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Exclusive Economic Zones of the Arctic Coastal states Exclusive Economic Zones of the Arctic Coastal states - Click on the image to enlarge

International Maritime Organization - IMO

International Maritime OrganizationThe Convention establishing the International Maritime Organization (IMO) was adopted in Geneva in 1948 and IMO first met in 1959. The IMO is the most important institution in the field of international shipping law and its main task is to develop and maintain a comprehensive regulatory framework for shipping. IMO’s mandate includes establishing measures regarding safety, environmental concerns, legal matters, technical co-operation, maritime security and the efficiency of shipping.

The work of IMO has led to massive body of international conventions, supported by hundreds of recommendations dealing with every angle of shipping. The international legal regime for the regulation of maritime shipping therefore contains a wide number of categories of standards.

The conventions of IMO deal, in theory, with certain issues but can additionally, have legal effects on more than single set of standards. The main categories of substantive standards or requirements are; CDEM (construction, design, equipment and manning) standards, navigation standards, discharge and emission standards, contingency planning and preparedness standards and liability, compensation and insurance standards.

The mandate of IMO is global and thus, most of its legally binding instruments have a global scope of application and apply in principle to the entire Arctic marine area. The IMO has, however, developed voluntary guidelines that apply in the Arctic waters and might become mandatory in the near future.

The Arctic Council

The Arctic Council has been successful in preparing assessments, developing a regional identity and setting the Arctic agenda but does not have powers to impose internationally binding rules. The Arctic Council Members have committed themselves to implementing the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy (AEPS) in conformity with the LOS Convention.

In 2000, the Arctic Council adopted the Action Plan to Eliminate Pollution in the Arctic (ACAP) and determined that the ACAP would be a basis for developing and implementing actions under the Council’s auspices with respect to pollution prevention and remediation.

The most recent relevant output The Arctic Council regarding Trans-Arctic shipping is the Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment (AMSA) of PAME, which was released at the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Tromsø, April 2009. The AMSA contains a considerable number of Recommendations categorized under the headings Enhancing Arctic Marine Safety, Protecting Arctic People and the Environment and Building the Arctic Marine Infrastructure. AMSA was approved by the Ministerial Meeting later that month means of the Tromsø Declaration of 29 April 2009.

The Arctic Councils’ main Working Group concerned with shipping activities is the Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response Working Group (EPPR) Among its’ main products are; ArcticGuide (updated annually), Field Guide for Oil Spill Response in Arctic Waters (1998), Environmental Risk Analysis of Arctic Activities (1998), Circumpolar Map of Resources at Risk from Oil Spills in the Arctic (2002) and Shoreline Clean-up Assessment Technique (SCAT) Manual (2004).

Oil spill (Photo: Lawrence Hislop) Oil spill (Photo: Lawrence Hislop)Environmental impacts

Environmental protection measures
Increased shipping activity in the Arctic raises the potential for increased numbers of shipping accidents with the detrimental human and environmental effects that might follow.

Prevention of marine accidents and actions designed to strengthen the effectiveness of preventive measures, can be critical for Arctic marine shipping given the difficulties of responding once an incident has occurred. Preventive measures include ensuring that vessels operating in the Arctic meet appropriate design, construction and equipment standards; that vessel personnel have the specialized skills needed for operating in Arctic conditions.

Emergency response is particularly challenging in the Arctic for a variety of reasons, including the remoteness and great distances that are often involved in responding. Additionally, the impacts of cold, ice and a harsh operating environment on response personnel and equipment; and the lack of coastal infrastructure and communications to support and sustain a response of any significant magnitude, is immense.

International conventions relating to ship construction, crewing standards and other aspects of maritime safety apply in all ocean areas for vessels that are flagged in States that are parties to the conventions. However, these standards are not necessarily adequate for ships operating in the environmentally fragile, dangerous and remote polar waters.

Polar Bear in Svalbard (Photo: Peter Prokosch). The Polar Bears occupying the area between Spitsbergen and the Russian Archipelago are referred to as the Barents Sea population and are estimated to make up over 3,000 bears. They are long-lived mammals with low reproductive rates and they have black skin beneath their beautiful white coat - which saw them hunted in the past, causing near extinction. Polar Bear in Svalbard (Photo: Peter Prokosch)Impact of tourism

Tourism has increased dramatically in the Arctic, because of increased awareness of its beauty and undisturbed nature and also because of a desire to see it before the ice melts and the animals disappear.

However, excessive tourism could cause environmental damage both from the usual problems caused by an increasing number of vessels and because waste from garbage and sewage would have to be disposed of.

More generally, if all the new single-year sea ice melts, navigation in the Arctic could remain hazardous for some time to come, as multi-year ice will linger and so will icebergs, in particular those calving off melting glaciers.

This could result in more accidents, causing further problems, including pollution by leaking heavy fuel oil from cruise ships.

Source:
The AMSA report (2009)

According to University of British Columbia researchers, it is estimated that fisheries catches in the Arctic totaled 950,000 tonnes from 1950 to 2006, almost 75 times the amount reported to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) during this period.
The study, Led by Prof. Daniel Pauly, a research team from UBC's Fisheries Centre and Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences reconstructed fisheries catch data from various sources – including limited governmental reports and anthropological records of indigenous population activities – for FAO's Fisheries Statistical Area 18 , which covers arctic coastal areas in northern Siberia (Russia), Arctic Alaska (the U.S.) and the Canadian Arctic.

