IMO’s participation in the region
Andrew Winbow, Head of policy and planning, office of the secretary general, at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London was in Dubai december last. Winbow presented a paper on IMO’s role in the region at a conference held in the city. Following is an extract from the paper entitled ‘IMO participation in the Region’.
Introduction
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopts international regulations but it is the responsibility of Governments to implement those regulations.
IMO has developed a Technical Co-Operation Programme which is designed to assist Governments to meet their responsibilities for the implementation of those regulations and to apply the standards relating to maritime safety and the prevention and control of maritime pollution.
The emphasis of this programme is very much on training with a focus on human resources development and institutional capacity-building. The Organization has worked with Governments in the Gulf region on a variety of issues and this papers focuses on two of them: protection of the marine environment and port state control.
Protection of the marine environment
In recognition of the threat to marine life, fisheries, human health and safety, from pollution by oil and other harmful substances, the governments of the eight Gulf Countries – Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE – in co-operation with the other UN organization, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), convened the Kuwait Regional Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment and the Coastal Areas in Kuwait from 15 to 24 April 1978, which resulted in the Kuwait Regional Convention for Co-operation on the Protection of the Marine Environment from Pollution and its Protocol Concerning Regional Co-operation in Combining Pollution by Oil and Other Harmful Substance in Case of Emergency, giving rise to the establishment of the Regional Organization for the Protection of the Marine Environment (ROPME) in 1979.
ROPME Objectives
The objective of the Regional Organization for the Protection of the Marine Environment (ROPME) is to coordinate the Member states efforts towards protection of the water quality in ROPME Sea Area and to protect marine environment systems through a reduction of the adverse effects caused by the development activities of the Member States.
Therefore, ROPME is playing a key role in unifying the efforts of the Member States towards protection of the marine environment.
In this regard, its activities are fully in line with those of IMO in its work, through the MARPOL Convention, to prevent pollution of the marine environment by ships from operational or accidental causes and through the OPRC convention to establish measures for dealing with pollution incidents, either nationally or in co-operation with other countries.
The protocol that have been developed since the establishment of ROPME have made the mandate of the Kuwait Regional Convention more specific and have had an important role in harmonizing the policies of Contracting States on issues aimed at protecting the marine environment.
Those protocols reflect international developments and have expanded from the initial regional cooperation in combating pollution by oil and other harmful substance in cases of emergency, through marine pollution resulting from exploration and exploitation of the continental shelf, to pollution from land based sources and to an issue of growing concern – the control of marine transboundary movements and disposal of hazardous wastes and other waste.
But the essence of any response to regional concerns is to ensure that there is effective coordination and exchange of information.
And this has been facilitated by the establishment of the Marine Emergency Mutual Aid Centre (MEMAC) which was established in Bahrain and started functioning in March 1983.
The key objectives of MEMAC are to strengthen the capacities of the Contracting States, to facilitate co-operation among them and to assist in the development of national capabilities to combat pollution by oil and other harmful substances, and to co-ordinate and facilitate information exchange, technological co-operation and training.
In more practical terms, the roles of ROPME and MEMAC can be summarized as follows:
- To assist Contracting States in the preparation of laws and regulations
- To enhance public awareness of the importance of protection of the marine environment from pollution
- To provide training
- To support environmental scientific research
- To collate and disseminate information
- To monitor the status of the marine environment
- To enhance co-operation between Contracting states
- To maintain and promote contingency plans
Oil Pollution in the ROPME sea area
The ROPME sea area (RSA), which stretches from the South of Mina Reysut in Oman/Arabian sea up to the North of the Gulf, has one of the highest potential oil Pollution risks in the world. This is mainly due to the concentration of offshore installations, tanker loading terminals and the huge volume and density of marine transportation of oil. It is estimated the 40 per cent of oil entering the sea in the area is caused by marine transportation activities, which has been estimated to be in the region of 1,100,000 barrels a year.
According to the Oil Spill Intelligence Report out of 20 cases of oil spills which are greater than ten million gallons (about 34,000 metric tones) worldwide, six cases oil pollution incidents are also familiar events in the ROPME Sea Area as a result of incidents on offshore installations, leaks in submarine pipelines, tanker tank washing and loading overflow incidents.
The member States have given MEMAC the go-ahead in dealing with this problem. MEMAC, in co-operation with the UN Multination Interception Force, has carried out several oil spill salvage operations whereby some 46,329.794 MT were salvaged during the period between 1997 to 2002 |
Posted by Editor Offshore Arabia Magazine
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