In our last 20-year anniversary article (Part 1) we introduced the importance of networking, the role Sea Alarm has had in initiating and coordinating NGO Response networks and reviewed the history of the European Network EUROWA. In Part 2, we continue the story, presenting the work of the Global Oiled Wildlife Response System (GOWRS) and some closing words on the significance of these networks, which leave the world better prepared for oiled wildlife response.

Network is a word that is used a lot nowadays, but what is a network? For Sea Alarm, it is a group of organisations and/or individuals with a common interest working together. We have a strong belief that by cooperating and striving towards common goals, a well-coordinated network can grow to be stronger than the sum of its parts (in other words, its individual members). 

At the turn of the new millennium, Sea Alarm was still a young organisation aiming to bring more professionalism into the field of oiled wildlife response by working in cooperation with animal care specialists, governments and industry stakeholders. This journey to professionalism, marked by a number of serious oil spills, was not a smooth one.