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Environmental stress in ICES
Volume 24'Number 8 August 1992
To find the answer to the villagers opposition to the scheme, however, we have to search deeper. Some 40%, roughly 4000 hectares, of Hong Kong's land area is Country Park. It IS a lot of land, but it is mostly upland and mostly water catchments, so that there is a logic to its scale. We believed Hong Kong's Country Parks were legally inviolate; they are certainly popular, receiving over 10.3 million visitors in the past year. That is, roughly, every local man, woman and child visited the parks twice last year. Last year, also, however, the Hong Kong Government announced that it intended to sell off some 30 hectares of the Pat Sin Leng Country Park, at Sha Lo Tung, to private developers to build a golf course Not a pubhc golf course, but a private one catering for local businessmen but mostly for golf-crazy Japanese expatriates and tourists In case you haven't heard, Japanese businessmen will pay a small fortune to play golf, anywhere. The villagers of Sha Lo Tung would be bought out and their village 'developed' for club facilities and 300 low rise hohday homes. These villagers, again mostly old, are delighted with the scheme; they can modernize their old village, participate m the development and obtain cash for their land. Hitherto, any such development has been banned in the Country Parks with only modest village improvements allowed. Perhaps the Hong Kong Government can be accused of not having the foresight to cater for the villagers needs by involving them in Country Park developments In a more meaningful way. Be that as it may, the Government, the developer, the golfing fraternity, and the villagers are all in an unlikely alliance against Hong Kong's "green" groups, including WWF Hong Kong, who wish to see the Integrity of the Parks
Environmental Stress in ICES According to a recent report in the newsletter of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), ICES Information, all is not well with its Advisory Committee on Marine Pollution (ACMP). The annual report of the ACMP is the main avenue through which ICES' contributions to marine environmental science are conveyed to the outside world. According to the article, ACMP's problems were one ot the "issues' identified in a paper submitted to last year's Statutory Meeting by the General Secretary of ICES, Dr Emory Anderson, whmh dealt with the need to strengthen the environmental component of the Council's work in line with its long-established programmes in fishenes science and fisheries management. According to the report the ACMP has upset some of its subsldlarv working groups because it has on occasion ignored, greatly modified or rejected their conclusions on subjects they have been asked to investigate and because it frequently makes use of the collective scientific opinion of its members. But it is
maintained on behalf of all the people of Hong Kong. The conservationists say that such a development xs not only wrong but that it will set a precedence for other villages in the Parks. I don't know what the British or American public would say if the Snowdonia or Mount Zion National Parks were proposed as development sites for golf courses for Japanese tourists, but there has not been the outrage I would have expected to the scheme expressed by Hong Kong's public at large. Friends of the Earth have, however, recently requested a Judicial Review of the Sha Lo Tung golf course project. The outcome of the review will be interesting, whichever way it goes. This now brings me back to the village of Hoi Ha, which, if you remember, is also in a Country Park and the reason for the villagers antagonism to a Marine Park and Education Centre. If Sha Lo Tung can be sold off for a golf course; why can't Hol Ha? If not a golf course, why not a tennis centre, a nile club or a powerboating and jet ski club, or indeed anything that anybody might want to develop under the guise of public recreation, but which is, in reality, only for a select few with the money to spend on 'development'. And this now, further, brings me back to the opening paragraph of this editorial written by my local student. Because of a lack of confidence in the future, local people seem willing to sacrifice what is their birthright and their heritage for a quick dollar. It is surely time we, as a society, seriously reviewed and reconsidered what we want for Hong Kong in the future and not the dwindling present. BRIAN MORTON
difficult to judge from the ICES newsletter whether the problem resides within the ACMP or within the working groups themselves. In a somewhat ambiguous account of the situation, the newsletter points to the limited participation of scientists in environmental working groups and the groups' reluctance to deal with regulatory matters instead of more stimulating research topics. For reasons not fully explained, the article concludes that the collective problems of ACMP and its working groups result in ACMP's advice not being as widely accepted as it should be. Predictably, the General Secretary's paper stimulated a lively debate amongst ICES delegates on how the environmental side of ICES might be remodelled to keep up with changing times. One of the products of the debate was a proposal to change the system of appointing ACMP members. Under the proposal, the present mixture of ex officio and co-opted members would be replaced by national nominees, the system already used for the ACMP's fishery counterpart, the Advisory Commmee on Fishery Management (ACFM). Such a move might be seen as heralding radical departure from ACMP's traditional role of providing Independent scientific advice on marine environmental topics 379
