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.
Sea Alarm has played an active role in motivating European Coastal States to explore the issue of Oiled Wildlife Response and Preparedness via the three major Regional Agreements: “Bonn”, “HELCOM” and “Barcelona”. This article provides an overview of these efforts, and what has been achieved over the years.
Throughout its 20 years of existence, Sea Alarm has assisted many European countries by motivating, initiating, informing and facilitating national processes, with the aim of raising awareness and improving response planning and capacity building.
Sea Alarm organised and facilitated an IPIECA workshop in Cyprus in November 2019, under the auspices of the IPIECA Oil Spill Group. The workshop brought together oil company decision-makers and subject matter experts who have an influence on oiled wildlife planning within their companies.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, conferences everywhere are being cancelled, however, the Arctic Preparedness Platform for Oil Spill and Other Environmental Accidents (APP4SEA) elected to hold a Twitter conference, at which Sea Alarm was an invited participant.
Spanish oiled wildlife response stakeholders came together on 3 and 4 March 2020 in Madrid at the headquarters of the Fundación Biodiversidad for an oiled wildlife workshop focused on improving processes for oiled wildlife response at the regional and national level.
February saw the first in-person meeting of the Global Oiled Wildlife Response System (GOWRS) for 2020, which was held in the UK.
We are pleased to announce that our MoU with the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC) has been extended for a further two years.
In February 2020, Sea Alarm’s Hugo Nijkamp attended the 27th HELCOM Response meeting in Vejle, Denmark where the integration of all aspects of at sea response, shoreline response and wildlife response was a key topic.
In its 20 year history Sea Alarm has been active across the globe, carrying out numerous activities to advance wildlife response preparedness with a large number of stakeholders.
Sea Alarm would not have been where it is today without its 15 years of partnership with Oil Spill Response Ltd (OSRL). This cooperation started January 1, 2005 and continues to be a major engine for driving international progress in wildlife preparedness and response across the globe.