passes through the region without calling into any PICT’s
port.
The vessels involved in shipping generally a set route that is managed
along internationally mandated protocols.
Within these three types of shipping we can categorise vessels into
the following
- Merchant – Containers vessels and tankers
- Passenger – Ferries
and cruise vessels
- Military – Naval and coast guard
- Yachts and Pleasure Craft
- Fishing vessels – domestic and distant
water fleet
Fishing vessels are different in that they follow no set route, as they
will go wherever the fish run. As such they will often venture into unfamiliar
and at times uncharted waters.
In addition to vessels the shipping and fishing sector have land-based
activities such as ports, shipbuilding and repair facilities and oil
storage and bunkering facilities. All these shipping related activities
have the potential to impact on the marine environment. Impacts can be
classed into two types:
- One off planned or accidental impacts – such as port construction
and marine spills
- Operational impacts – impacts from normal
operations such as ships waste management
2. Focal Activity Areas Addressed Through the Current PACPOL Programme
The approach taken by PACPOL is that we will provide the tools, technical
advice and assistance that members need to address shipping related marine
pollution while member states are responsible for implementation. The
PACPOL Strategy and Workplan was formulated through
a 1-year consultation process where all members were consulted during
country missions then finalised in a regional workshop prior to its being
tabled and endorsed at the 1998 SPREP Meeting.
The PACPOL programme addresses shipping related marine pollution issues
that have been identified and prioritised by our members. Progress on
implementation of the PACPOL Strategy and Workplan was reviewed during
the bi-annual regional PACPOL Workshop to ensure that it was kept current
with member priorities. Since 1998 PACPOL has hosted 4 Regional Workshops
in Fiji 1998; Samoa 1999; French Polynesia 2001 and New Zealand 2003.
At the Auckland workshop in 2003 member countries agreed not to hold
regional but national workshops.
The provision of model
legislation that provides enabling legislation for all IMO and other
shipping/fishing related international legal instruments has been implemented.
This recognised that all PICs have little or no legal drafting capability
and has been a major reason why PICs have been unable to implement measures
to allow them to meet their convention obligations or is a primary factor
in their not becoming a party to international legal instruments. This
model legislation has been adapted to suit domestic arrangements and passed
in the Cook Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu. Samoa is the latest to have enacted
marine pollution legislation in the first 2008 parliamentary sitting.
Fiji and Vanuatu are well into their legal drafting process.
2.1 Marine Spills
These activities seek to assist members
in meeting their obligations under the OPRC
and Intervention Conventions and the recently revised SPREP Pollution
Emergencies Protocol the Oil
Protocol and HNS
protocol. A regional
risk marine spill risk assessment was carried out. The first task
was to characterise shipping within the region and to map navigation hazards.
This has been done and is kept in a Geographic Information System. The
risk assessment identified that the main risk was from groundings rather
than collisions and also identified key areas where groundings were most
likely to occur. It also assessed the level of risk at all major ports
and identified the high-risk ports. Management measures were recommended
on how to minimise these risks.
Marine Spills will occur even with the best preventative and management
measures. It was essential to put in place an effective suite of marine
spill contingency plans. Marine Spills are classified into 3 tiers;
- Tier
3 – major spills that are beyond the capability of one
state to respond to or will impact on more than one state. Requires
international co-operation.
- Tier 2 – spills that are within the capability of
one state to address and impacting only on that state
- Tier 1 – minor
spills that are within the capability of one facility to address
The development of plans and the capability
to address these spills is the focus of this activity. The
“Pacific Islands Regional Marine Spill Contingency Plan (PACPLAN)”
was formulated and endorsed at the 2000 SPREP Meeting to address Tier
3 spills. It provides the framework and modalities through which international
assistance is requested and provided in the case of a major spill. It
essentially recognises the inability of PICTs to respond to Tier 3 spills
and makes arrangements whereby primary and secondary respondent roles
have been allocated to Australia, France, New Zealand and the USA for
each PICT. PACPLAN has to date been activated twice.
