When seaweed thrives, fishing in and around Little Bay, Jamaica also improves. This alternative livelihoods project is one of many that make up the 14 coastal protection projects being implemented across the region by the 5Cs. Here, Ceylon Clayton carries a crate of seaweed. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

By Zadie Neufville
NEGRIL, Jamaica, Aug 24 2017 (IPS)

Ceylon Clayton is trying to revive a sea moss growing project he and friends started a few years ago to supplement their dwindling earnings as fishermen.

This time, he has sought the support of outsiders and fishermen from neighbouring communities to expand the operations and the ‘unofficial’ fishing sanctuary. Clayton is leading a group of ten fishers from the Little Bay community in Westmoreland, Jamaica, who have big dreams of turning the tiny fishing village into the largest sea moss producer on the island.To protect their ‘nursery’ and preserve the recovery, the fishermen took turns patrolling the bay, but two years ago, they ran out of money.

He is also one of the many thousands of fishers in the Caribbean who are part of an industry that, along with other ecosystem services, earns around 2 billion dollars a year, but which experts say is already fully developed or over-exploited.

The men began farming seaweed because they could no longer support their families fishing on the narrow Negril shelf, and they lacked the equipment needed to fish in deeper waters, he said.

As Clayton tells it, not long after they began enforcing a ‘no fishing’ zone, they were both surprised and pleased that within two and a half years, there was a noticeable increase in the number and size of lobsters being caught.

“When we were harvesting the sea moss we noticed that there were lots of young lobsters, shrimp and juvenile fish in the roots. They were eating there and the big fish were also coming back into the bay to eat the small fish,” Clayton told members of a delegation from the German Development Bank (KfW), the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) also called 5Cs and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) who came to visit the site in May.

To protect their ‘nursery’ and preserve the recovery, the fishermen took turns patrolling the bay, but two years ago, they ran out of money.

“We didn’t have the markets,” Clayton said, noting there were limited markets for unprocessed seaweed and not enough money to support the patrols.

The seaweed is thriving and teeming with marine life; fishing in around Little Bay and the neighbouring villages has also improved, Clayton said. Now he, his wife (also a fisher) and eight friends want to build on that success and believe the climate change adaptation project being implemented by the 5Cs is their best chance at success. They’ve recruited other fishers, the local school and shopkeepers.

Showing off the variety of juvenile marine animals, including baby eels, seahorses, octopi, reef fish and shrimp hiding among the seaweed, the 30 plus-years veteran fisherman explained that the experiment had shown the community the success that could come from growing, processing and effectively marketing the product. The bonus, he said, would be the benefits that come from making the bay off-limits for fishing.

This alternative livelihoods project is one of many that make up the 14 coastal protection projects being implemented across the region by the 5Cs. Aptly named the Coastal Protection for Climate Change Adaptation (CPCCA) in Small Island States in the Caribbean Project because of its focus, it is being implemented with technical support from IUCN and a €12.9 million in grant funding from the KfW.

“The project seeks to minimise the adverse impacts from climate change by restoring the protective services offered by natural eco-systems like coastal mangrove forests and coral reefs in some areas, while restoring and building man-made structures such as groynes and revetments in others,” the IUCN Technical consultant Robert Kerr said in an email. Aside from Jamaica, Grenada, Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines are also beneficiaries under the project.

The Caribbean is heavily dependent on tourism and other marine services, industries that the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPPC) last report indicate are expected to be heavily impacted by climate change. Most if not all states depend on the fisheries and the regional tourism industry – which grew from four million visitors in 1970 to an estimated 25 million visitors today – earns an estimated 25 billion dollars in revenue and supports about six million jobs.

The findings of the IPCC’s report is further strengthened by that of the Caribbean Marine Climate Change Report Card (2017) which stated: “The seas, reefs and coasts on which all Caribbean people depend are under threat from coral bleaching, ocean acidification, rising sea temperature, and storms.”