Marine Pollunon Bulletin
It is clear from the report that some member countries of ICES would like to see greater input from nanonal environmental agencies, both at delegate and scientist levels, to ensure that ICES has the necessary support to fulfil its environmental commitments and to maintain its leading role in coordinating scientific research in the North Atlantm. It is felt that this m~ght help to increase the number and cahbre of scientists reporting to the ACMP. However. this move ~s seen by many as an intergovernmental take-over of the region's only independent marine science advisory body. There is also concern that ICES may be abandoning its distinct scientific supporting and adwsory role to become part of the regulatory machinery of the North Atlantic. The debate is to continue at th~s year's ICES Statutory Meeting in Rostock. J. C . D U I N K E R
New Environmental Code for Engineers
ally cut. Amendments are to be incorporated into annex I of the Internanonal Convention for the Protection of Pollution from Ships, 1973, as modified by protocol of 1978 (Marpol 73/78). Bilge water discharges and tanker cleaning operations will both be affected. Currently non-tankers of 400 grt and above, if within 12 miles of the shore or outside specially designated areas, are forbidden to discharge any machinery- space bilge water into the sea if it contains more than 100ppm of oil content. The amendment will reduce this figure considerably to 15ppm. When outside the special areas tankers are at present allowed to discharge oily wastes at a rate of 60 litres per nautmal mile. This is to be halved to 30 htres. For non-tankers the amendments will apply to all new ships bmlt after the 6 July 1993 but there will be a five year period for vessels in current use to meet the reqmrements. This will be to allow the ships to update their momtorlng eqmpment and so in their case 6 July 1998 will be the final date. On the other hand it is not considered a problem for tankers to conform to the amendment ~mmediately it is in operation and they will be expected to comply by 6 July 1993
A new Code of Good Practice for Engineers and the Environment is to be introduced by the UK Engineering Council. The Code will propose a series of practical steps to help engineers integrate the new environmental imperatives into all areas of their work. An 'embryo' version of the Code was issued m May 1992 as a discussion document to all interested parties including: the professional engineering restitutions, representative engineering bodies, and the Industry Affiliates of the Engineering Council. The "embryo' Code. which takes the International Code of Enwronmental Ethics for Engineers as its starting point, was also presented to the Engineering Asssembly being held at Churchill College, Cambridge, in July. Elected members of the Assembly represent the 290,000 professional engineers and techmclans registered with the Council, to whom the Code will eventually apply. It is expected it will come into effect in 1993. The 'embryo" Code of Good Practice has been drawn up by the Council's working party on engineers and the environment, under the chairmanship of Professor Michael Burdekln, FEng, a member of the Engineering Council, who is Professor of Civil and Structural Engineering at UMIST (Unlversxty of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology). The working party includes members drawn from industry, academia, national and local government and environmental bodms. Copies of the 'embryo' Code of Good Practice for Engineers and the Environment are available free from the Engineering Council, 10 Maltravers Street, London WC2R 3ER.
Enwronmental pressures have led to the development of new chemmal clean-up facilities m Rotterdam for tankers and coasters at a cost of $9.5m. The facility will be s~ted in the Botlek area under the joint organization of the port managers and Booy Clean, clean-up specialists, who have invested $6.4 in the project themselves. The facility will include two jetties 200 metres long with a draught of 13 metres making it possible for all parcel and chemical tankers to gain access. There will also be two bio-treatment plants, two incinerators and by the end of 1993 a new distillation plant. Once this opens there will be virtually no toxic water produced by the facility at all. The first area will open by the end of 1993 and the second by 1995 The company is licensed by the Dutch government to clean ships and a rate of tariffs will operate set by the state. Once the facilities are fully functional it will become illegal to carry out any clean-up operations at mooring buoys and all shipping and chemical carrier companies will be forced to use the facilities provided.
