Convention on Ballast Water Management secures legal force
The UK Wildlife and Countryside Link reports, October 2016: This month Finland ratified the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) Ballast Water Management Convention.
Being the 52nd contracting party, Finland tipped the target of 35% world shipping tonnage and triggered entry into force by September 2017.
We’ve been waiting a long time for this, as the convention was adopted way back in 2004 and yet the UK has consistently decided not to sign up or ratify the Convention. Despite this, many UK vessels are likely to have to comply with the convention requirements to trade with signatories of the convention, which include Germany, Russia and the Netherlands.
So why does it matter?
Invasive non-native species are one of the biggest threats to biodiversitybiodiversity Biological diversity in an environment as indicated by numbers of different species of plants and animals. world wide.
Ballast water helps stabilise empty ships but is discharged at ports and marinas before adding cargo. However, ballast water also transports an estimated 10,000 marine species around the world every day. These include bacteria, microbes, small invertebrates, eggs, cysts and larvae of various species.
The transferred species may survive to establish a reproductive population in the host environment, becoming invasive, out-competing native species and multiplying into pest proportions. Ballast water discharge from ships is one of the largest pathways for the introduction and spread of aquatic invasive species.
Introduction rates have been reported as high as two to three new species per year for Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne, Australia and up to one species every nine weeks for San Francisco Bay, California, USA.
As trade routes continue to expand and new routes open such as through the Arctic, the risk of invasive non-native species being transported through ballast remains a big concern.
Examples of species transported in ballast water include the Chinese mitten crab and the Quagga mussel, the latter, in particular, altering entire ecosystems where it establishes.
Once marine or brackish species establish, they are nigh on impossible to eradicate: options tend to be either spending huge amounts of money in eradication or management, or standing by and watching as they destroy our native biota. As such, ballast water management — as laid out in the convention — offers a better solution, by helping us to prevent the arrival of such species into our ports and marinas in the first place.
The Ballast Water Management Convention requires all ships to implement a ballast water management plan. All ships will have to carry a Ballast Water Record Book and will be required to carry out ballast water management procedures to a given standard.
In short, these procedures aim to kill all the living organisms in the ballast water before the water is discharged, with direct benefits for people too — this includes a lot of pathogenspathogens A virus, bacterium or parasite which causes disease is a pathogen. Disease causing pathogens live in the environment, and both humans and animals are hosts to them. Pathogenic viruses, bacteria and parasites are present in sewage, originating from humans and animals, and thus it is essential that sewage is given proper treatment in order to disable (kill) these pathogens before the end-products of sewage treatment (solids and water effluent) are returned to the environment. including cholera!
The fact that the convention has finally been triggered into force is a great step forward to reducing the number of aquatic invasive non-native species reaching our shores and being transported to other shores. The process has been arduous, with dragging of heels and lots of squabbling about details.
The convention may not be perfect, but, we cannot afford to wait for all the wrinkles to be ironed out, we need to act now and adapt the process along the way if necessary. The technology is out there, let’s use it.
We now urge the UK more than ever to sign up and ratify the convention, let’s show the world we really are at the forefront of Europe when it comes to management of invasive non-native species.
Source: UK Wildlife and Countryside Link, October 201. For further details, see www.wcl.org.uk/ballast-water-management-–-why-does-it-matter.asp
