Cruise ship mooring in Curieuse marine park raises concern |02 December 2016
Several points of concern have been in a meeting held to discuss the mooring of cruise ships in the Curieuse marine park.
This follows an unfortunate situation whereby the local agents handling the cruise ship MS Europa were asked to have the vessel leave the Curieuse marine park on Sunday.
The meeting was held at the Seychelles Ports Authority (SPA) headquarters, New Port and was chaired by the principal secretary for civil aviation, ports and marine Garry Albert.
Attending the meeting were the principal secretary (PS) in the Office of the Vice-President Alain Volcère, PS for tourism Anne Lafortune and for environment Alain De Commarmond, chief executive of the Seychelles National Parks Authority (SNPA) Flavien Joubert, deputy chief executive of SPA Herbert Houareau and other top management officers, director general of the Seychelles Maritime and Safety Administration Captain Joachim Valmont, as well as representatives of the agents dealing with the cruise ships.
Mr Albert said a lot of effort has been put into developing the cruise industry of our country and we must find ways to keep boosting it and we need to work together on any decisions that must be taken to address such situations so as not to destroy this vital sector of our tourism industry.
Speaking about a meeting held earlier this year, Mr De Commarmond said one of the main points discussed was maritime safety and this included anchorage of vessels in the marine park.
Having a vessel of this size in the park poses certain risks on the marine environment of this protected area. The second concern is in regards to maritime safety. He added that there are many vessels that pass through this area thus it is very busy especially during the weekend and there are risks of collision and accidents.
He said it was also raised that there are no facilities to permit a cruise ship to anchor in the park so it is seen as not appropriate to have a vessel of this size in the marine park.
Mr Joubert said SNPA’s operation is governed by regulations that set out what can or cannot be done in the marine parks. The principal objective of these rules is the preservation of the integrity of the parks’ natural assets, while allowing use by the community. These rules have to be in agreement with laws regulating maritime activities, including those used by the SPA, and our officers have to act in synergy with other parties such as the ports authority when it comes to controlling the movement of large vessels.
“Sunday’s incident was an unfortunate situation where limited information and an agitated public prompted certain rush decisions. The ship was in an area within the marine park that in the past has been used for mooring similar sized vessels, and it was operating in line with instructions of SPA. We agree with other parties that requesting major changes to the ship’s plan without forewarning is something that could be detrimental to the cruise industry and that should be avoided at all costs,” he said.
“Our concern over large vessels mooring in the Curieuse Marine Park nonetheless remains valid, and the SNPA (and the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change) would like to see a review of locations allocated to mooring by larger vessels taking into account the ecological risk. Preferably, we would like to see these located outside the park, but only updated information and analysis of navigational parameters would tell us if we need to do major changes or smaller adjustments.”
“Going forward, the SNPA has started the process of updating the habitat maps of Curieuse, which should help us better define areas where ships could drop anchor: this should be complete in the first quarter of 2017. We shall subsequently work with SMSA and SPA on redefining mooring areas for that zone, for publication in nautical charts,” he added.
The SNPA also considers it important that the concerns of Praslin boat operators be addressed by the relevant authorities, as it has to deal with them every day in the park, and also to have members of the public informed on how things are progressing on the matter. Adequate support could be brought to operators to help them meet the standard required by the cruise operators so they can more effectively participate in that market,” Mr Joubert said.
Taking decisions on anchorage positions not only for Curieuse but for La Digue and Praslin or other islands we should sit together as a team and decide about it and have it written down so that everybody can know about it. We should respect and decide on things positively together on what needs to be done,” Mr Houareau said.
From discussions held it was pointed out that if there will be changes in the areas that will be allowed and some that will be avoided, there must be an official document from the government to say so.
“What happened on Sunday asking us as agents to inform the cruise ship to move from where it had anchored, must be avoided at all costs, and we need to formalise our decisions,” urged the agents.