Oily Waste Discharges Reduced
A growing number of beaches around the coasthne of England and Wales are consistently meeting European Community standards for bathing water quality according to a new report by the UK Nanonal River Authority. The report says there is an underlying trend of real and sustained improvement in the quality of
From 6 July 1993 the amount of oil which can be discharged into the sea by certain ships will be drastic380
Rotterdam Clean-up Facilities under Construction
"Sustained Improvement" in Bathing Water Quality
To find the answer to the villagers opposition to the scheme, however, we have to search deeper. Some 40%, roughly 4000 hectares, of Hong Kong's land area is Country Park. It IS a lot of land, but it is mostly upland and mostly water catchments, so that there is a logic to its scale. We believed Hong Kong's Country Parks were legally inviolate; they are certainly popular, receiving over 10.3 million visitors in the past year. That is, roughly, every local man, woman and child visited the parks twice last year. Last year, also, however, the Hong Kong Government announced that it intended to sell off some 30 hectares of the Pat Sin Leng Country Park, at Sha Lo Tung, to private developers to build a golf course Not a pubhc golf course, but a private one catering for local businessmen but mostly for golf-crazy Japanese expatriates and tourists In case you haven't heard, Japanese businessmen will pay a small fortune to play golf, anywhere. The villagers of Sha Lo Tung would be bought out and their village 'developed' for club facilities and 300 low rise hohday homes. These villagers, again mostly old, are delighted with the scheme; they can modernize their old village, participate m the development and obtain cash for their land. Hitherto, any such development has been banned in the Country Parks with only modest village improvements allowed. Perhaps the Hong Kong Government can be accused of not having the foresight to cater for the villagers needs by involving them in Country Park developments In a more meaningful way. Be that as it may, the Government, the developer, the golfing fraternity, and the villagers are all in an unlikely alliance against Hong Kong's "green" groups, including WWF Hong Kong, who wish to see the Integrity of the Parks
Environmental Stress in ICES According to a recent report in the newsletter of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), ICES Information, all is not well with its Advisory Committee on Marine Pollution (ACMP). The annual report of the ACMP is the main avenue through which ICES' contributions to marine environmental science are conveyed to the outside world. According to the article, ACMP's problems were one ot the "issues' identified in a paper submitted to last year's Statutory Meeting by the General Secretary of ICES, Dr Emory Anderson, whmh dealt with the need to strengthen the environmental component of the Council's work in line with its long-established programmes in fishenes science and fisheries management. According to the report the ACMP has upset some of its subsldlarv working groups because it has on occasion ignored, greatly modified or rejected their conclusions on subjects they have been asked to investigate and because it frequently makes use of the collective scientific opinion of its members. But it is
maintained on behalf of all the people of Hong Kong. The conservationists say that such a development xs not only wrong but that it will set a precedence for other villages in the Parks. I don't know what the British or American public would say if the Snowdonia or Mount Zion National Parks were proposed as development sites for golf courses for Japanese tourists, but there has not been the outrage I would have expected to the scheme expressed by Hong Kong's public at large. Friends of the Earth have, however, recently requested a Judicial Review of the Sha Lo Tung golf course project. The outcome of the review will be interesting, whichever way it goes. This now brings me back to the village of Hoi Ha, which, if you remember, is also in a Country Park and the reason for the villagers antagonism to a Marine Park and Education Centre. If Sha Lo Tung can be sold off for a golf course; why can't Hol Ha? If not a golf course, why not a tennis centre, a nile club or a powerboating and jet ski club, or indeed anything that anybody might want to develop under the guise of public recreation, but which is, in reality, only for a select few with the money to spend on 'development'. And this now, further, brings me back to the opening paragraph of this editorial written by my local student. Because of a lack of confidence in the future, local people seem willing to sacrifice what is their birthright and their heritage for a quick dollar. It is surely time we, as a society, seriously reviewed and reconsidered what we want for Hong Kong in the future and not the dwindling present. BRIAN MORTON
difficult to judge from the ICES newsletter whether the problem resides within the ACMP or within the working groups themselves. In a somewhat ambiguous account of the situation, the newsletter points to the limited participation of scientists in environmental working groups and the groups' reluctance to deal with regulatory matters instead of more stimulating research topics. For reasons not fully explained, the article concludes that the collective problems of ACMP and its working groups result in ACMP's advice not being as widely accepted as it should be. Predictably, the General Secretary's paper stimulated a lively debate amongst ICES delegates on how the environmental side of ICES might be remodelled to keep up with changing times. One of the products of the debate was a proposal to change the system of appointing ACMP members. Under the proposal, the present mixture of ex officio and co-opted members would be replaced by national nominees, the system already used for the ACMP's fishery counterpart, the Advisory Commmee on Fishery Management (ACFM). Such a move might be seen as heralding radical departure from ACMP's traditional role of providing Independent scientific advice on marine environmental topics 379
