Grounded Ship Leaves TBT-based Antifoulant on the Great Barrier Reef: An Overview of the Environmental Response (original) (raw)
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Guidelines for compensation following damage to coral reefs by ship or boat grounding
Coral reefs form important ecosystems, globally and locally within the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. These reefs contribute a variety of valuable benefits to local communities and to the gross national product of countries in whose waters they lie. These benefits include commercial, artisanal and ornamental fisheries; bio-prospecting for new pharmaceuticals; mining; revenue from tourists keen to observe their natural beauty; and shoreline protection. That the value of these natural resources has only recently come to be appreciated is a sad reflection on our understanding of our interactions with the physical and biological environment. However, in the recent past, scientists and sociologists have begun to prepare methods of calculating a dollar value for these natural resources. Globally, and locally, coral reefs face a variety of threats and many have suffered severe degradation. These are common resources; they form part of our natural heritage. When damage is caused to these resources, compensation should be paid by the perpetrator and efforts should be made to restore the damaged area so that it continues to provide the physical and biological benefits to society. Ship grounding incidents are just one of many threats that coral reefs face. These accidents vary in scale from slight to catastrophic, from grounding by small pleasure craft or the careless use of anchors, to complete loss of the physical framework of the reef if struck hard by a large container ship or supertanker, with possible threats from subsequent chemical spills. Since the opening of the Suez Canal, and with the regional increase in dive tourism, the number of large and small boats using the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has increased significantly. With this rise in numbers has come a parallel increase in the number of grounding incidents, damage and loss to coral reefs in the area. The legal and institutional arrangements for prosecuting offenders in the region have been varied and disparate, sometimes non existent. The presence of a clear set of regional guidelines will assist national governments to pursue offenders and obtain compensation that can be used in reef restoration or to improve navigation and management. The threat of legal proceedings also focuses the minds of ships’ captains and leads to increased care and fewer accidents. This report provides historical records of ship grounding incidents and the current legal framework in each of the PERS GA member countries and then proceeds to suggest a framework for establishing compensation payments. The historical official records show that the number of recorded incidents in each country ranges from zero in Djibouti and Jordan, 4 in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, to 22 in Sudan, and 149 in Egypt. Administrative and legal procedures for pursuing compensation claims are at different levels of development and sophistication with varied formulae for calculating compensation rates in use. Valuation systems for coral reefs currently only consider a few of the goods and benefits described above. Values may be tempered by a weighting scale that varies with the quality of the reef (percentage coral cover, biodiversity) and include a time factor for the period when the reef can no longer supply these goods and benefits. In addition, compensation is usually increased to include a contribution towards the costs of surveys and legal proceedings, costs of restoration, and costs of future monitoring. Egypt has taken the lead in the development of valuation techniques and pursing legal remedies to achieve compensation payments. The basic model developed by Egypt and used to a greater or lesser extent within the region is as follows: Compensation charge = A x LC x D x RP x V Where A is a measure of area in square metres, LC is the percentage of living coral, D is the percent damage in the area, RP is the number years required for recovery and V is the value of one square metre (set at US 120butincreasedtoUS120 but increased to US 120butincreasedtoUS300 for national parks). However, coral reefs provide many goods and services within the region and this simple formula is not a true reflection of them. Secondly, a one-size-fits-all scheme of compensation in not necessarily appropriate as the uses of reefs in different countries are not the same. For example in Egypt there is a large emphasis on tourism-related revenue and less on fisheries, while in Yemen the situation is reversed. In light of these discrepancies, and aware of the range of technical capacities within the countries of the region, PERS GA has embarked on series of workshops to establish guidelines that can be used or modified to improve the procedures for calculating and pursuing compensation claims. The guidelines describe (i) an accident assessment system based on an underwater standard survey method for assessing damage to coral reefs from grounding incidents following the FISHBONE grid mapping system that has been successfully applied by the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary; (ii) a set of valuation techniques that focus on three key goods and services: coral reef-related tourism and recreation, coral reef-associated fisheries, and shoreline protection services, chosen because these three goods and services are important to local economies and data are available to support estimation of the values; (iii) restoration of the damaged area. In the final chapter, the benefits of a regional approach are discussed and areas for capacity building are highlighted. These include underwater survey techniques; documenting/ reporting incidents; assessments of coral damage; fauna and flora identification; economic valuation of natural resources; in-situ data/information collection and handling; and reef restoration and rehabilitation techniques. A regional compensation committee is proposed to consider scientific and economic studies prepared on coral reefs and to draft laws specifically concerned with the conservation of coral reefs, as currently coral reefs are only protected indirectly by legal articles. A regional coral reef rescue team could be trained to be experts in the survey of grounding sites and the preparation and recording of grounding evidence and damage size to improve the probability of successful claims being won through the courts.
Case analysis of the grounding of the MV Rena in New Zealand
2017
The grounding of general cargo vessel MV Rena near Tauranga Harbor in October 2011 was New Zealand's worst environmental disaster. The ship hit an offshore reef, creating hazardous salvage conditions, and the consequent spill of 350 tonnes of fuel oil affected 50 km of coastline and many islands. Many containers fell overboard, creating hazards for other shipping, requiring additional salvage resources, and introducing toxins to the marine environment that are still washing up six years later. The community responded to the disaster by flocking to the beaches and cleaning up the oil by hand, giving well over 20,000 h of volunteer time. Short-and long-term environmental consequences for wildlife and the inshore marine environment are reviewed, along with the effects on the local economy, the political context and the management response. There were immediately significant economic effects during the summer following the event, but the clean-up appears to have been remarkably succ...
