Agenda Items 3, 4 and 5 / OSPAR 99/4/22-E(L)
Original: English only

OSPAR CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT OF THE NORTH-EAST ATLANTIC

MEETING OF THE OSPAR COMMISSION

KINGSTON UPON HULL: 21-24 JUNE 1999

“Sintra + 1”
Indicators of progress made since OSPAR/MMC 1998
Presented by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF)

Background

  1. Having made focal submissions and interventions with regard to “Hazardous Substances” and “Ecosystems and Biodiversity” at OSPAR/MMC, WWF welcomed the adoption, by Environment Ministers and the Member of the European Commission, of the related strategies and Annex V in Sintra 1998. Likewise, WWF welcomed the adoption of the OSPAR Strategy to Combat Eutrophication, the Strategy with regard to Radioactive Substances and the OSPAR Action Plan.
  2. WWF also welcomes the coming into effect in February 1999 of OSPAR Decisions on dumping of radioactive wastes (98/2), disposal of disused offshore installations (98/3), emissions and discharge limits for the vinyl chloride sector and the manufacture of vinyl chloride monomer (98/4, 98/5) and concerning the status of previous OSPAR decisions, recommendations and agreements (98/1), as adopted in Sintra.
  3. Furthermore, the Sintra Ministerial commitment to “promote the establishment of a network of marine protected areas to ensure the sustainable use and protection and conservation of marine biological diversity and its ecosystems” is highlighted by WWF.
  4. In the course of the OSPAR working period 1998/1999, WWF has identified a number of indicators of progress on implementation of the strategies concerned - both at an OSPAR (NE Atlantic) level and at a national level by Contracting Parties. On the other hand, a number of obstacles have been observed that have hampered progress on the strategies adopted in Sintra. WWF’s observations are summarised in this document.

Action requested

  1. OSPAR is invited to take note of the statement attached.
  2. At OSPAR 99, as a matter of priority, Contracting Parties must:
  1. agree on urgent programmes of work to reach the commitment made in the Sintra to make every endeavour to move towards the target of cessation of discharges, emissions and losses of hazardous substances by the year 2020;
  1. agree on the development of measures concerned with the protection of the full range of biological diversity in the NE Atlantic and the restoration, where practicable, of marine areas which have been adversely affected, in line with international commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity; and
  2. adopt a new OSPAR Strategy on Environmental Goals and Management Mechanisms for Offshore Activities and agree a tight deadline (e.g. OSPAR 2000) by which a programme of work to implement the Strategy will be developed, in order to provide improved management of offshore activities within the North East Atlantic (also see document OSPAR 99/4/20-E* (L) submitted by WWF).
“Sintra + 1” - Indicators of progress made since OSPAR/MMC 1998

