Stakeholders boost capacity to enhance oil spill preparedness |24 May 2017
Various stakeholders are attending a three-day workshop to enhance their capacity in managing an oil spill if it ever happens in our waters, learn about pollution prevention and response management, as well as other security concerns.
Delegates are from the department of environment, Seychelles Coast Guard, Division of Risk and Disaster Management (DRDM), Seychelles Fire and Rescue Services Agency, Ministry of Health, among others.
The oil spill preparedness workshop is being facilitated by an environmental security team of the United States Africa Command led by Jeffrey Andrews, with John Owens and Saud Amer as trainers. It has been organised by the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change.
The workshop, which is taking place at the Le Meridien Fisherman’s Cove Hotel at Bel Ombre, is aimed at providing a forum for Seychelles and the US to train, collaborate and synchronise future efforts on matters of environmental security.
Delegates will have the chance to exchange ideas, review and discuss oil spill preparations, sources and impacts as risk factors, international conventions and national strategy as rules to follow when such an incident occurs. But the main focus is on preparedness where delegates will touch on topics such as planning and response process, managing a response, strategies and support resources and review case studies.
“To be able to combat oil spills in Seychelles is extremely important for our country, as our natural environment is one of the main attractions for thousands of tourists that visit our islands annually.
This training workshop must be considered as a significant event as most partners involved in oil spill emergency operation in the country are being represented.
It is important therefore, to use this opportunity to ensure and improve cooperation as well as coordination between the different national agencies,” said Nanette Laure, director general, Waste Enforcement and Permit of the Department of Environment, at the launch of the workshop yesterday.
She remarked the impact of oil spill can be long-lasting on the environment; it can destroy the marine eco-systems, the coastal plants, cause damages to organisms and can even impact on the food chain.
“Seychelles can be considered lucky, in the sense that it is yet to experience the devastating impacts of oil spill. With that being said let me remind you we are not out of danger,” she warned.
The closest oil spill to Seychelles occurred in 2006 in the Indian Ocean off the coast of the Nicobar islands when a Japanese operated tanker collided with a small cargo ship. And the largest oil spill was on March 24, 1989, when the tanker Exxon Valdez grounded on Bligh Reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound, rupturing its hull and spilling nearly 11 million gallons of Prudhoe Bay crude oil into a remote, scenic, and biologically productive body of water.
