Information & Meetings
	Conferences & Events
	Wadden Sea Regions embrace ICZM for tourism development

Organisations
	New hyperlinks to websites
	Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership fundings

Environment
	Greenpeace condemns patent GM Fish
	Baltic Sea States agree on deadline for phasing-out single-hull tankers
	Measures to prevent pollution of the Baltic Sea
	Coral reefs under increasing threat of rapid disappearce

Development & Trends
	World's first-ever floating mini power-station

 
 

Information & Meetings

Events recently announded

Please note:
The overview of the Coastal Guide conference and event  meeting list can be found at http://www.coastalguide.org/meetings/
 

Wadden Sea Regions embrace ICZM for tourism development

The 4th Inter-Regional Wadden Sea Conference (IWRC) has approved the EU Strategy on ICZM and decided to promote the implementation of ICZM for the Wadden Sea Area, especially to facilitate a sustainable tourism development. The IRWC's focus on tourism is based upon the outcomes of the NetForum project on tourism in the Area (1998-2000). The IRWC considers ICAM as an opportunity "to change the development in the Area, where management (…) in the last decades has focussed primarily on the preservation issues and conservation measures". The IWRC is a collaboration of Noord-Holland, Friesland and Groningen (NL), Nordfriesland, Dithmarschen (Germany), Ribe and Sønderjylland (Denmark) and the conference (19-21 Sept. in Dokkum, Friesland) was partly a preparation for the 9th Trilateral Governmental Wadden Sea Conference (October in Esbjerg). The IRWC approved a great number of statements but it disagreed on three sensitive issues. The Danish counties blocked a positive position towards an application for UNESCO World Heritage sites, even though this would have no new restrictions for human use; the Danes have bad memories from earlier conservation designations. Consultations in the Netherlands and Germany will continue. The new IMO-instrument of Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA) was presented as a way to protect the Wadden Sea against shipping disasters and oil pollution. However, the German and Danish regions opposed an application procedure until "questions and consequences for the harbours economy [in the Area] are answered and assessed properly". In turn, the Dutch provinces blocked a proposal suggesting that windmills with "substantial negative impacts on the landscape or negative influence on nature, should be reduced as much as possible in number and on a long-term plan be removed." Noord-Holland and Friesland insisted on an explicit exception for an area around the Afsluitdijk, where they consider to establish a 300 MW windpower farm (109 mills) on the dyke and in the Wadden Sea. The Danes and the Germans refused to accept this exception. Wind power will remain a controversial issue in the region. The Wadden Sea Society has announced to fight against the Afsluitdijk project. Yet another plan was discussed in the corridors, a 4500 MW windpower farm at the North Sea side of the German Wadden islands. Take a deep breath…
Further info: http://www.irwc.ribeamt.dk
 

New hyperlinks

North West Coastal Forum
http://www.go-nw.gov.uk/nwcf/home.html
To promote and deliver integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) in the North West region of England

Check out the other Website Links on the Coastal Guide

Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership fundings

International financial institutions, the EU Commission, bilateral donors and transition economies, in a meeting on the 12th of September in Stockholm, approved funding of environmental projects in Russia and the Baltic Sea Regions. The first meeting of the steering group of the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP) was called by the Chair of the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) in order to discuss important environmental projects in the Baltic Sea and the Barents Sea. The first NDEP projects that will receive funding are the South West Wastewater Treatment Plant in St Petersburg and environmental investments in the Kaliningrad region. The partnership would also consider funding for nuclear clean-up and nuclear waste management projects in the Northern Dimension Area. According to the NIB Senior vice President, Oddvar Ronsen, the first funds for NDEP could be provided before the end of the year. The European Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development plan a pledging meeting for an NDEP fund for the last week of November in Brussels.
For more information see http://www.nib.int/en/5_newsread.html?Id=1000298305.html and http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=12395&newsdate=13-Sep-2001

Greenpeace condemns patent GM Fish

The European Patent Office (EPO), based in Munich has granted a patent on genetically modified (GMO) fish for the first time. Greenpeace condemned this patent grant to the Canadian company Seabright (now renamed "Genesis") on Atlantic salmon and all other fish species carrying an additional gene for faster growth. The patent was granted under the highly controversial EU Directive on "Biotechnological Inventions", which was implemented by the EPO in June 1999. Seabright (Genesis) has licensed the use of the growth hormone genetic modification technology to its related company, A/F Proteins, which has introduced the 'transgene' antifreeze protein into the Atlantic salmon. As a result, a salmon can grow eight times bigger than the standard salmon. A/F Proteins also claims to have 15 million genetically modified fish eggs ready for sale to fish farms around the world after being granted the authorities' approval. Greenpeace opposes all kinds of patents on living beings and according to the Greenpeace campaigner, Christoph Then "several leading marine biologists and fishery organisations have expressed strong concerns that, once released into the environment, genetically modified fish could become invasive species and cause irreversible damage to wild fish stocks and to the wider marine ecosystem".
For more information see http://www.greenpeace.org and http://www.mun.ca/seabright/af_protn.html
 