“The project is a demonstration of Germany’s commitment to assisting the region’s vulnerable communities to withstand the impacts of climate change,” said Dr. Jens Mackensen KfW’s head of Agriculture and Natural Resources Division for Latin America and Caribbean.

All the Jamaican projects are in protected areas, and are managed by a mix of non-governmental organisations (ngos), academic and local government organisations. The Westmoreland Municipal Corporation (WMC) is managing the seaweed project and two other components – to reduce the flow of sewage into the wetlands and install mooring buoys and markers to regulate use of the sea – that focus on strengthening the ecosystem and improving the climate resilience of the Negril Marine Protected area.

The University of the West Indies’ Centre for Marine Sciences is managing the East Portland Fish Sanctuary project; the Caribbean Coastal Area Management (C-CAM) Foundation works in the Portland Bight area and the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), a quasi-government agency is managing infrastructure work on the Closed Habour Beach also called Dump Up beach in the Montego Bay area.

Clayton’s plan to include a processing plant at the local school and a marketing network in the small business community has impressed 5C’s executive director Dr. Kenrick Leslie and McKensen.

Sea moss is a common ingredient in energy tonics that target men, the locals explain. In addition WMC’s project manager Simone Williams said, “The projects aim to protect and rehabilitate the degraded fisheries habitat and ecosystems of Orange Bay, streamline usage of the marine areas and improve quality of discharge into marine areas.”

In Portland Bight, an area inhabited by more than 10,000 people, and one of the most vulnerable, C-CAM is working to improve awareness, build resilience through eco-systems based adaptation, conservation and the diversification of livelihoods. Important, CCAM Executive Director Ingrid Parchment said, because most of the people here rely on fisheries. The area supports some 4,000 fishers – 300 boats from five fishing beaches. They have in the past suffered severe flooding from storm surges, which have in recent times become more frequent.

And in the tourist town of Montego Bay, the UDC is undertaking structural work to repair a groyne that will protect the largest public beach in the city – Dump-up or Closed Harbour Beach. Works here will halt the erosion of the main beach as well as two adjacent beaches (Gun Point and Walter Fletcher) and protect the livelihoods of many who make their living along the coast. When complete the structure will form the backbone of further development for the city.

UWI’s Alligator Head Marine Lab is spearheading a project to reinforce protection of vulnerable seaside and fishing communities, along the eastern coast of Portland, a parish locals often say has been neglected but with links to James Bond creator, Ian Fleming it has great potential as a tourism destination.

Here, over six square kilometres of coastline is being rehabilitated through wetlands and reef rehabilitation; the establishment of alternative livelihood projects; renewable technologies and actions to reduce greenhouse gases and strengthen climate resilience.

In St Vincent and the Grenadines, the CPCCA is helping the Ministry of Works to rehabilitate the Sandy Bay Community, and the coastal Windward Highway where storm damage has caused loss of housing, livelihoods and recreational space, Kerr said.

The local census data puts unemployment in Sandy Bay as the country’s highest and, as Kerr noted, “With the highest reported level of poverty at 55 per cent, the Sandy Bay Community cannot afford these losses.”

CPCCA is well on its way and will end in 2018, by that time, Leslie noted beneficiaries would be well on their way to achieving their and the project’s goal.

Coral reef ecosystem at Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. Credit: Jim Maragos/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 2015 (IPS)

The untapped riches in the world’s oceans are estimated at nearly 24 trillion dollars – the size of the world’s leading economies, according to a new report released Thursday by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

Describing the oceans as economic powerhouses, the study warns that the resources in the high seas are rapidly eroding through over-exploitation, misuse and climate change.“The ocean feeds us, employs us, and supports our health and well-being, yet we are allowing it to collapse before our eyes. If everyday stories of the ocean’s failing health don’t inspire our leaders, perhaps a hard economic analysis will." -- Marco Lambertini of WWF

“The ocean rivals the wealth of the world’s richest countries, but it is being allowed to sink to the depths of a failed economy,” said Marco Lambertini, director general of WWF International.