Hazardous Substances

  1. WWF has closely followed the development of a dynamic selection and prioritisation mechanism for the candidate hazardous substances (see OSPAR 99/4/2) and been actively involved in the DYNAMEC meetings. Despite concerns expressed during the early development of the DYNAMEC process, WWF is confident that, at last, any risk assessment philosophy which falls short of the requirements of the marine environment will not be allowed to undermine the precautionary principle. Also, that the selection and prioritisation mechanism will be strictly orientated to serve the purpose of marine pollution prevention i.e. avoiding inputs of substances with inherent hazardous properties in to the marine environment.
  2. With regard to hazardous substances already identified by OSPAR/MMC as Chemicals for Priority Action (also see OSPAR 99/4/3, OSPAR 99/4/4), WWF believes that, action taken by individual Contracting Parties merits particular attention, for example, the initiatives undertaken by Denmark in order to phase out the use of phthalates, the Swedish announcement to ban the use of brominated flame retardants and the German ship trials with biocide-free antifoulants. With regard to the latter, reference is made to document OSPAR 99/4/16Rev.01-E*(L) submitted by WWF.
  3. Through a number of submissions to OSPAR’s subsidiary bodies during the work period 1998/1999 (e.g. PRAM 99/4/7), WWF has expressed its view that, due to high levels of brominated flame retardants in the marine food web and their occurrence in the deep sea environment, the phasing out of these priority chemicals should become a test case for the implementation of the OSPAR Strategy with regard to Hazardous Substances.
  4. The Swedish National Chemicals Inspectorate (Kemi) has proposed a complete ban on the marketing and use of PBDEs and PBBs. Sweden is to introduce a national ban on the sale and use of the brominated flame retardants, PBDE and PBB, following a report issued in March 1999 by the Swedish National Chemicals Inspectorate (KEMI). Clearly there is already much international support for the phasing out of brominated flame retardants, but a legal instrument converting these commitments into a concrete timetable and deadline is still required, in the form of an OSPAR Decision.
  5. In contrast to the pioneering work and/or pilot initiatives of individual Contracting Parties, WWF is extremely concerned at the limited progress that has been made by OSPAR with regard to section 3.2.1 of the OSPAR Action Plan and / or the pertinent paragraph from the Sintra Statement which reads“ ...implement our strategy progressively and with well-defined intermediate targets; this implementation will start from the OSPAR List of Chemicals for Priority Action which we have already agreed, including carrying forward the drawing up of programmes and measures by 2003 for the control of discharges, emissions and losses of the substances on that list, and their substitution with less hazardous or non-hazardous substances where feasible;”
  6. At the moment there are no lead countries identified for Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins (PCDDs) and hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) and a number of other priority chemicals. Nor is there, as yet, agreement on programmes of action for any of the priority hazardous substances. The Netherlands presented a background document on organotin compounds early in the past work period, however, the discussion on the format and content of such draft background documents and/or the guidance for lead countries when addressing substances for priority action (OSPAR 99/4/3) turned out to be extremely time consuming. Discussion further revealed that different parts of the OSPAR system (eg DIFF and SIME) have diverging opinions as to which activities are necessary to reduce and eliminate discharges, emissions and losses at source, of the priority substances in a target orientated way. Although the deadline for programmes and measures is 2003, WWF is extremely concerned by the slow progress on this work and the time delay in the prioritisation of candidate list substances (also see para 7).
  7. Further information on OSPAR priority chemicals will be provided by WWF at OSPAR 1999. This will continue the briefing series launched on the occasion of the OSPAR Sintra meeting. With respect to the bioaccumulation of organotin compounds in the marine food web, also see document OSPAR 99/4/19-E*(L) submitted by WWF.
  8. Given the fact that the issue of endocrine disrupting chemicals has played an important role in the preparations for OSPAR/MMC 98 and that endocrine disruptors have been addressed by the Strategy with Regard to Hazardous Substances and/or included in OSPAR’s candidate and priority list, WWF believes it is a matter of great concern that Contracting Parties had to be reminded on several occasions to send urgently information / comments as regards endocrine disruptors to the lead country Denmark (OSPAR 99/4/1 and PRAM 99/13/1).

