Oiled wildlife preparedness for Black Sea Countries

Sea Alarm has prepared guidelines for Black Sea Countries on oiled wildlife impact assessment. These guidelines were provided at the request of the Black Sea Commission Permanent Secretariat in the framework of the EU-funded MONINFO project. Sea Alarm’s guidelines outline specific procedures for wildlife pre, during and post spill, with a focus on seabirds, and provide reference to some standard protocols for implementing these procedures. The majority of the guidance was modified from the European Handbook on Oil Impact Assessment.

Sea Alarm was also approached by the Black Sea Commission Permanent Secretariat to develop a draft Annex on Oiled Wildlife Preparedness and Response to the Black Sea Regional Contingency Plan, which was presented to the October 2011 ESAS AG meeting. This Annex details general principles and mutual assistance procedures between countries for dealing with oiled wildlife, as well as defines minimum standards to be applied in wildlife response planning. The Annex was presented and shortly discussed at the meeting, but countries requested more time to consider Sea Alarm’s proposal and their joint decision was forwarded to the next meeting. 2011 also saw Sea Alarm invited to attend the regional Black Sea operational Delta exercise which took place in Batumi, Georgia. This gave an opportunity to consider how oiled wildlife would be dealt with in Georgia and a recommendation was made to invite local wildlife response NGOS in future exercises of this type, to strengthen their cooperation with the authorities and better integrate them into the national oil spill response mechanism.