“As responsible shareholders, we cannot seriously expect to keep recklessly extracting the ocean’s valuable assets without investing in its future.”

If compared to the world’s top 10 economies, the ocean would rank seventh with an annual value of goods and services of 2.5 trillion dollars, according to the study,

Titled Reviving the Ocean Economy, the report was produced by WWF in association with The Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland and The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

After nine years of intense negotiations, a U.N. Working Group, comprising all 193 member states, agreed last January to convene an inter-governmental conference aimed at drafting a legally binding treaty to conserve marine life and genetic resources in what is now considered mostly lawless high seas.

Dr. Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s former Permanent Representative who co-chaired the Working Group, told IPS the oceans are the next frontier for exploitation by large corporations, especially those seeking to develop lucrative pharmaceuticals from living and non-living organisms which exist in large quantities in the high seas.

“The technically advanced countries, which are already deploying research vessels in the oceans and some of which are currently developing products, including valuable pharmaceuticals, based on biological material extracted from the high seas, were resistant to the idea of regulating the exploitation of such material and sharing the benefits,” he said.

According to the United Nations, the high seas is the ocean beyond any country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) – amounting to 64 percent of the ocean – and the ocean seabed that lies beyond the continental shelf of any country. 

These areas make up nearly 50 percent of the surface of the Earth and include some of the most environmentally important, critically threatened and least protected ecosystems on the planet.

The proposed international treaty, described as a High Seas Biodiversity Agreement, is expected to address “the inadequate, highly fragmented and poorly implemented legal and institutional framework that is currently failing to protect the high seas – and therefore the entire global ocean – from the multiple threats they face in the 21st century.”

According to the WWF report, more than two-thirds of the annual value of the ocean relies on healthy conditions to maintain its annual economic output.

Collapsing fisheries, mangrove deforestation as well as disappearing corals and seagrass are threatening the marine economic engine that secures lives and livelihoods around the world.

The report also warns that the ocean is changing more rapidly than at any other point in millions of years.

At the same time, growth in human population and reliance on the sea makes restoring the ocean economy and its core assets a matter of global urgency.

The study specifically singles out climate change as a leading cause of the ocean’s failing health.

At the current rate of global warming, coral reefs that provide food, jobs and storm protection to several hundred million people will disappear completely by 2050.

More than just warming waters, climate change is inducing increased ocean acidity that will take hundreds of human generations for the ocean to repair.

Over-exploitation is another major cause for the ocean’s decline, with 90 per cent of global fish stocks either over-exploited or fully exploited, according to the study.

The Pacific bluefin tuna population alone has dropped by 96 per cent from unfished levels, according to the WWF report.

“It is not too late to reverse the troubling trends and ensure a healthy ocean that benefits people, business and nature,” the report says, while proposing an eight-point action plan that would restore ocean resources to their full potential.

Among the most time-critical solutions presented in the report are embedding ocean recovery throughout the U.N.’s proposed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), taking global action on climate change and making good on strong commitments to protect coastal and marine areas.

“The ocean feeds us, employs us, and supports our health and well-being, yet we are allowing it to collapse before our eyes. If everyday stories of the ocean’s failing health don’t inspire our leaders, perhaps a hard economic analysis will. We have serious work to do to protect the ocean starting with real global commitments on climate and sustainable development,” said Lambertini.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

An unknown medusa-like plankton viewed from a submersible in the Gulf of Mexico, as part of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration’s Operation Deep Scope 2005. With the increase in the research into and exploitation of marine genetic resources, more and more patents on them are being filed annually. Credit: Dr. Mikhail Matz/public domain

By Dr. Palitha Kohona
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 2015 (IPS)

After almost 10 years of often frustrating negotiations, the U.N. ad hoc committee on BBNJ decided, by consensus, to set in motion a process that will result in work commencing on a legally binding international instrument on the conservation and sustainable use, including benefit sharing, of Biological Diversity Beyond Areas of National Jurisdiction.