Jurnal Ilmiah Perikanan dan Kelautan
HighlightDamage to coral reefs by ship aground is twice the area of a football fieldFound four zones of damage including runoff, dune, blow and dispersalMortality of live coral and other benthic biota ranges from 75-100% in the affected locationThe form of damaged live coral growth is predominantly slow growing.Eight hard coral species were found on the IUCN-Redlist list with a vulnerable status.Ship grounding on coral reefs often results in physical and biological damage, including dislodging and removal of corals from reefs, destruction of coral skeletons, erosion and removal of sediment deposits, and loss of three-dimensional complexity. Indonesia, as an archipelagic country, is very vulnerable to various pressures; for example, the case of ship grounding is a great concern of scientists, managers, divers, and sailors themselves. Most of the damage is very severe. The purpose of the research conducted is to identify the condition of the live coral cover, mapping the type and exte...
Long-Term Effects of a Ship-Grounding on Coral Reef Fish Assemblages at Rose Atoll, American Samoa
Bulletin of Marine Science -Miami-
The nature and degree of impact of ship groundings on coral reefs and subsequent recovery is not well understood. Disturbed benthic and associated fish assemblages may take years-decades to return to pre-impact levels or may attain alternate stable states. Rose Atoll, a small, remote coral atoll in the central South Pacific, was impacted by a major ship grounding and associated contaminant spill in October 1993. Coral reef fish assemblages were quantitatively surveyed at the site of impact and compared to other nearby sites along the western outer reef slope in August 1995, February 2002, February 2004, and March 2006. In 1995, herbivorous surgeonfishes dominated the site, likely attracted to the early algal blooms. During 2002-2006, both numbers and biomass of pooled herbivorous fishes were significantly greater at the wreck site than at the other reef-slope survey sites. This greater abundance, where some corroding steel debris remained, was associated with significantly greater s...
Ordnance Reef (HI-06) Follow-Up Investigation Final Assessment Report
The purpose of this project is to assess and report on the biota and sediment composition in the Ordnance Reef (HI-06) study area, to determine the potential effects of discarded military munitions (DMM) deposited off the leeward coast of Oahu following the Army’s Remotely Operated Underwater Munitions Recovery System (ROUMRS) technology demonstration. The Project Team (which includes the University of Hawaii and Environet) has prepared the attached Assessment Report for the HI-06 study area. This report summarized the activities of the University of Hawaii and Environet in gathering and analyzing biota and sediment samples from HI-06. The Project Team conducted and gathered three separate rounds of sediment samples, two rounds of biota samples, and analyzed them for munitions constituents. The results of their activities are compiled and provided in the attached Assessment Report (Appendix A) for the Ordnance Reef (HI-06) study area. This report also includes an expanded data analysis of the data gathered during this task and compares it with the results of the ROUMRS demonstration to determine if there was any effect as a result of the demonstration.
Ordnance Reef Follow-Up Investigation Appendices A, B, C, F, H & I (2014) - Final
ITEM APPROXIMATE QUANTITY .50 caliber cartridges 200 100lb old style frag bomb recon from surface not diver verified 1 90mm mortar 1 105mm cartridge case 1 105mm projectiles* 150 155mm projectiles* 20mm cartridges* 1040 25mm cartridges 250 closed ammo boxes (2ftx2ftx2ft) bottom mine 1 depth charge 1 tubes (4ft x 3in dia)** has? (2ft x 3in dia)** 1 high concentration of 6in projectiles large pile of munitions-counted by divers before ascent** 3 to 6in Naval gun ammunition 5in Naval gun ammunition 5 5 to 8in Naval gun ammunition 6 to 8in Naval gun ammunition 8in projectiles* Naval gun ammunition various sizes
Adding insult to injury: Ship groundings are associated with coral disease in a pristine reef
PLOS ONE, 2018
In 2013, the remote Tubbataha Reef UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the western Philippines, experienced two ship groundings within four months: the USS Guardian (USSG), a US military vessel, and the Min Ping Yu (MPY), an illegal Chinese fishing vessel. Here, we present the results of coral disease assessments completed two years post-grounding and recovery patterns monitored annually within these grounding sites. Site assessments were undertaken in three distinct zones: 'ground zero', where reef was scoured to its limestone base by direct ship impact; the 'impact border', containing surviving upright but damaged, abraded and fragmented colonies injured during ship movement; and undamaged 'control' sites, remote from the ship groundings but located on the same atoll. Coral diseases were dominated by white syndromes, and prevalence was an order of magnitude higher within the impact border zones than within the other zones two years after the events. Hard coral cover has steadily increased at a mean rate of 3% per year within the scoured USSG site at a rate comparable to control sites. In contrast, recovery has been negligible within the rubble-dominated MPY site, suggesting that substrate quality strongly influenced recovery processes such as recruitment, as larvae do not survive well on unstable substrates. Long-term recovery trajectories from these two grounding events appeared strongly influenced by movement of the ship during and after each event, and site-specific wave-influenced persistence of rubble and debris. High prevalence of coral disease among damaged but surviving colonies two years post-grounding suggested long-term impacts which may be slowing recovery and creating localized pockets of higher persistent disease prevalence than that of the surrounding population.