It’s a ship captain’s worst nightmare – the sick accident and the ear-splitting, grinding crescendo when your ship runs aground. That was the fate of the MV Wakashio, as it ran on July 25 in Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.
No human lives were lost, but the environmental consequences have been devastating, as heavy fuel oil is drenched in the rugged, rich waters of a protected marine park, with undamaged coral reefs and mangrove forests.
This accident all too clearly illuminates a debate that is thousands of miles away, as a warming ocean opens up new shipping routes in the Arctic.
Waiting for orders
It is not clear why the MV hit Wakashio on the ground. Nagashiki Shipping, the owners of the ship, have thrown a protective firewall around the incident, but sooner rather than later we will learn if this was human error.
You can check the history of the ship’s voyage online, and it’s clear that she spent a few days off the coast of Mauritius, probably waiting for orders. The MV Wakashio is a bulk carrier – it is thought to have returned from China to Brazil after delivering a load of iron ore.
That it was the ship’s fuel, not its cargo, that caused the damage. Imagine the consequences that this incident had a fully loaded oil tanker.
Protected sanctuary
Most of the fuel oil is now pumped from the ship, but not before 1,000 tons were pumped out.
This is a relatively small amount, roughly equivalent to 7,000 barrels of oil. By comparison, the Deepwater Horizon disaster hit 3.19 million barrels.
Yet the effect on the life of the sea is cataclysmic. Aerial photos show enormous streaks of crystal clear sea with ink black.
“Thousands of species in the vicinity of the independent lagoons risk drowning in a sea of pollution, with dire consequences for Mauritius’ economy, food security and health,” said Happy Khambule, Greenpeace Africa’s senior climate and energy campaign manager.
Shipping route
Mauritius is a major port of call for ships crossing the western Indian Ocean. According to Mongabay, this area is an ‘innocent passage’, a maritime designation that allows ships to pass through the territorial waters of a country, even if it is not docked there.
This is apparently the third ship to land in Mauritian seas in five years. And for years, environmentalists have highlighted the dangers of shipping in the vicinity of ecologically fragile areas.
Arctic threat
Nowhere is the danger clearer than in the Arctic. Oil storms in these remotely hostile waters are remarkably harder to handle than in other seas. Logistics is challenging, to say the least, the window of opportunity to try to clean it up is limited by the short summer season, oil is trapped under the ice, and the list goes on.
And this, of course, is where all kinds of biodiversity live, from whales and polar bears to walruses and microscopic life on the ice edge. Imagine a polar bear trying to swim through a large slick of spilled oil. The possibility is growing the ice of sea back every day.
The Clean Arctic Alliance (CAA) has campaigned for a ban on the use of heavy fuel oil in the Arctic, and said as six ice continues to melt, Arctic waters are becoming increasingly navigable for ships and the potential for accidents is growing.
“The spill in Mauritius demonstrates the limitations of reaction companies to treat even in relatively favorable conditions with heavy fuel oil,” said Dave Walsh of the CAA.
“It underscores the need for the shipping industry to move away from fuel-powered ships that pollute the air when they are burned and the ocean when there is an accident.”
Heavy fuel is already banned in Antarctic waters, where commercial shipping routes are not many and far between. Given recent experience in the Indian Ocean, it seems that ban should also at least extend to the North Pole extreme.
Or as Walsh put it: “What happened in Mauritius is not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern of unacceptable behavior by a sector that regularly puts commercial considerations ahead for safety and the environment.
“Simply put, the shipping industry needs to find a way to a decline from the age of dirty shipping-powered shipping.”
Your environment round-up
1 4,000-year-old ice shelf crawls in Canada: The Milne Ice Shelf is the last remaining ice shelf in Canada, and 43 percent had collapsed by the end of July.
2 Jellyfish in the canals of Venice: Trapped and the lack of tourists in Venice have given Jellyfish a chance to run, and that may be because of its ability to adapt to change in ocean environments.
3 Elephants vs farmers: To prevent conflicts with human elephants, farmers in Kenya and India have come up with humane ways to keep elephants away, including beehive gates and warning systems.
4. The non-migrating birds: Big-brained birds are not the only ones that survive in extreme temperatures; researchers found that those with large intestines do so by barely digesting food to survive the winter.
5 Lockdown could not repair global warming: Lockdowns will have a somewhat lasting impact on global warming, but researchers suggest that countries adopting a green incentive package could cut rising temperatures in half by 2050.
The last word
The color of oil in much of the world turns red.
Nnimmo Bassey, environmental activist
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