Dr. Palitha Kohona. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

As a consequence, the General Assembly is expected to adopt a resolution in the summer of 2015 establishing a preparatory committee to begin work in 2016 which will be mandated to propose the elements of a treaty in 2017, to be adopted by an intergovernmental conference.

The Ad Hoc Working Group, established in 2006, has been meeting regularly since then. In 2010, for the first time, it adopted a set of recommendations which were elaborated methodically until the momentous decision on Saturday.

This decision will impact significantly on the biggest source of biodiversity on the globe.

The political commitment of the global community on BBNJ was clearly stated in the 2012 Rio+20 Outcome Document, “The Future We Want”, largely at the insistence of a small group of countries which included Argentina, Sri Lanka, South Africa and the European Union (EU).

It recognised the importance of an appropriate global mechanism to sustainably manage marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction.

In 2013, GA resolution A/69/L.29 mandated the UN Ad Hoc Working Group to make recommendations on the scope, parameters and feasibility of an international instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to the 69th Session of the GA.While there are hundreds of thousands of known marine life forms, some scientists suggest that there could actually be millions of others which we will never know. These, including the genetic resources, could bring enormous benefits to humanity, including in the development of vital drugs.

During the past few years our understanding of biological diversity beyond national jurisdiction has advanced exponentially. The critical need to conserve and sustainably use this vast and invaluable resource base is now widely acknowledged.

The water surface covers 70 percent of the earth. This marine environment constitutes over 90 percent of the volume of the earth’s biosphere, nurturing many complex ecosystems important to sustain life and livelihoods on land. Two thirds of this environment is located in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

The contribution of oceans to the global economy is estimated to be in the billions of dollars.

While there are hundreds of thousands of known marine life forms, some scientists suggest that there could actually be millions of others which we will never know. These, including the genetic resources, could bring enormous benefits to humanity, including in the development of vital drugs.

With the increase in the research into and exploitation of marine genetic resources, more and more patents based on them are being filed annually.

The value of these patents is estimated to be in the billions of dollars. It is increasingly obvious that mankind must conserve the resources of the oceans and the associated ecosystems and use them sustainably, including for the development of new substances.

At the same time, unprecedented challenges confront the marine environment and ecosystems. Overfishing, pollution, climate change, ocean warming, coral bleach and ocean acidification, to name a few, pose a severe threat to marine biological resources. Many communities and livelihoods dependent on them are at risk.

While 2.8 percent of the world’s oceans are designated as marine protected areas, only 0.79 percent of such areas are located beyond national jurisdiction. In recent times, these protected areas have become a major asset in global efforts to conserve endangered species, habitats and ecosystems.

While the management of areas within national jurisdictions is a matter primarily for states, the areas beyond are the focus of the challenge that confronted the U.N. Ad Hoc Working Group.

Developing countries have insisted that benefits, including financial benefits, from products developed using marine genetic resources extracted from areas beyond national jurisdiction must be shared equitably.

The concept that underpinned this proposition could be said to be an evolution of the common heritage of mankind concept incorporated in UNCLOS.

The Ad-Hoc Working Group acknowledged that UNCLOS, sometimes described as the constitution of the oceans, served as the overarching legal framework for the oceans and seas. Obviously, there was much about the oceans that the world did not know in 1982 when the UNCLOS was concluded.

Given humanity’s considerably better understanding of the oceans at present, especially on the areas beyond national jurisdiction, the majority of participants in the Ad Hoc Working Group pushed for a new legally binding instrument to address the issue of BBNJ.

Last Saturday’s decision underlined that the mandates of existing global and regional instruments and frameworks not be undermined; that duplication be avoided and consistency with UNCLOS maintained.