Table 1: Primary and Secondary Sources of Assistance - Divisions of
Responsibility
Assistance Provider |
Primary source of assistance for: |
Secondary source of assistance for: |
Australia |
Nauru, PNG, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Kiribati |
FSM, Fiji, Guam, New Caledonia, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau,
Tonga |
France |
French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis & Futuna |
Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, Niue, Vanuatu |
New Zealand |
Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue, Tokelau, Tonga |
American Samoa, Nauru, PNG, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Wallis & Futuna |
USA |
American Samoa, FSM, Guam, Marshall Islands, Northern Mariana Islands,
Palau, Samoa |
French Polynesia, Kiribati, Tokelau, Tuvalu |
At the Tier 2 level a model “National
Marine Spill Contingency Plan (NATPLAN)” was formulated and
provided. Most PICTs now have NATPLANs in place. In the FSM their governance
structure necessitated the drafting of State Plans and to date these have
been drafted for Kosrae and Yap States.
At the Tier 1 level the model
legislation requires that any facility that stores fuel in bulk or undertakes
fuel transfer be required to have a marine spill contingency plan. Oil
Terminals already have these in place but need to be reviewed to ensure
that they are consistent with the NATPLANs. The other facility types that
need to have plans are ports and power stations. We are currently working
to address port contingency plans with the Pacific Countries of Ports
Association (PCPA) formally known as Association of Pacific Ports (APP)
and will collaborate in a similar exercise with the Pacific Power Association.
With the exception of Fiji, Niue and
Papua New Guinea there are no significant stockpiles of marine spill equipment
in PICs. All territories with the exception of Tokelau and Wallis and
Futuna have their own stockpiles of equipment. We have formulated a Regional
Marine Spill Equipment Strategy that recommends what is needed for
each PICT and the associated financing, maintenance, replacement and training
requirements. SPREP recently delivered equipment with funding from IMO
to Tonga, Samoa and the Cook Islands. FSM, Palau and Marshall Islands
have recently placed orders to purchase oil spill equipment. Niue have
equipment stored by Bulk Fuel Corporation. Fiji & PNG have equipment
and have also set up pollution levies which are aimed at providing sustainable
financing of equipment maintenance, replacement and training requirements.
2.2 Ships Waste Management
A review of ships
waste management in the region was undertaken. It examined the obligations
under MARPOL
73/78 and the status of compliance with these provisions. The review
found that no PIC was MARPOL compliant. It identified that it was “unethical”
to require smaller PICs who have severe physical limitations when it comes
to acceptable waste management to provide for ships waste from international
shipping. A regional arrangement whereby regional waste reception centres
were designated at the ports of Apra (Guam), Papeete, Noumea, Lautoka
(Fiji), Suva and Port Moresby was recommended. These are the only ports
within the region to be obligated to accept international shipping waste.
All countries continue to be responsible for waste from domestic shipping.
These arrangements were tabled and accepted at the 2002 SPREP Meeting
and subsequently at the 49th Session of IMO’s Marine Environment
Protection Committee (MEPC) in July 2003. There are no provisions under
MARPOL for such regional arrangements so PACPOL was requested by MEPC
to draft a resolution with the necessary amendments for tabling at the
April 2004 session of MEPC.
The illegal dumping of waste at sea leads to the issue of marine debris.
The issue is one that is concern because of hazard to navigation (incident
in South Korea where a ferry capsized due to its propeller shaft being
fouled by derelict fishing gear causing the loss of over 200 lives),
entanglement of marine mammals, “ghost fishing” (derelict
fishing gear that continues to catch fish after it is lost or abandoned)
and the potential of marine debris to be a vector for invasive marine
species.
The particular concern in the region is that the fishing fleet operating
in our waters are distant water fleets. As such we are reliant for much
of the enforcement on the implementation by their respective flag states
to implement their obligations. In 2002 there were 1,116 vessels on the
Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) register consisting of 959 fishing vessels
and 116 “mother ships” or refrigerated fish carriers. Many
of these vessels are old, a significant number end up being abandoned
and most fall below the size limits to which MARPOL applies. Some vessels
are registered in countries that are not party to MARPOL 73/78. Some
fleets fish in EEZs but do not come into ports so port state control
provisions do not apply. These fleets spend extended periods at sea or
anchored within the lagoon without coming in to port – what happens
to their waste? Is it stockpiled until they reach their home port?
