More collaboration needed for cleaner hulls, cleaner waters

A COUPLE of days ago I watched a television programme which explained how indigenous freshwater crayfish in English rivers were being wiped out by a much larger and more aggressive crayfish that belongs in North America.

In that particular case the invasive species had escaped from fish farms which had imported them as a lucrative product for the seafood market.

The immediate reaction was to say how could we be so stupid to let things like this happen.

But I didn't allow myself to heap opprobrium on the farmers involved because I was all too aware that the shipping industry has been the inadvertent transporter of creatures of many sorts to places where they are not wanted. They either get carried around the globe in ballast water and then get discharged into an ecosystem far away or cling to ships' hulls as unwanted passengers.

One striking example of how this can happen is that since the St Lawrence Seaway connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean was opened in 1959, 85 invasive species have been discovered and 54 are linked to ballast water discharge.

Of course we have known about this for a long time now and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has taken action through regulations, especially on water ballast. The shipping industry is currently spending millions of dollars on water ballast treatment systems.

Keeping hulls clean is a challenge that has had to be balanced against preventing biocides in antifouling coatings from causing environment damage.

One of the most effective anti-fouling paints, developed in the 1960s, contains the organotin tributylin (TBT), which has been proven to cause deformations in oysters and sex changes in whelks.

Banning TBT was the focus of the International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-fouling Systems on Ships 2001, which entered into force in September 2008.

Pressing issues

Now IMO has announced that a "ground-breaking" Global Industry Alliance (GIA) has been launched to tackle both invasive species and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It describes them as "two of the most pressing environmental issues of our time".

The GIA brings together stakeholders in the private sector and the GloFouling Partnerships, a project led by United Nations entities to address the transfer of harmful aquatic species through biofouling.

It is intended that the GIA will accelerate the development of solutions to prevent the build-up of aquatic organisms on ships' hulls or submerged structures such as platforms and aquaculture installations.

The new Global Industry Alliance (GIA) for Marine Biosafety brings together private sector companies from various industries affected by biofouling, including shipping, aquaculture, offshore oil and gas and ocean renewable energies.

IMO says these "maritime champions" will work together with the GloFouling Partnerships Project, a joint initiative between the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

The IMO also makes the point that the work of the GIA ought to contribute to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. As is very well understood in the industry, IMO explains that biofouling increases the drag of ships, forcing them to burn more fuel to maintain speed.

The new global alliance is expected to promote solutions to improve the hydrodynamic performance of ships and thereby contribute to a significant reduction of the carbon footprint of the shipping industry.

IMO secretary-general Kitack Lim said the new alliance will, for the first time, bring together all maritime industries in finding solutions to two key environmental issues affecting our planet - protecting marine biodiversity and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Coming together

"Under this new initiative, these industry champions, from different sectors, are coming together to address common challenges and move towards a more sustainable use of ocean resources," Mr Lim said.

Andrew Hudson, head of UNDP's Water & Ocean Governance Programme, said: "At UNDP we are very pleased to witness the creation of a new GIA that can help us all to work together to remove key barriers, whether they be informational or technical, to transform maritime industries and channel their contribution towards achieving the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from shipping."

IMO says that four companies have become founding members of the Global Industry Alliance for Marine Biosafety: CleanSubSea, ECOsubsea, HullWiper and Sonihull. It is expected that more companies will join the GIA.

It is a bit surprising that the initial list doesn't include the big coatings manufacturers, all of whom are working on developing more effective but less toxic anti-foulings.

Jose Matheickal, head of IMO's Department for Partnerships and Projects, said: "This alliance is about the collective pioneering efforts by all maritime industries in undertaking the fight against invasive species and all the creativity and innovations that are being brought to the table to develop technological solutions.

"Forging such an alliance among the current four founding partners lays the foundations of a potentially very large global partnership among maritime industry players."

That would be good, although it will be interesting to see if collaboration can really work in the highly competitive marine coatings sector.