Baltic Sea States agree on deadline for phasing-out single-hull tankers

At the HELCOM (Helsinki Commission) Extraordinary Meeting held in Copenhagen on 10 September, nine Baltic Sea States including Russia agreed on a fast-track timetable for accelerating the phase-out of single-hull oil tankers in order to prevent pollution of the Baltic Sea. In the wake of the Erika disaster of December 1999, the International Maritime Organization (IMO)'s 158 member States had already agreed to their own timetable at a week-long meeting in London in April, which HELCOM had ratified. (see Coastal Guide News No. 10) However HELCOM rejected IMO's provisions for states to extend their own national deadlines. Although IMO's new phase-out timetable set 2015 as the principal cut-off date for all single-hull tankers, Brazil backed by several developing nations won a degree of leeway in phase-out deadlines. The HELCOM Copenhagen Declaration adopted at the Copenhagen 10 September meeting stipulates that "the Baltic Sea states will refrain from making uses of any exemption and relaxation provisions", which means that single hull oil tankers will be phased out between 2003 and 2005, depending on the age and type of the vessel. Thus the single-hulled tanker fleet will be replaced by a new generation of double-hulled tankers which offer greater protection against oil spillage. However HELCOM's ban can only be enforced on ships flying the flags of the nine Baltic states and cannot be extended to foreign ships calling in the member's ports. As for the European Union, which represents the most important oil importer in the negotiations, it announced that it would comply with the earliest possible deadline of 2015.
For more information on HELCOM Copenhagen Declaration see below and http://www.helcom.fi/

Measures to prevent pollution of the Baltic Sea

The Environment and Transport Ministers of the Baltic Sea countries met in Copenhagen on the 10th of September and agreed upon new measures to prevent pollution in the Baltic Sea. Apart from the phase out of single hull oil tankers, the measures includes:

• Intensifying the use of pilots in the high risk-areas;
• Regular hydrographic re-surveying of main shipping routes;
• Promoting the use of Electronic Charts Display and Information System (ECDIS), a state of the art tool for navigation;
• Installing land based Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) for monitoring maritime traffic;
• Strengthening the compliance with maritime safety regulations
• Strengthening the ties to the European Community to benefit from their activities to ensure maritime Safety.

The Helsinki Convention will be amended and the new measures implemented as of the 1st of December 2002.
For more information on HELCOM Copenhagen Declaration see http://www.helcom.fi/

Coral reefs under increasing threat of rapid disappearce

The United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) released in London on 11 September the most detailed global map of coral reefs. The World Atlas of Coral Reefs shows that they are far smaller than scientists previously thought. This new assessment provides a new global estimate for coral reefs world-wide: they only cover 284 300 sq km, an area just half the size of France. These findings give new urgency to protect and conserve these valuable habitats which are under assault and are degrading quickly everywhere in the world. Indeed these important marine ecosystems, vital for coastal protection, fisheries, tourism and wildlife, hosting up to two million species of marine plants and animals, are under increasing threat from activities such as dynamite fishing, climate change, pollution and sedimentation from adjacent land. For instance in Indonesia, the world's largest coral nation with a reef area of 51,020 sq km, 82% of corals are "at risk" from illegal practice of blast fishing in which explosives are thrown towards the reef. Some parts of the Indian Ocean have lost 90% of their coral reefs, representing 5% of the world's reef area, as a result of the 1998 El Nino warming phenomenon. The Atlas also shows that in the Caribbean entire coral reefs have been decimated by disease. The global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Sources is trying to co-ordinate an integrated response to the impact of pollutants on coral reefs and will be holding a ministerial review in Montreal later this year to further address the issue.
For more information see http://www.gpa.unep.org
For the International coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN)see http://www.icran.org.
For UNEP's Coral Reef Unit read: http://unep.ch/coral.html
The World Atlas of Coral Reefs can be ordered from University of California Press: http://www.ucpress.edu

World's first-ever floating mini power-station

A plan to connect a wave power centre in Scotland to the national grid has won backing from the UK Government. Brian Wilson, the energy minister, said £1.67m would be made available to help establish the world's first-ever floating mini power-station. The £2.7m wave-power machine, which relies on the power of the ocean, is expected to be launched next summer from a new marine energy testing centre to be built in Orkney. Once operational this innovative new technology will supply enough electricity to power 1400 homes. Wavegen, the Inverness-based company behind the machine, has already developed a grid-connected shoreline wave energy generator on Islay. The firm now plans to use the power of the Atlantic Ocean to generate more power with a prototype of its offshore machine. The government hopes to see 10% of the UK's electricity generated from renewable sources by 2010.
BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsid_1537000/1537205.stm
Wavegen : http://www.wavegen.co.uk/

Deadline for submitting contributions to Coastal Guide News No 19: 03 October, 2001

COASTAL GUIDE NEWS is a biweekly newsletter published by the European Union for Coastal Conservation (EUCC) with financial support of Stichting DOEN, the foundation of the Dutch lottery "Postcode Loterij" and the Department of International Nature Affairs of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries. For free subscriptions, comments or contributions to this newsletter, please contact news@coastalguide.org. 

Members of the Coastal Guide News editorial team: Hanna-Maria Baerlund, Erik Devilee, Irene Lucius, Hanneke Mesters, Alan Pickaver, Albert Salman, Katja Schutte, Virginie Terrier.
 

Established in 1989, the European Union for Coastal Conservation (EUCC) is an association involving the largest coastal network in Europe with 750 members and member organisations in 40 countries. For more information please contact EUCC International Secretariat, POB 11232, NL-2301 EE Leiden, the Netherlands, tel.: +31-71-5122900, internet: http://www.eucc.nl
 

© European Union for Coastal Conservation