Information regarding the European Oiled Wildlife Response Assistance Module (EUROWA) can now be found online. Oiledwildlife.eu, the key reference site for oiled wildlife response in Europe, is hosting the EUROWA pages which feature background information, news, publications, and details of events related to the project.
The 2015 Interspill conference in Amsterdam provided Sea Alarm with the opportunity to present an analysis of the European Union’s Offshore Safety Directive’s oiled wildlife requirements to members of the oil and gas industry and spill response agencies.
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.
Sea Alarm will be at the Interspill Conference (Amsterdam 24-26 March 2015) presenting a paper that explores the wildlife response planning implications of the new EU Directive on Offshore Safety. This Directive was adopted in 2014 and includes some explicit references to oiled wildlife response preparedness which call to have “arrangements” in place in the so called “external response plans”.
Sea Alarm recently was informed by the European Commission that the EUROWA proposal (European Module for Oiled Wildlife Emergency Response Assistance) has been selected for European funding.
In November, Hugo Nijkamp of Sea Alarm attended a meeting at the brand new European Commission’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) in Brussels.
The meeting aimed to inform the European marine pollution community about the European Union’s new Civil Protection Mechanism, including related opportunities for European co-funding of projects and activities.
The WRC Ostend hosted the last 2013 meeting of the European oiled wildlife response team from 19-21 November. At the meeting, the Joint European Protocol for Seabird Rehabilitation, which is in final preparation for printing, was reviewed in detail.
Two National POSOW trainings were held in Cyprus and Crete, Greece in December, 2013. Sea Alarm’s Claude Velter supported the Oiled Wildlife Response portions of both courses, which were given by local personnel who had attended the previous trainings in Brest in May.
In anticipation of the decisions by the HELCOM Ministerial Meeting, Sea Alarm has asked Agni Kaldma from Estonia to work on a project to identify the possibility of creating more and closer regional cooperation between leading NGOs in the Baltic countries.
In May, Sea Alarm’s Claude Velter and Saskia Sessions delivered ‘Train the Trainer” courses, in association with Centre Vétérinaire de la Faune Sauvage et des Ecosystèmes (CVFSE) and WWF Finland.
On 28 June 2013, the European Union published a new Directive on the safety of offshore oil and gas operations in its Official Journal. The Directive represents a significant milestone as this is the first time that oiled wildlife response is specifically mentioned within European legislation. Sea Alarm welcomes the inclusion of protection of oiled wildlife within the scope of this Directive.
Sea Alarm was invited to make a presentation at a recent meeting of the European Community Shipowners Association (Safety and Environment Committee) in Brussels.