Biodiversity protection should be linked to decarbonisation goals
BIODIVERSITY protection should be aligned with shipping’s decarbonisation goals, a new guidebook published by the Sustainable Shipping Initiative has stressed.
Launched on World Maritime Day (September 25), the guidebook lays out key threats shipping can pose to marine biodiversity and offers some mitigation strategies to avoid unnecessary harm to wildlife.
Speaking at the launch event, UN Foundation senior director for ocean and climate Simon Walmsley said connections between biodiversity and climate change were “rarely explored together” and “have not yet been efficiently coordinated with the urgent transition to net zero for shipping”.
“There needs to be a greater alignment of shipping practices with global biodiversity and ocean health targets,” he said.
Among the biggest threats to wildlife posed by commercial shipping are whale strikes, underwater noise and ballast water management.
The majority of whale strikes go unreported, the guidebook claimed, with many commercial vessels unaware they have struck a whale.
Rerouting shipping lanes away from areas of high whale density, as has been done successfully in the Bay of Fundy and the Santa Barbara channel, was one of the most effective ways to reduce strikes, along with reducing speed in high-risk areas and dynamically rerouting according to sightings.
All of the above strategies require a level of data collection and sharing.
“The knowledge, tools and partnerships exist but scaling them will require harmonised guidance, improved digital data flows, commercial alignment and sustained industry-regulator collaboration,” the guidebook says.
Ballast water management can be even more damaging to ecosystems in the long-term, as invasive species can be involuntarily carried to new habitats where they lack natural predators.
The guidebook acknowledges that the International Maritime Organization’s Ballast Water Management Convention provides a “regulatory framework”, “implementation gaps remain due to varying system reliability, inconsistent maintenance and uneven enforcement”.
Avoiding ballast water uptake in estuaries, river mouths and biodiversity-rich ports should be avoided, the guidebook advises, as well as the implementation of approved Ballast Water Management Systems that use methods such as UV and filtration to eliminate organisms before discharge.
But accurate data is again an issue. Safe ballast water exchange locations are “not always available of communicated to vessels”, the guidebook adds. Similarly, “limited real-time monitoring or third-party validation of treatment system performance” can “weaken confidence in compliance”.
Rather than becoming another regulatory hurdle for shipping to overcome, SSI instead presents biodiversity protection as something that can be seamlessly integrated into existing business strategies.
Fürstenberg Maritime Advisory strategic adviser and report author Sofia Fürstenberg Scott said she wanted to show that “protecting ocean health is not only possible but practical for the shipping industry today”.
SSI chief executive Ellie Besley-Gould said the guidebook highlights opportunities “to integrate biodiversity action into everyday decision-making — from routing to reporting — in ways that strengthen long-term performance”.
Quieter vessels, for example, were more efficient vessels, Walmsley said. Reducing speed to avoid whale strikes will reduce fuel use and emissions, which the guidebook argues will offset any lengthening of voyages.
“Many of these leaps, many of these additions, could be done at no additional cost, which is of course music to everyone’s ears,” Walmsley said.
“We’ve got to have a shared vision and we’ve got to have a shared understanding of these problems,” he added.
But Fürstenberg admitted that shipping has “a lot to deal with today” and is largely focused on decarbonisation.
“You may wonder if they have space or ability to even address another major challenge”, she said, adding that the industry “struggles to comprehend what sustainable shipping is”, without adding the complexity of biodiversity to the mix.
“We need to help the industry get a comprehensive overview, to be able to look at this from a systemic perspective, and to be able to identify easily how they are impacting marine biodiversity in ocean health, and therefore what they can do to improve this situation,” she said.
Shipping can be more than just a “bystander” or rule-follower though.
The guidebook says the industry is a “system-level actor with reach, influence, and operational data essential to the ocean’s future”.
But the industry is not involved in governance dialogue, the guidebook highlights, which increases the risk of biodiversity strategies being implemented without practical input from operators.
Operators have access to data collected around the world and arguably have a better view of what goes on in the oceans than land-based regulators.
“By engaging more directly and strategically in governance processes, and aligning with climate and nature frameworks championed by global leaders, the sector can support ecological integrity, ensure regulatory stability, and enhance its social license to operate,” the guidebook concludes.
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