Coastal Guide News

Freeing the Baltic marine environment from hazardous substances

http://www.helcom.fi/helcom/news/152.html

The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (Helsinki Commission, HELCOM) has completed its final project report on the implementation of the HELCOM Objective with regard to Hazardous Substances. This is an important step towards preparing measures to phase out any emissions, discharges and losses of hazardous substances in the Baltic region by 2020, as spelled out in the 1998 HELCOM Recommendation 19/5. The HELCOM Hazardous Project Group assessed the exposure situation and identified suitable cost-effective measures. It also prepared guidance documents covering several (groups of) hazardous substances to help policy makers to choose the most efficient instruments and measures. To reach their goal, HELCOM needs to continue its activities including stakeholder meetings to raise awareness of the problems associated with hazardous substances. To download the Final Project Report, Recommendation 19/5 and Guidance Documents and for more information visit http://www.helcom.fi/helcom/news/152.html

Making Waves: Integrated Coastal Conservation and Development

Brown, K., Tompkins, E.L. and Adger, W.N., xii + 164 pages. Earthscan Publications Ltd, London. ISBN 1 85383 912 4 paperback and 1 85383 915 9 hardback.

The value of this book is in the mix of an academic approach with real-live, case-study issues thoroughly analysed. The writers have gained a practical experience through their hands-on work in Tobago with the Buccoo Reef Marine Park. Their in-depth analysis concerning the practicalities of encouraging recalcitrant stakeholders to take part in the participatory approach provides some salutary lessons for all those involved in integrated coastal zone management. There are also some good examples of conflict resolution (pp34 et seq) which are of particular relevance given the current discussions about trying to integrate ICZM with Freshwater River Management. In these examples, upstream pollution problems causing coastal eutrophication were solved (in Florida and Hawaii). The book is short and concise, only 141 pages, and leaves the reader wanting more information on some aspects. Do the theoretical examples of an assurance game (p44) actually work in the field? More in depth information about the fisheries example in Thailand would have been desirable as well. The author's inter-disciplinary analysis of problems encountered in ICZM is presented in a very readable style. The book can be recommended not only to university students but anyone interested in ICZM.

HazNet.org
http://www.haznet.org/
Natural hazards, like hurricanes and shoreline erosion, affect everyone who lives and works on the coast. While you cannot control the forces of nature, you can learn how to protect your home, community, business and loved ones.

Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM):
http://www.state.ma.us/czm/
To balance the impacts of human activity with the protection of coastal and marine resources.

Scientists from the Dutch Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) reported that the Knot could be extinct within ten years. In August this year they counted only 17 Knots on the islet Griend in the Wadden Sea whereas they usually count 30,000 to 40,000 Knots. Knots breed in Greenland and North-Canada and winter around the North Sea. The scientists consider there is only a small possibility that the Knots have colonised a new territory. According to them, the decrease is caused by changes in the bottom of the Wadden Sea, which are brought about by the cockle and mussel fishery. The bottom is getting less silty and more sandy and Knots eat small shellfish (Macoma baltica and juvenile Common cockle) that live in silt. In October 2002 the shellfish industry got a permit from the Dutch government to fish in the protected zones in the Wadden Sea. Because of the objections of Nature organisations the permit was temporarily withdrawn. The nature organisations stressed the risks of the fishery for birds like Knot, Oystercatcher and Common Eider. They claim that these birds and the shellfish industry are direct competitors, while the fishers deny this and claim Knots don't eat cockles. They started a lawsuit against the withdrawal of their permit, which they won on 6 December 2002.

The floating sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean shrank to record levels in the late summer of 2002, according to a new study by University of Colorado scientists. This continues a trend of increasing sea ice losses over the past two decades, possibly longer. With other evidence pointing to changes in atmosphere and ocean circulation, positive temperature trends, snow cover reductions, and permafrost warming, the sea ice conditions in 2002 raise further concern that climate change is significantly altering the Arctic, and that human activities may be partly to blame. The total area of surface melt on the Greenland Ice Sheet for 2002 also broke all known records for the island. The scientists estimate that a change in the Greenland climate toward warmer conditions would lead to an increase in the rate of sea-level rise mainly due to the dynamic response of the large ice sheet and not so much to the surface melting. For every degree (F) increase in the mean annual temperature near Greenland, the rate of sea level rise would increase by about 10 percent. Currently the oceans are rising by a little more than half an inch per decade. In addition, melt water has been shown to directly affect the rate of ice flow off Greenland, penetrating the ice sheet and causing the glaciers to accelerate in speed as they slide over a thin film of melt water. Excessive melting of sea ice, along with runoff from the Greenland Ice Sheet, also has the potential to "cap" deep water convection in the North Atlantic. This could profoundly impact global ocean circulation and climate. In other studies, changes in the North Atlantic circulation have been implicated in starting and stopping Northern Hemisphere ice ages.
Full stories on http://cires.colorado.edu/steffen/melt/index.html, http://nsidc.org/news/, and http://nsidc.org/seaice/news.html.

On 3 December 2002, the European Commission published a blacklist of ships that could be banned from European waters and urged the European Union to prohibit the transport of heavy fuel in single-hulled tankers. This was a reaction on last month's oil spill off the coast of Spain. The Commission called on EU heads of state and government to rule on the measure at a summit this week in Copenhagen. In the European Council of Ministers of Transport, on 6 December, the Netherlands slowed down these measures. Earlier, on 5 November 2002 the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted a directive that amends the previous directives on maritime safety, prevention of pollution from ships and shipboard living and working conditions. With the aim of improving the implementation of Community legislation on these subjects, this Directive makes a reference to the Committee on Safe Seas and the prevention of Pollution from Ships (COSS). With the same aim, it accelerates the update and facilitates the amendment of such legislation in the light of developments in the international instruments applicable in the field of these subjects, pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 2099/2002. Member States shall implement the Directive no later than 23 November 2003.
More information: www.europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/oj/2002/l_32420021129en.html, www.stoptherustbuckets.info and www.business-humanrights.org/European-Union.htm

Deadline for submitting contributions to Coastal Guide News No 25, 2002: 17 December 2002 (will be disseminated on 20 December 2002)

COASTAL GUIDE NEWS is a biweekly newsletter published by the EUCC - The Coastal Union 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: Erik Devilee, Marijke Kooijman, Irene Lucius, Piet Lansbergen, Hanneke Mesters, Albert Salman.

Established in 1989, the EUCC - The Coastal Union 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, POBox 11232, NL-2301 EE Leiden, the Netherlands, tel.: +31-71-5122900, internet: http://www.eucc.nl