Ecosystems and Biodiversity

  1. WWF is impressed by the momentum OSPAR has been gaining in relation to sections 2.2 and 2.3 of the OSPAR Action Plan since the Meeting in Sintra 1998. Although the deadline determined by the Sintra Statement to “as a first step develop by 2003 the most necessary programmes and measures to achieve the purposes of the Annex.” (= Annex V) is identical with the deadline concerning action on priority chemicals (cf. para 11) IMPACT as the OSPAR body responsible for promoting the implementation of the Strategy on the Protection and Conservation of the Ecosystems and Biological Diversity of the Maritime Area seems to have accomplished a lot more in a new policy area from scratch. In this context, WWF particularly appreciates the efforts by the OSPAR Workshop on Marine Protected Areas hosted by Germany in 1998, the preparations by the Netherlands and Portugal in order to conduct a second workshop to finalise the criteria for the selection of species and habitats in 1999 and the preparations by the UK to co-organise a workshop on habitat classification and biogeographic regions in the work period 1999/2000.
  2. While WWF feels that work on the development of programmes and measures to implement the new Annex V and the strategy for ecosystems and biological diversity is progressing reasonably well, there is concern that the routes being chosen are going to lose sight of the need to protect the full range of diversity within the NE Atlantic and of the need to restore, where practicable, those areas that have been adversely affected.
  1. As pointed out in documents PRAM99/2/11 and ASMO(1)99/2/6, WWF underlines
  1. the interrelationship of activities i.e. the need to protect ecosystems, develop an ecosystem approach, address the restoration of sites and the assessment of human activities;
  2. the concern that precautionary protection measures e.g. the establishment of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) could be restricted by narrowing down the scope to threatened, endangered or rare species and habitats;
  3. the importance of the need for further selection of sites which meet wider MPA-criteria (e.g. high biodiversity or high productivity); and
  4. the relationship between fisheries boxes / no-take-zones and MPAs which demonstrates the need for close cooperation between the authorities competent for the protection and conservation of the ecosystems and biological diversity of the OSPAR Maritime Area and the authorities responsible for fisheries management (also see OSPAR Annex V, Article 4.1).
  1. With regard to the latter, WWF highly welcomes the measures recently endorsed by the Norwegian authorities in order to safeguard cold water coral reefs of the North-East Atlantic. Over the past years, it has been visually demonstrated and scientifically assessed that a number of deep water coral reefs (Lophelia pertusa communities) are irreversibly damaged by demersal trawling. Spurred by concerns that were raised by the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (IMR), and in order to protect the large unique and highly diverse cold water coral reef on Sula ridge against similar impacts the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries with effect of 11 March 1999 has enacted the protection of coral reefs including the following provisions:
  1. all use of fishing gears that are dragged and may get in contact with the sea floor is forbidden within a defined area.
  2. all intentional destruction of coral reefs is forbidden throughout Norway, and extra caution is requested while fishing in the vicinity of known reefs.

Under preparatory negotiations, the Ministry referred to Norway’s obligations to conserve biodiversity following international treaties, and that the highest densities of the largest Lophelia reefs are found off Norway. Even though anticipating the entry into force of Annex V to the OSPAR Convention which hopefully will happen in near future this is an excellent example of how to rapidly integrate environmental aspects into fisheries management where such concerted action deems appropriate and urgent protection measures are required. One should be aware that in parallel to the progress observed at a national level in Norway, the issue of cold water coral reefs has appeared on the OSPAR agenda since the 1998 Meeting of IMPACT (cf. OSPAR 99/07/03-E (L)).

  1. Further information on potential (offshore) MPAs such as Sula Ridge will be provided by WWF at OSPAR 1999. This will continue the briefing series launched on the occasion of the OSPAR Sintra meeting.

Cooperation between OSPAR and EC

  1. In line with paragraphs 17 and 18 above, WWF recalls a specific comment made on document PRAM 99/8/7 (also see Annex 1 to OSPAR 99/05/03-E (L)). After the coming into force of Annex V and the related Appendix 3 of the OSPAR Convention, it will be necessary to have a mechanism and strategy in place to draw a fisheries related question or problem to the attention of the EC as an authority competent for that question and/or to cooperate on such a question or problem where action within the competence of the Commission is desirable to complement or support action by the EC. WWF emphasises the need to investigate possible means of such mechanism as early as possible.
  2. WWF congratulates the European Commission for having delivered a proposal for a Council Decision concerning the approval, on behalf of the Community, of the new Annex V to the OSPAR Convention (1999/C 158/01), COM(1999) 190 final – 99/0095 (CNS), submitted on 26 April 1999. In the light of this preparatory act and positive signal, WWF expects the ratification process to be speeded up.
  3. WWF is however, concerned about the statement made by the European Commission in a letter dated 22 December 1998 “the European Commission had, on behalf of the European Community, informed the Executive Secretary of the OSPAR Commission that the European Community was not in a position to accept the Decisions adopted pursuant to Article 10 paragraph 3 of the Convention at the 1998 meeting of the OSPAR Commission until all internal procedures required for this adoption have been completed” (quoted from paragraph 8.1 of PRAM99/13/1-E).
  4. With regard to further cooperation on hazardous substances, reference is made to paragraph 7. WWF strongly associates itself with the comments made on OSPAR Strategy vs. EU Water Framework Directive by Seas At Risk (OSPAR 99/4/21-E(L)).

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OSPAR CommissionOSPAR 99/4/22-E(L)