The challenge before the international community as it approaches the next stage is to identify with care the areas that will be covered by the proposed instrument in order to optimize the goal of conservation of marine biodiversity. It should contribute to building ocean resilience, provide comprehensive protection for ecologically and biologically significant areas, and enable ecosystems time to adapt.

The framework for sharing the benefits of research and developments relating to marine organisms needs to be crafted sensitively. Private corporations which are investing heavily in this area prefer legal certainty and clear workable rules.

An international instrument must establish a framework which includes an overall strategic vision that encompasses the aspirations of both developed and developing countries, particularly in the area of benefit sharing.

Facilitating the exchange of information between States will be essential to achieve the highest standards in conserving and sustainably using marine biodiversity, particularly for developing countries. They will need continued capacity building so that they can contribute effectively to the goal of sustainable use of such resources and benefit from scientific and technological developments.

To address the effects of these complex dynamics, the proposed instrument must adopt a global approach, involving both developed and developing countries.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

The fisheries sector in the CARICOM Region is an important source of food and income. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
CODRINGTON, Barbuda, Apr 26 2014 (IPS)

A marine biologist has cautioned that the mass deaths of starfish along the United States west coast in recent months could also occur in the Caribbean region because of climate change, threatening the vital fishing sector.

Since June 2013, scientists began noticing that starfish, which they say function as keystone species in the marine ecosystem, have been mysteriously dying by the millions."It’s a fight that the world has to win if it is to survive because if the small states don’t win, it means that the globe as a whole does not win." -- John Mussington

“The cause of the starfish die-off which is taking place in the Pacific Ocean is not known at this time but it could turn out to be from a number of factors including climate change,” John Mussington told IPS.

“If it turns out that climate change factors such as ocean warming are indeed implicated in the starfish die-off, then there is the possibility that the same thing could happen in the Atlantic and affect Caribbean species.

“We are living in an era when the predicted consequences of climate change are now reality. Large scale die-off of can therefore happen to us in the Caribbean,” Mussington added.

Starfish play a key role in marine ecosystems. They eat mussels, barnacles, snails, mollusks and other smaller sea life so their health is considered a measure of marine life on the whole in a given area. Starfish are in turn eaten by shorebirds, gulls, and sometimes sea otters.

Mussington explained that something similar to what’s happening in California has happened in the region before.

He told IPS that in 1983 there was a Caribbean-wide die-off of the black sea urchin, spreading from as far north as The Bahamas right down the chain of islands to the south.

“The long-spined sea urchin was a kestone species in the Caribbean marine ecosystem, similar to the affected starfish in the Pacific-California ecosystem. The designation as ‘keystone’ is due to the fact that if there is anything affecting their large populations, then this can be interpreted as a reliable indication of problems in the entire ecosystem that will likely affect other species,” Mussington said.

“Something went very wrong with our Caribbean marine ecosystem in 1983 and the black sea urchin was wiped out – the species is considered today to be functionally extinct. With the decline of this keystone species, the Caribbean has seen significant decline in its coral reefs and the marine communities they support, including economically important commercial species.”

Mussington said the spiny urchin grazes on algae and it is important to control the number of algae on coral reefs.

Habitat degradation, specifically of coral reefs, has been cited by numerous studies as the primary cause of ongoing fish declines of Caribbean fish populations.

An Arapaima, the world’s largest freshwater fish, being kept in a man-made pond in Guyana. The Arapaima can weigh over 800 pounds and reach lengths of up to 10 feet. Unfortunately, they’ve been overfished commercially and are currently a threatened species. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Caribbean coral reefs have experienced drastic losses in the past several decades. Fish use the structure of corals for shelter and they also contribute to coastal protection.

Established research has predicted that the communities located in coastal areas, as well as national economies in the general Caribbean region, are likely to sustain substantial economic losses should the current trends in coral reef degradation and destruction continue.

