Co-sponsors:
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES)
Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP)

Co-Convenors:
Ziwei Yao (China)
Seong-Gil Kang (Korea/NOWPAP)
Peter Ross (Canada)
Olga Lukyanova (Russia)

Invited Speakers:
Seong Gil Kang (Korea/NOWPAP)
Yongge Sun (Zhejing University, China)

In recent years, the importance of marine environmental emergency issues has been illustrated by oil and chemical spills, as well as by a major nuclear power plant accident. Globalization of markets has led to rapid growth of maritime transport in the North Pacific, which has become more vulnerable to ship-source incidents, including oil and hazardous and noxious substances (HNS) spills. Oil and HNS spills may be hazardous to human health, harm living resources and marine life, and can damage amenities or interfere with other legitimate uses of the sea. In 2003, the NOWPAP Regional Oil and HNS Spill Contingency Plan (RCP) provided technical and operational guidelines for regional cooperation in responding to oil and HNS spills. Marine environmental emergency issues and their strategies become an increasingly important topic for PICES member countries. However, accepted scientific and monitoring methods to document the ecological impacts of such emergencies, and post-accident recovery of the environment, are lacking. In order to better understand the interaction between the marine ecosystem and human pressures, and to formulate sustainable marine development strategies more effectively, an applied information sharing workshop for PICES is timely. The workshop on marine environmental emergencies has three objectives. The first is to summarize important examples of North Pacific marine environmental emergencies from the perspective of different nations, and to discuss the different approaches taken by PICES member countries. The second is to develop response strategies and capacities of PICES members in light of environmental emergencies. The third is to develop joint strategies to improve responsiveness and effectiveness of current national approaches to manage and mitigate such emergencies in the PICES region. The workshop will address the following three aspects: (1) oil and chemical spills and their damage on the marine environment, (2) detection methods for oil and chemical spills and (3) spill response, monitoring and mitigation strategies at the interface of science and management. Case studies will be used to illustrate this workshop and will serve to focus efforts to design a response and monitoring framework for implementation in the event of a major environmental emergency.