Международная конвенция о контроле судовых балластных вод и осадков и управлении ими от 13.02.2004 может вступить в силу в 2014 году. Вступление этой Конвенции в силу будет означать очень важный успех в борьбе за сохранение и защиту окружающей морской природной среды.
The Ballast Water Management Convention (BWMC) could come into force next year. It is an important step for the shipping sector to decrease its impact on the marine environment which, in the case of invasive species, can be very costly for civil society. By being constructive and to interact with other stakeholders, the shipping sector can partake in shaping its own future regarding this topic – for the benefit of itself and the ecosystem.
| The BWMC has been on the agenda since the Rio Declaration in 1992 and even more so since the convention was actually finalized within the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in 2004. Many countries have already ratified the convention; nonetheless, it still needs all but 6% of the gross tonnage of the world’s merchant fleet to reach a 35% threshold (a single big flag would actually do in this regard). The convention will come into force one year after ratification and 2014 could be that year. |
Why a convention?
The ballast water itself is not the problem – it is the passengers in it. Every time water is pumped into the ship, billions of tiny living organisms come along for the ride. The tank is much like an aquarium, with calm static water and even food with which the organisms are transported all over the world. Some die in the darkness, but many do not. Very few of these organisms could manage this journey by themselves. There are too many natural barriers in our marine environment: temperature, salinity, oxygen, ecological processes, stratification, etc.
When travelling by ship, however, the “stowaway” organisms bypass all these barriers and end up in an environment to which they are completely alien. In most cases, they will perish or at least not be able to reproduce. In some cases (and at present we don’t have the knowledge to precisely characterise such circumstances) alien organisms find a niche and thrive, immediately affecting the local ecosystem. The effects can be slow and difficult to measure or they can be very drastic and ruthlessly impact the surrounding environment. In other words -we are dealing with a full-scale invasion.
One of the worst examples of such an invasion is the American Comb Jellyfish which was introduced into the Black Sea, most probably via ballast water exchange, and destroyed the region’s sardine fishery which had a very big market value and was the base for a great number of people’s livelihood. There are also many other examples. So far over 100 alien species have been registered in the Baltic Sea. Some of these have already been identified as causing a significant cost to civil society in different ways. What’s worse – such invasions are practically irreversible. In contrast, an oil spill can be cleaned up and a healthy environment can recover sooner or later, but once an invasive species is part of the ecosystem, we simply do not have enough power to get rid of it. Although ballast water is not the only vector for invasive species, it is the single biggest for the marine environment.
Exemptions
In short, all ships that handle ballast must install equipment that guarantees that practically no living organisms are released into the water. There are as many as 29 water cleaning techniques approved by the IMO. They use light, heat, radicals or chemicals. Shipping companies will have to retrofit their vessels with such equipment – that means costs and the loss of time and on-board space.
Within the convention, however, there are some exemptions which countries have a responsibility to define themselves. It basically states that a certain route may be exempted from the convention if there is a negligible risk of spreading alien species between its endpoints, i.e. ports.
This is of course acceptable in principle. The primary problem is that we have very little knowledge of the actual distribution of all organisms; many are not even visible to the eye in their juvenile phase. Without that expertise, we can never know what route is safe and which is not. Secondly, it is very difficult to know what organism may become a dangerous alien in a certain area or not.
The Baltic States are now working with the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) to find a unified way to deal with how to identify routes to be exempted from the convention. The fact that they are aiming towards a single cross-boundary policy in the Baltic Sea, probably including the North Sea as well, is worthy of credit. However, this also means that the design of the policy will have a great impact on the marine environment and also on shipping. A good policy based on thorough scientific data will help ensure that shipping will significantly reduce its potential for causing damage to civil society with their ballast water. It is both fair and in accordance with the ‘polluter pays principle’ and it will mean that shipping has taken an important step towards being the undisputed least harmful way to transport goods. It will also most probably mean that exempted routes will stay such as control sampling will likely show a similar result over time.
A policy based on weak environmental data will be like playing Russian roulette with the Baltic Sea environment and its coastal citizens by means of the ballast water. It will also cause uncertainties for shipping companies as routes may somewhat randomly become exempted (or not) depending on varying outcomes over time. This will of course be problematic in a logistics sense of the word. And, additionally, quite frustrating. Imagine that a ship will need cleaning equipment one period and not the other; or a shipping company will be forced to continuously shuffle their fleet fitted with a mixed setup of equipment in order to counter changes in route exemptions.
And, last but not least, who will pay for specifying links to be exempted from the BWMC? An administratively simple method is letting every shipping company pay for the research for every route they would test for possible exemptions. It could prove a little bit expensive. An alternative way is for different shipping companies to pool resources. And thirdly – ports can fund and organize the sampling within their facilities and sell the information to the shipping companies. Both the second and the third are likely to be cheaper than the first alternative. As the funding strategy does not impact the effectiveness of the policy, the most important thing is that it suits the industry as much as possible. If the shipping sector is in favour of a certain funding strategy, they would do well in being proactive.
One of the greatest achievements of science is scepticism. It defends us from rushing into ventures without a second, third or even a tenth thought. This is important as our knowledge about ecosystems, its components and relations between them is limited. All, not only the shipping sector but also the environment and civil society, will greatly benefit from a firm and science-based policy. ■
Автор: Mattias Rust
Источник: Baltic Transport Journal. – 2013. – № 1. – Р. 26 – 27.