2.3 Port Operations
There are two main types of
ports in the pacific the large commercial ports that are run either by
the private sector or port authorities and the smaller social service
ports that are not run along commercial lines by the government. PACPOL
and the Association of Pacific Ports (APP) entered in a partnership in
September 2003 to implement the PCPA's (APP’s) Environment
Accord. Activities will include the formulation and implementation
of Environmental
Management Guidelines for Pacific Island Ports and model Port Marine
Spill Contingency Plans. We are also implementing the recommendations
on ships waste management that apply to ports.
2.4 Invasive Marine Species
The issue of invasive marine species from shipping related vectors in
particular ballast water but also hull fouling is one of four major threats
to the world’s oceans. The advent of bigger faster ships has increased
the potential for the introduction of marine invasive species carried
in ballast water. All marine life has a planktonic stage in its life
cycle and therefore all have the potential to be transported in Ballast.
Well documented cases such as the zebra mussel infestation in the great
lakes of North America, jellyfish in Eastern European inland seas and
the North Pacific Starfish in Australia have caused major ecological
upheavals and multi-million dollar economic costs. There is also the
potential risk to human life, health and safety through the introductions
of toxic dyno-flagellates and infectious diseases.
Activities to date within the
region have been limited to raising awareness through presentations during
country missions. PACPOL has recently formulated a Regional Strategy on
“Shipping
Related Invasive Marine Pests in the Pacific (SRIMP-PAC)” to
address the issue in 2004-2005 and was approved at the 2006 SPREP Meeting
in Noumea. The SRIMP-Pac is part of the regions responsibility under the
new IMO Ballast Water Convention 2004. The SRIMP-PAC also has an action
with a budget of US $3.9 million that will be partly financed by Global
Ballast Water Management Programme Phase II (GloBallast Partnerships).
2.5 World War II Wrecks
In September and December 2001
there were significant marine spill incidents at Ulithi Atoll, yap, FSM.
The spill was from an unforeseen source, the USS Mississinewa a sunken
WWII US Navy tanker (see link for regional strategy to address WWII wrecks).
This incident prompted the 2001 SPREP Meeting to instruct SPREP in collaboration
with the South Pacific Applied Geo-Science Commission (SOPAC) to draw
up a Regional
Strategy to address WWII wrecks. This task was given to PACPOL to
carry out but this work will be carried out on a bilateral basis with
countries that have WWII wrecks.
The Regional Strategy was drafted and presented to the 2002 SPREP Meeting.
The strategy was in two phases with the first phase being a more generic
preliminary investigation to set up a database of wrecks, carry out a
preliminary risk assessment and to agree on the intervention for each
level of risk. The second stage is site-specific assessments based on
risk priority identified in the first phase and the implementation of
the agreed intervention. It was also recommended that the USS Mississinewa
be the first wreck to undergo this process. The 2002 SPREP meeting endorsed
the regional strategy and approved the implementation of the first phase.
In 2002 the US Navy carried out investigations including operational
plans and an environmental impact assessment. A pump out of the USS Mississinewa
was carried out in February 2003. A total of 2 million US gallons (aprox.
9 million litres) of heavy fuel oil was pumped out and taken to Singapore
for reprocessing.
As part of its implementation of the first phase of the regional strategy,
SPREP put together a GIS database on WWII wrecks and also raised the
profile of the issue through presentations at international for a and
the media. This included featuring on 60 Minutes (Australia) and an article
in the October Issue of National Geographic. The total number of wrecks
in PICTs EEZ is 857. The 2003 SPREP Meeting decided that SPREP was to
cease regional implementation of the Strategy as the second phase was
to be implemented bi-laterally by the state that owned the wreck and
the state on whose EEZ it had sunk. SPREP was asked to continue to give
technical advice and assistance to members on request.
Table 2: World War Wrecks by Exclusive Economic Zone
Country EEZ |
Tankers and Oilers |
Total No. of Wrecks |
Australia |
3 |
49 |
Fiji |
- |
3 |
FSM |
16 |
150 |
Kiribati |
- |
6 |
Nauru |
- |
4 |
New Caledonia |
- |
10 |
New Zealand |
- |
2 |
Northern Mariana Islands |
1 |
64 |
Palau |
9 |
77 |
PNG |
3 |
279 |
RMI |
1 |
49 |
Solomon Islands |
2 |
158 |
Vanuatu |
- |
6 |
Grand Total |
35 |
857 |
|