By Alec Taylor, Marine Policy Officer
Courtesy of Ian McCarthy - traumatic scenes like this are less likely following yesterday's great news
When you work in marine conservation, often it seems that everything is working against you, when one step forward is followed by two steps back. So yesterday was a small day to savour. Yesterday I was back at the the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), as I was back in May, where it was agreed to reclassify all high-viscosity and highly reactive forms of polyisobutylene (PIB), so that around the world these products will become illegal to discharge when ships wash out their tanks. The reclassification will be officially adopted early next year by the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee.
You’ll remember PIBs as the substances responsible for the deaths of over 4,000 seabirds earlier this year, and the huge public outcry for change when it was discovered that these products could be legally discharged. Now, ships will be required to empty all such PIB products at shore, under strict conditions, before returning out to sea. The strict recording of cargos under this higher classification will also help in investigating and prosecuting illegal discharges.
The speed at which this has been achieved - in IMO circles, 8 months is effectively a blink of the eye - was down in large part to the positive work of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, who deserve a lot of credit for pushing for this change. But it would not have happened so quickly had it not been for the public and political pressure that NGOs, MPs and the public collectively put on the authorities to take decisive action to prevent this happening again.
It’s a real example of reacting to an incident with a clear policy ask, working as a team, discovering creative and unlikely alliances, being flexible and persevering to reach a real (and hopefully lasting) outcome for the good. I’m proud of what we achieved, it’s a small difference but days like this make it all worthwhile.