Sign up for Sea Alarm’s oiled wildlife planning course in April

Sea Alarm is providing its  oiled wildlife planning course, free of charge, to European authorities who have responsibility for this issue in their country. Registration is still open for the course which will be held on 16-17 April  at the Commission’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) in Brussels.

This course is designed to bring participants up to speed on state of the art issues in oiled wildlife response and preparedness, including aspects of management, planning and aftercare/claims. The Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC), operating within the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (DG ECHO), has kindly agreed to host the training session.

The course was initially offered to members of the HELCOM RESPONSE Expert Working Group on Oiled Wildlife Response (EWG OWR) to aid them in meeting the requirement to develop integrated oiled wildlife response plans. Recognising, however, that signatories to the Bonn Agreement, Barcelona Convention and Bucharest Convention have similar responsibilities regarding oiled wildlife preparedness in their respective countries, Sea Alarm has opened the course to them as well.

The HELCOM EWG OWR is a dedicated working group charged with coordinating the implementation of the HELCOM work programme on oiled wildlife, including the development of the national response plans, which are to be in place by December 2016, as agreed by all Contracting Parties in 2013.

The ERCC was set up to support a coordinated and quicker response to disasters both inside and outside Europe, using resources from the 31 countries participating in the Union Civil Protection Mechanism.