It has been estimated that fisheries associated with coral reef in the Caribbean region are responsible for generating net annual revenues, which have been valued at or above approximately 837 million Eastern Caribbean dollars, or about 310 million U.S. dollars.

Continued degradation of the region’s few remaining coral reefs would diminish these net annual revenues by an estimated 95-140 million U.S. dollars annually by 2015. The subsequent decrease in dive tourism could also profoundly affect annual net tourism revenues

“There has to be some balance and once you have a major species dying off, it’s going to have repercussions for the entire system. We must not forget that man is a integral part of this system and the repercussions for us will be serious,” Mussington told IPS.

The fisheries sector in the CARICOM Region is an important source of livelihoods and sustenance. The local population is highly dependent on this resource for economic and social development. This resource also contributes significantly to food security, poverty alleviation, employment, foreign exchange earnings, development and stability of rural and coastal communities, culture, recreation and tourism.

The subsector provides direct employment for more than 120,000 fishers and indirect employment opportunities for thousands of others – particularly women – in processing, marketing, boat-building, net-making and other support services.

But the coordinator for the United Nations Environmental Programme’s Caribbean Regional Coordinating Unit-Caribbean Environment Programme, Nelson Andrade Colmenares, told IPS the vital sector is being threatened by climate change.

“The Caribbean Sea, home to a vibrant ecosystem benefitting fisherfolk, the tourism industry and the region’s people alike is currently threatened,” he said, adding that “over harvesting of fisheries, climate change and pollution from sewage, agricultural runoff and industrial effluent has led to 75 percent of coral reefs in the region being labeled as at risk.”

Acting permanent secretary in Dominica’s fisheries ministry, Harold Guiste agrees, explaining that the future of the Caribbean’s conch and lobster fisheries remains under threat despite regional efforts to protect it.

Guiste blames the problem of overfishing squarely on nations outside the Caribbean that trawl the region’s seas illegally.

“Globally we have noticed a rush to fish accompanied by a lack of responsible behaviour in the fishing sector,” he told IPS. “This type of hooligan behaviour has resulted in severe decline in some major fisheries of the world and collapse in some others.”

The Dominican official called for a collaborative approach to safeguard against the depletion of the region’s already challenged resources.

The spiny lobster trade brings in about 456 million US dollars to CARICOM nations but demand has led to overfishing of a once healthy stocks.

While admitting that “some factors are out of our control as it relates to mitigating against global warming”, Mussington said both developing and developed countries need to do more.

“We need to do things which will discontinue the rise in global temperatures and those things that need to happen have to do with less use of fossil fuels and modification of certain things that countries do,” he told IPS.

In fact, the persons who are going to be suffering most – the people living in these Small Island Developing States – we are not the ones ultimately responsible in large measure for the problems we are having now, the developed countries are.”

“So far the developed countries have been very resistant to implementing those policies and changes that need to happen,” Mussington added.

In the end, he said the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) negotiations should not be simply about the smaller countries winning.

“It’s a fight that the world has to win if it is to survive because if the small states don’t win, it means that the globe as a whole does not win, which means that Planet Earth will lose out and the human race on planet earth might very well face total extinction,” warned Mussington.

“That’s what’s facing us. The globe will become unlivable,” he added.

An oil spill has threatened the coral reefs and marine ecosystems in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Jan 7 2013 (IPS)

Coral reefs and marine ecosystems in the Milne Bay Province of the Pacific Island nation of Papua New Guinea are at serious risk of long-term environmental damage. The reason: an oil spill from a ship that ran aground on a reef on Kwaiawata Island on Christmas Eve, and authorities’ long delay in mobilising an appropriate response to the accident.

“The area has some of the fastest currents in the world and this delay has increased the likelihood of the oil spreading quickly beyond the vessel,” Chalapan Kaluwin, professor of environmental science at the University of Papua New Guinea, told IPS.

“It is too early to assess the full scale of the damage, but there are fragile marine and island ecosystems in this area and the impacts on reefs, marine life and the marine resources that island communities depend on is likely to be long term, rather than short term.”

