Preparing for ballast water management implementation

TIN news:  Identifying organisms and microbes in ballast water, as well as monitoring port marine life where ballast water may be released, are key for countries preparing to enforce IMO’s Ballast Water Management Convention. The treaty will enter into force on 8 September 2017 and aims to counter the threat to marine ecosystems by potentially invasive species transported in ships’ ballast water. A regional workshop in Surabaya, Indonesia (2-5 May) is providing participants from 10 countries* with theoretical and practical training in compliance, monitoring and enforcement of the Convention. The workshop is also addressing port biological baseline surveys and risk assessment. These baseline surveys aim to provide inventories of marine life in and around commercial ports frequented by ships carrying ballast water, determine if there are any non-indigenous species which have been introduced and provide a baseline of biological data against which future changes can be measured.

To support port State control for implementation of the BWM Convention, IMO has published a video on ballast water sampling and analysis, which can be viewed here.

*The Workshop is being hosted by the Directorate General of Sea Transportation of the Ministry of Transport of Indonesia and is being attended by 49 participants from Indonesia, Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste and Viet Nam.