19 May 2009 - What may
become the world's
largest marine protected area came a step
closer today following the announcement
by Australia’s environment minister Peter
Garrett that the Coral Sea would become
a Conservation Zone.
The area, which is found
east of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine
park and amounts to almost a million square
kilometers, is home to significant seabirds
and migratory marine species, and has remained
relatively undisturbed by direct human impact.;
“The Coral sea is one
of the world’s healthiest marine wilderness
areas, where it is still possible to see
healthy populations of sharks, turtles,
whales, fish and coral” said Lydia Gibson,
WWF’s Marine Policy Manager in the region.
Under the conservation
zone designation, current tourism and fishing
activities can continue, but new commercial
activity will be rigorously assessed while
the government evaluates the region for
its conservation value.
WWF worked with government
and stakeholders to develop a set of criteria
which Mr. Garrett says will be included
in the final plan for the conservation of
the Coral Sea.
“The pressures on our
oceans are increasing and we need to take
steps to protect our fragile marine environments,”
Mr Garrett.
These criteria include
the establishment of the protected area
by 2011, ruling out oil and gas exploration
and the creation of high-conservation zones
within the Marine Protected Area.
This news comes shortly
after the commitment last week by the six
leaders of the Coral Triangle countries
– Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea,
the Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor
Leste – to protect the region by implementing
a 10-year regional plan of action with time-bound
steps to address growing threats to the
region’s threatened species and other marine
and coastal living resources.
“As climate change begins
to effect ecosystems around the world, including
the Coral Sea, marine protected areas provide
a buffer zone, allowing species to adapt
to the changes. WWF would like to see a
chain of interconnected marine protected
areas across the world, giving marine species
the greatest chance of survival” said Ms.
Gibson.
The existing Coral Sea
national nature reserves – Coringa-Herald
and Lihou Reef reserves, and the Great Barrier
Reef Marine Park, are not included in the
conservation zone.
+ More
Cruise liners’ pledge
to keep sewage out of fragile Baltic Sea
–WWF
19 May 2009 - Major
cruise ships will stop dumping sewage in
the Baltic Sea if ports will put in place
facilities allowing to remove waste, ECC,
a cruise-liner organization announced today.
ECC said it would abandon
the damaging practice if “adequate port
reception facilities
which operate under a ‘no special fee’ will
be made available.
WWF, which two years ago asked ferry lines
and cruise ship companies for a voluntary
ban on waste-water discharge, welcomed the
decision as a really important step forward.
The Baltic Sea receives
more than 350 cruise ship visits with over
2,100 port calls each year. The wastewater
produced in these vessels is estimated to
contain 113 tons of nitrogen and 38 tons
of phosphorus, substances that add to eutrophication
of the sea. Until now, most of this sewage
has been is discharged into the Baltic Sea.
“We are very happy that
the cruise companies have taken this decision,”
said Dr. Anita Mäkinen, Head of the
Marine Programme at WWF Finland. “The dumping
of untreated waste water straight out into
the Baltic Sea poses an
unnecessary threat to the sensitive nature
of the Baltic Sea environment.”
In addition to excess
nutrients, the waste water also contains
bacteria, viruses and
other pathogens, as well as heavy metals
Eutrophication is considered
by many the main environmental problem of
the Baltic Sea, causing both biological
and economic damage to marine environment
and coastal areas. It is caused by an overload
of nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen,
into the ecosystem.
It causes many problems,
including unusually strong and frequent
summertime algae blooms such as the toxic
cyanobacteria.
Today there are only
three out of more than 20 cruise ships ports
around the Baltic Sea, Helsinki, Stockholm
and Visby, that meet ECC’s conditions
The normal sewage storage
capacity for a cruise ship is between one
and three days. This means in praxis that
a lot of sewage will still be dumped in
the sea.
According to WWF, the
announcement is a step in the right direction.
“We see this as a step
in the right direction”, says Dr. Anita
Mäkinen, Head of the Marine Programme
at
“We now call on the
cruise lines to work together with us to
put pressure on the ports and their owners
to establish sufficient port facilities”,
says Pauli Merriman, Director of the WWF
Baltic Ecoregion Programme.
“We consider it to be
the responsibility of any country or city
that wants to receive these
cruise ships, to offer adequate sewage reception
facilities.”