The MV Asian Lily aground on a reef on the remote Kwaiawata Island in Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. Photo Credit: National Maritime Safety Authority.

The Japanese-owned 136-metre reefer vessel MV Asian Lily, which wasn’t carrying any refrigerated cargo at the time, was negotiating Milne Bay – a province comprising 160 islands to the southeast of the Papua New Guinean mainland – en route from New Zealand to the Philippines, when the incident occurred.

Milne Bay Governor, Titus Philemon, only learned the news from local villagers several days after the ship ran aground.

Nurur Rahman, executive manager of Maritime Operations at the National Maritime Safety Authority (NMSA), told IPS that fuel oil, which leaked from one of the ship’s tanks, had spread along approximately 115 metres of the island’s coastline.

The remote Kwaiawata Island, which is no more than three kilometres long and located in the Samarai Murua District north of the Jomard Passage – a busy international shipping lane – has a population of about 200 people.  Henry Vailasi, Milne Bay Provincial Administrator, said there weren’t any coastal villages in the direct vicinity of the stricken vessel, but the oil spill had impacted the island’s shoreline.

Milne Bay contains a high diversity of corals and marine life, including more than 1,000 species of fish, 630 species of molluscs and 360 species of hard coral, as well as seagrasses and mangrove forests.  Coral reefs are vital to the livelihoods of local communities, providing habitats for fish and protection to island coastlines. Seventy percent of households in the Samarai Murua District depend on fisheries and other marine resources for subsistence.

In a public statement the NMSA said a Papua New Guinea tugboat has been at the site of the MV Asian Lily since Dec. 27 and a team of international salvage experts was currently onboard the vessel with its crew.

Representatives of the ship owners met with local villagers last week regarding the incident, a meeting that will likely be followed in due course by a consultation between national and provincial authorities and affected communities.

A spokesperson for Pacific Towing PNG Ltd, which is working to salvage the vessel, said the oil leak had been contained and the scale of the damage to the vessel was being assessed. Preparations are currently underway for an attempted refloating of the ship on Jan. 10.

On Jan. 5, the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation, which has been engaged to advise the government on how best to address the oil spill, presented a shoreline clean up proposal to authorities in Papua New Guinea.

Milne Bay presents serious navigational challenges to shipping, with hazards including extensive reef systems and many maritime areas not yet properly charted.  The Jomard Passage, which lies to the west of the Louisiade Archipelago in the south of the province, connecting the Coral and Solomon Seas, is plied by up to 1,000 ships, including bulk carriers, every year.  Many are engaged in commerce between the Australian east coast and North Asia.

There have been several maritime mishaps in recent years.  In 2006, the bulk carrier, Zhi Qiang, with a cargo of 40,000 tonnes of raw sugar, ran aground on a reef in the Louisiade Archipelago during a voyage from northern Queensland, Australia, to Korea, releasing heavy fuel oil and raw sugar into the sea.

Vailasi told IPS that the provincial government was seriously concerned about the level of guidance and monitoring of ships through Milne Bay and the Jomard Passage.

“This vessel did not have a pilot onboard at the time it went aground,” he said. “We want the region to be a compulsory pilot area and we have asked the NMSA to advise us on how this can be done.”

“This is a wakeup call for the government and ship owners,” Kaluwin stressed.  “There is a regional oil spill contingency plan, but developing national and provincial oil spill contingency plans remains a challenge facing the government.”

A recent National Marine Pollution Risk Assessment conducted by the NMSA and PNG Ports Corporation, in association with international consultants, reported that the country’s maritime laws need to be updated and aligned with all International Maritime Organisation (IMO) conventions.

The report further stated that until five new marine pollution bills, drafted by the NMSA, are fully enacted, the government’s powers to prevent and control marine pollution from ships, and enforce the payment of compensation from polluters, are constrained.

(END)