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According to the statistics compiled
and opened by the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation
(ITOPF), oil spill incidents in recent years have clearly and
consecutively decreased in both volume and the number of incidents in
global basis, this is thanks to ship owners' efforts for the safety and
the prevention of accident together with effective and appropriate
response in case of spill incident.
However, when we focused our eyes to
Asian area, the above situation can not be applicable but the number and
volume of spill are in the trend of increase on the contrary.
The transport of hydrocarbon oils has been increasing
continuously in this region to fulfill the energy demand derived from the
active economic behavior, which increases the risk of ship accidents and
spill incidents unavoidably.
Surrounding circumstances are similar in South and
Southeast Asian sea area.
From the viewpoint of environment
conservation of the regional seas, United Nations Environment Program
(UNEP) has been promoting 17 Regional Seas Programs including East Asia's
NOWPAP (North West Pacific Action Plan) which covers Russia, China, Korea
and Japan seas area and its "marine pollution contingency plan" came into
effect in 2004.
Four countries on the plan are required to cooperate,
share information and mutually support for resources when in marine
pollution emergency. NOWPAP framework was not in shape at the time of
Nakhodka incident in 1997 but how it functioned in the case of Hebei
Spirit in 2007?
Rather double tiered arrangement with UNEP,
International Maritime Organization (IMO) and IPIECA (International
Petroleum Industry Environment Conservation Association) is promoting its
Global Initiatives (GI) as worldwide assist to build up and sustain the
spill response capability in each dedicated nation or area. The activity
is ranging widely in contingency planning, management of spill response
training/exercise and selection/purchase/maintenance of response
equipment.
Japan
and Korea responded Nakhodka (1997)
and Hebei Spirit (2007) respectively using the lessons learned from
precedents in preparedness, cooperation and command systems to respond
large spills.
However,
reviewing and extracting issues in response of each incident, we could
learn more and it could be a help to countries and area trying to build up
capabilities of their own.
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