It is reported in the study that the Arctic is one of the last and most extensive ocean wilderness areas in the world. The extent of the sea ice in the region has declined in recent years due to climate change, raising concerns over loss of biodiversity as well as the expansion of industrial fisheries into this area.

"Ineffective reporting, due to governance issues and a lack of credible data on small-scale fisheries, has given us a false sense of comfort that the Arctic is still a pristine frontier when it comes to fisheries," says lead author Dirk Zeller, a senior research fellow at UBC's Fisheries Centre. "We now offer a more accurate baseline against which we can monitor changes in fish catches and to inform policy and conservation efforts."

Official FAO data on fish catches in Area 18 from 1950 to 2006 were based solely on statistics supplied by Russia and amounted to 12,700 tonnes. The UBC team performed a detailed analysis and found that it's only the tip of iceberg. According to the study, Russia's total catch was actually a staggering 770,000 tonnes from 1950 to 2006, or nearly 12,000 tonnes per year.

The team shows that while the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service's Alaska branch currently reports zero catches to FAO for the Arctic area, the state agency, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has collected commercial data and undertaken studies on 15 coastal communities in the Alaskan Arctic that rely on fisheries for subsistence. The estimated fish catch during this period in Alaska alone totaled 89,000 tonnes. While no catches were reported to FAO by Canada, the research team shows commercial and small-scale fisheries actually amounted to 94,000 tonnes in catches in the same time span.

"Our work shows a lack of care by the Canadian, U.S. and Russian governments in trying to understand the food needs and fish catches of northern communities," says Pauly, who leads the Sea Around Us Project at UBC.
Researchers from the Sea Around Us Project have previously shown a trend of fish stocks moving towards polar regions due to the effects of climate change. This, coupled with increased accessibility of the Arctic areas due to melting sea ice, will place immense pressure on the region for future large-scale fisheries.

"This research confirms that there is already fishing pressure in this region," says Pauly. "The question now is whether we should allow the further expansion of fisheries into the Arctic."

"Conservation efforts in the Arctic have so far focused on the exploitation of marine mammals – seals and polar bears are frankly easy on the eye and plain to see," says Zeller. "None of them would survive, however, if we allow over-exploitation of fish in this delicate but so-far neglected ecosystem."

Source: UBC

The AMSA report coverThe AMSA report (2009) is the leading source of information about Arctic shipping today. The Arctic Council decided in November 2004 at the ministerial meeting in Reykjavík that a comprehensive Arctic marine shipping assessment was necessary.

The Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment (PAME) working group was in charge of creating the report with the assistance of more than 185 experts from a number of organizations.

The AMSA report was approved at the ministerial meeting Tromsø meeting in 2009.

This report is one of the key sources of information for the AP shipping portlet as well as a key document for anyone interested in Arctic shipping.

Click HERE to read the report (PDF)

The possibility of a Trans-Arctic shipping route has intrigued seafarers since the days of the first Arctic explorers, as it would shorten the distance between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean significantly and shorten trade routes.

This possibility still intrigues various stakeholders and is an issue that has received significant media coverage. Although some people consider this option not the most dominant issue in Arctic shipping today, Trans-Arctic shipping will probably become a reality during the 21st Century due to decline in sea Ice.

How and when this will happen is hard for scientists to predict. It is estimated that we will possibly see an ice-free arctic ocean for a short period annually as soon as 2015, but conditions that would make regular Trans-Arctic shipping a viable option are harder to predict. There are numerous factors that will have to be taken into account such as the lack of infrastructure; technological advances in ice strengthened cargo ships, pressure to develop alternative shipping lanes due to pressure on existing lanes such as the Panama and Suez canals will all play a role in the development of Trans-Arctic cargo shipping.

Key Issues

Cruise-ship activity in the ArcticDuring the year 2004, about 6000 vessels navigated the Arctic, many making multiple voyages operating in their operations. Virtually all shipping in the region is destinational, conducted for community re-supply, resource oriented or connected to tourism.  There has been a significant increase of cruise ships in the Arctic, were the majority is not specifically built for navigation in Arctic waters. These ships may have significant effect on wildlife, as the purpose of these voyages is to seek places of special interest such as wildlife refuges.

There are a number of ways that a cruise ship can cause harm to delicate areas in the Arctic. It includes; noise, air and ocean pollution and inappropriate behavior of passengers ashore are the most prominent impacts. Sewage is also a major concern whereas an average cruise ship produces more than 95.000 liters of oily bilge a week, which can increase chances of accidental spillage or leaks.

Additionally there is an increased security risk involved for passengers if a cruise liner would need immediate assistance. Search and rescue resources are limited in the Arctic with a tighter timeframe due to challenging surroundings.

These are among the key issues that need to be addressed in connection to shipping activities within the Arctic.

"The temperature is unprecedented in the past 2,000 years," lead author Robert Spielhagen of the Academy of Sciences, Humanities and Literature in Mainz, Germany, told Reuters of the study in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The summer water temperatures, reconstructed from the makeup of tiny organisms buried in sediments in the Fram strait, have risen from an average 5.2 degrees Celsius (41.36F) from 1890-2007 and about 3.4C (38.12F) in the previous 1,900 years. The findings were a new sign that human activities were stoking modern warming since temperatures are above past warm periods linked to swings in the sun's output that enabled, for instance, the Vikings to farm in Greenland in Medieval times.

"We found that modern Fram Strait water temperatures are well outside the natural bounds," Thomas Marchitto, of the University of Colorado at Boulder, one of the authors, said in a statement. The Fram strait is the main carrier of ocean heat to the Arctic

Source: Reuters / Alister Doyle