Marine Pollunon Bulletin
It is clear from the report that some member countries of ICES would like to see greater input from nanonal environmental agencies, both at delegate and scientist levels, to ensure that ICES has the necessary support to fulfil its environmental commitments and to maintain its leading role in coordinating scientific research in the North Atlantm. It is felt that this m~ght help to increase the number and cahbre of scientists reporting to the ACMP. However. this move ~s seen by many as an intergovernmental take-over of the region's only independent marine science advisory body. There is also concern that ICES may be abandoning its distinct scientific supporting and adwsory role to become part of the regulatory machinery of the North Atlantic. The debate is to continue at th~s year's ICES Statutory Meeting in Rostock. J. C . D U I N K E R
New Environmental Code for Engineers
ally cut. Amendments are to be incorporated into annex I of the Internanonal Convention for the Protection of Pollution from Ships, 1973, as modified by protocol of 1978 (Marpol 73/78). Bilge water discharges and tanker cleaning operations will both be affected. Currently non-tankers of 400 grt and above, if within 12 miles of the shore or outside specially designated areas, are forbidden to discharge any machinery- space bilge water into the sea if it contains more than 100ppm of oil content. The amendment will reduce this figure considerably to 15ppm. When outside the special areas tankers are at present allowed to discharge oily wastes at a rate of 60 litres per nautmal mile. This is to be halved to 30 htres. For non-tankers the amendments will apply to all new ships bmlt after the 6 July 1993 but there will be a five year period for vessels in current use to meet the reqmrements. This will be to allow the ships to update their momtorlng eqmpment and so in their case 6 July 1998 will be the final date. On the other hand it is not considered a problem for tankers to conform to the amendment ~mmediately it is in operation and they will be expected to comply by 6 July 1993
A new Code of Good Practice for Engineers and the Environment is to be introduced by the UK Engineering Council. The Code will propose a series of practical steps to help engineers integrate the new environmental imperatives into all areas of their work. An 'embryo' version of the Code was issued m May 1992 as a discussion document to all interested parties including: the professional engineering restitutions, representative engineering bodies, and the Industry Affiliates of the Engineering Council. The "embryo' Code. which takes the International Code of Enwronmental Ethics for Engineers as its starting point, was also presented to the Engineering Asssembly being held at Churchill College, Cambridge, in July. Elected members of the Assembly represent the 290,000 professional engineers and techmclans registered with the Council, to whom the Code will eventually apply. It is expected it will come into effect in 1993. The 'embryo" Code of Good Practice has been drawn up by the Council's working party on engineers and the environment, under the chairmanship of Professor Michael Burdekln, FEng, a member of the Engineering Council, who is Professor of Civil and Structural Engineering at UMIST (Unlversxty of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology). The working party includes members drawn from industry, academia, national and local government and environmental bodms. Copies of the 'embryo' Code of Good Practice for Engineers and the Environment are available free from the Engineering Council, 10 Maltravers Street, London WC2R 3ER.
Enwronmental pressures have led to the development of new chemmal clean-up facilities m Rotterdam for tankers and coasters at a cost of $9.5m. The facility will be s~ted in the Botlek area under the joint organization of the port managers and Booy Clean, clean-up specialists, who have invested $6.4 in the project themselves. The facility will include two jetties 200 metres long with a draught of 13 metres making it possible for all parcel and chemical tankers to gain access. There will also be two bio-treatment plants, two incinerators and by the end of 1993 a new distillation plant. Once this opens there will be virtually no toxic water produced by the facility at all. The first area will open by the end of 1993 and the second by 1995 The company is licensed by the Dutch government to clean ships and a rate of tariffs will operate set by the state. Once the facilities are fully functional it will become illegal to carry out any clean-up operations at mooring buoys and all shipping and chemical carrier companies will be forced to use the facilities provided.
Oily Waste Discharges Reduced
A growing number of beaches around the coasthne of England and Wales are consistently meeting European Community standards for bathing water quality according to a new report by the UK Nanonal River Authority. The report says there is an underlying trend of real and sustained improvement in the quality of
From 6 July 1993 the amount of oil which can be discharged into the sea by certain ships will be drastic380
Rotterdam Clean-up Facilities under Construction
"Sustained Improvement" in Bathing Water Quality