Coastal Guide News

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Environment
	Comprehensive assessment on endocrine disruptors out
	Tricolor oil-spill reaches Belgian and Dutch coastline

Policy
	Environmental organisations concerned about new EU Constitution
	EU calls for stricter international maritime safety rules

Aug 8 -12	Aquaculture Europe 2003 Conference, Trondheim, Norway. A workshop on mussel farming is scheduled for August 12. The conference is organised in conjunction with AQUA NOR 2003 (August 12-15). Info: e-mail: ae2003@aquaculture.cc, tel: +32-59323859, fax: +32-59-321005, website: http://www.easonline.org
Aug 12 - 15	AQUA NOR 2003 Exhibition, Trondheim, Norway. The world’s largest aquaculture exhibition. Info: e-mail: mailbox@nor-fishing.no, tel: +47-73568640, fax: +47-73568641, website: http://www. nor-fishing.no

Europe - European Water Pollutants List Delayed One Year
European Commission proposals for a definitive priority list of water pollutants under the European Union water framework law will not emerge until the end of 2003 - a year after the deadline set by governments and Members of the European Parliament.
More information: http://www.ens-news.com/ens/jan2003/2003-01-27-03.asp

Denmark – contravention of bathing water rules
The European court of justice has ruled that Denmark contravened the EU bathing water directive. The ruling's significance is reduced, however, by an imminent overhaul of EU bathing water rules. Under the new requirements, the range of pollutants monitored is expected to be cut drastically, allowing authorities to reduce sampling frequency in certain circumstances.
More information: http://www.environmentdaily.com

Italy - draft law decriminalizes some environmental offences
The Italian Cabinet is to examine a draft decree that several environmental offences - breaches of building and hunting regulations, air and marine quality rules, ozone layer protection rules, norms on the marketing and labelling of dangerous substances - become administrative offences, rather than crimes, under the draft decree.
More information: http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2003/2003-01-27-19.asp#anchor2

Africa – WWF asks better EU fishing deals with developing countries
In a letter to the President of the Agriculture/Fisheries Council, WWF International’s president expresses his concern that some of the EU member states want a big expansion of EU fishing in the waters of developing countries. WWF says EU Fisheries ministers must give the European Commission a strong mandate to urgently and rigorously implement its plans for improving fishing agreements with developing countries.
More information: http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/press_releases/news.cfm?uNewsID=5501

Alaska - Exxon Valdez oil still harmful
Small oil patches left from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill are still releasing toxins that harm sea life, US government scientists say. Sea otters and harlequin ducks in the area still show evidence of oil-related stress.
More information: http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2003/01/01162003/reu_49358.asp

REVAMP
http://ivm5.ivm.vu.nl/revamp
REgional VAlidation of MERIS chlorophyll Products in North Sea coastal waters will develop an atlas containing maps of validated chlorophyll concentrations for the North Sea

The Spanish revenue minister Cristobal Montoro announced on Wednesday that the disaster will cost the Spanish state at least 1 billion euro. A study by Spanish trade union Comisiones Obreras puts the cost - excluding the indirect economic impact of the degradation of Spain's Atlantic coastline - at three times the official estimate. Meanwhile ten environmental organisations accuse the regional and national authorities of attempting to misinform the public and of silencing and disparaging criticism of their performance. The NGOs have called for official regional, national and EU inquiries, however the Spanish and European parliaments voted against that. The NGOs also recommended new policies including less reliance on fossil fuels, unlimited responsibility for companies involved in the transport of hydrocarbons, and infrastructure and contingency plans to respond to crises of this kind. In a letter published in the magazine Science on 24 January, 442 Spanish scientists hold the Spanish government responsible for the disaster. They have written that the government brought them into discredit by claiming that each decision was based on consultation with scientists, while they were hardly consulted.
More information: http://www.wild-spain.com/, http://www.environmentdaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=index&intTermID=74

On January 29, oil that leaked from the sunken cargo ship Tricolor started to wash onto the Belgian beech. After a day the oil also reached the Dutch coast. In both countries thousands of damaged birds washed up. The Tricolor sank mid-December and has been hit by three other ships since then. The disaster could have been worse because the second collision was caused by a tanker carrying 70,000 tons of highly flammable kerosene. One of the ships from Dutch-based Smit Salvage, contracted to remove oil from the Tricolor, cracked the Tricolor's hull in bad weather on January 22.
More information: http://www.spillpoint.com/

Eight European environmental and nature organisations have sent President Prodi a letter on 28 January 2003 highlighting a number of serious concerns they have with proposals produced inside the Commission for the new EU Constitution. They in particular reacted to the Working Document of Commission Services published on 4 December, also referred to as the Penelope Document. They are concerned about indications that environmental and ecological objectives of the EU are getting less priority. The eight organisations include the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of Nature International, the European Federation for Transport and Environment, BirdLife International and Climate Network Europe. During the Conference on Environmental Governance and Civil Society on 27 January 2003 Pascal Lefevre, an official from the EC’s Environment Directorate also expressed his concern about the fact that environment policy was “just not being discussed” in a convention charged with consolidating the EU treaty and its offshoots into a more comprehensible and public friendly document.
More information: http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2003/G8_29_Jan_Convention.htm
http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2003/2003-01-29-03.asp
http://www.eeb.org/activities/Governance/main.htm

In a letter sent on 29 January to the EU's trading partners, including the United States and Japan, EU Transport Commissioner de Palacio called for strong action to improve the international legal regime for ship source pollution. She urged the international community and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to acceleration the global phasing out of single-hulled tankers and to impose fines on owners and others involved in oil spills caused by negligence. The EU agreed in December to ban single hull tankers carrying heavy fuel through their waters and plans to set up "safety zones" off limits to dangerous ships and to introduce a 1 billion euro fund to help areas stricken by oil slicks.
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-01-30/s_2428.asp

Deadline for submitting contributions to Coastal Guide News No 3, 2003: 23 February 2003

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, Antje Ehrenburg (Amsterdam Water Supply), Marijke Kooijman, Irene Lucius, Piet Lansbergen, Toni March, Arnoud van der Meulen, 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