REGULATION OF AFRICA MARINE CONTAMINATION IN THE OFFING (PAGE 55, NOV 8, 2010)

THE first Eastern and Southern African Port Managers Environmental Conference which took place in Mombasa, Kenya, has been hailed as a landmark towards achieving issues of regulating and control of environmental and marine contamination.
The conference saw players in the maritime industry in Africa and Europe discussing terms of reference to be used in setting up a continental forum to regulate and monitor environmental challenges in African ports.
The conference, organised by the Port Management Association for Eastern and Southern Africa in collaboration with the Ports Environmental Network-Africa (PENAf), a non- profit organisation with interest in environmental performance in African ports, was on the theme “Creating a platform for information and experience exchange to improve environmental performance in port area and hinterland logistics.”
The initiative was supported by the Kenya Ministry of Environment and the UNEP/Nairobi Convention and is expected to be formally launched at the 8th Pan-African Association of Ports Co-operation to be held in December in Arusha, Tanzania.
Facilitators from Eastern, Southern, Western and Central Africa used the conference as a platform to stimulate discussions on environmental challenges facing African ports while sharing best practices in environmental protection and management.
The Director General of the Kenyan Maritime Authority, Mrs Nancy Karigithu, said the increasing awareness of environmental threats, coupled with growing pressure on world resources, called for industry players to protect consumers’ safety and health.
She said players ought to put in place measures to mitigate and address the negative effects on the environment arising from their developments in the day to day operations of ports.
“A large proportion of urban population now lives in port cities, where exceptional demands for resources and infrastructure development in the coastal zone were putting pressure on fragile ecosystems thus threatening development related activities,” Mrs Karigithu lamented.  
She said the environmental concerns facing ports in the region, ranging from diverse issues such as ships operational waste, sewage and garbage, oil spills from marine accidents, dredging and disposal of dredged material, air pollution, traffic congestion, effluent discharge to hazardous cargo, were common to all the ports.
Mrs Karigithu, therefore, called for the effective enforcement of Port State Control while ensuring that reception facilities in ports could help a more efficient direction.
The Executive Co-ordinator of PENAF, Mr Harry Barnes-Dabban, expressed worry on water quality, noise, degradation of habitat for local communities which he said were due to a number of factors such as the lack of adequate urban planning, poor water quality arising from contamination with bilge water, ballast water, oily wastes, sewage, garbage and other residues in a ship, spills of oils, lubricants, fuels and other oily liquids.
That, he said, had seen society getting increasingly divisive, thus contributing to vast increase in legislation that imposed penalties on institutions, especially in areas involving the environment safety and health and consumer protection.
Mr Barnes-Dabban called for priority actions to include strengthening of existing mechanisms by investment in equipment and personnel, as well as enhancing co-ordination between government departments and other related organisations.
That, he stressed, was important for the integration of environmental and development issues into all aspects of decision making at the national and sub-regional level.