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Environmental protection

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Marine: Cleaner Seas report

Threats to life at sea

Humans affect life at sea in seven main ways:

  1. Our ships sail the seas.
  2. We harvest fish and shellfish from the seas.
  3. Run-off and discharges from land contain contaminants from our land-based activities.
  4. We dump materials in the sea.
  1. We extract oil, gas and other minerals from the seabed.
  2. Our development of the coastal zone, both on land and in the sea, affects coastal waters.
  3. What we put into the atmosphere changes it and is carried by it to the seas.

Shipping

The Port of Immingham on the Humber.
The waters around the UK coast include some of world's busiest sea lanes. At any one time there are 5,000 ships operating in the North Sea. Indeed, there are few areas of our coastal waters without significant shipping traffic. Despite this, shipping is responsible for a relatively small proportion of all marine pollution in the UK compared to that from land-based sources.

Of the pollution incidents that are caused by shipping, media attention tends to focus on major oil spills such as the Braer and the Sea Empress. However, the majority of marine pollution from shipping is actually caused by the day to day operation of merchant ships, fishing vessels and leisure craft. This is why the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has set, and regularly updates, binding international standards both on accident prevention and on operational discharges.

UK policy is to seek tighter standards through the IMO and to ensure that all ships comply with them. A recent achievement is that, from 1999, virtu-ally all discharges of oil will be prohib-ited while ships are in UK waters.

Sea Empress
Cleanup operation
The stricken Sea Empress and the clean-up operation after the oil spill.
The coastal member states of the European Union, as well as Canada, Croatia, Norway, Poland and Russia cooperate in enforcing IMO standards through the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control. Ships of the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet, though not required to comply, will be fitted with pollution prevention equipment wherever practicable.

The UK is also working to deter illegal discharges by improving its ability to detect and prosecute offenders, and by increasing the severity of the penalties. For example, it is now possible to prosecute foreign ships for pollution offences outside the UK's territorial sea (an area stretching out to 12 nautical miles around the UK's coastline and islands). Even the lowest courts can fine a shipowner up to £250,000 for an illegal discharge.

In January 1998 a new regime for port waste reception facilities came into force. Its aim is to ensure that ships' wastes can be discharged in ports as quickly, simply and cheaply as possible. This removes any excuse for illegal discharges at sea.

The National Contingency Plan for marine pollution from shipping and offshore installations sets out the division of responsibilities and arrangements for dealing with marine pollution incidents in UK waters, and explains the legal and policy framework.

The Marine Pollution Control Unit (MPCU) exercises the Secretary of State's statutory function of coordinating preparedness and response tasks for marine pollution from ships. It maintains the capability, using specialist equipment and trained personnel, to deal with pollution incidents and also has, under contract, both remote sensing and dispersant spraying aircraft and holds stocks of dispersant. In this it liaises with MAFF, SOAEFD and the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland, and will assist local authorities in dealing with oil washed ashore.

The UK is pressing within the IMO for international action to ensure that prompt and adequate compensation is available to cover the costs of reasonable remedial action taken to deal with marine pollution from ships and consequential losses.

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Page last modified: 01 March 2005
Page published: 21 September 1988

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs