Norwegian perspectives on maritime safety – by the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs

Ladies and gentlemen I am delighted to be here at this important event for the EfficienSea project.

Norway is a major marine and maritime nation and our prosperity is largely built on industries that are dependent on the ocean, such as fishing, aquaculture, ship-building, shipping and petroleum activities. There are important challenges ahead facing our oceans, seas and coasts, and the maritime sectors.

The Norwegian Government aims to ensure a sustainable ocean and coastal environment while at the same time ensuring economic growth in the marine and maritime sector.

Climate change is one of the most important challenges ahead and is one of the main priorities of the Norwegian government. Improving maritime safety and reducing the risk of accidents at sea and possible environmental damage are also key objectives of the Norwegian maritime policy.

Maritime transport is, in general, a safe and environmentally friendly mode of transport.

Yet, we know that an accident could have serious consequences. And while maritime transport will never be risk free, we must do what we can to prevent accidents, as well as minimize the consequences when accidents do occur.

Transport of dangerous and polluting cargo along our coast is increasing, and Norway has taken action to reduce the risk this would otherwise represent. I will return to this, but first allow me to dwell for a minute on the pollution caused by accidents.

Even relatively small amounts of oil released into the sea can seriously harm ecosystems and pose a threat to marine life in the coastal zone. A recent example was the release of the 300 tons of bunker oil following Full City’s grounding off the coast of southern Norway last summer. Large parts of the south coast were polluted, and oil pollution was detected as far as 108 nautical miles from the grounding site.

Measures to enhance maritime safety and to handle unforeseen incidents are of major importance to the future development of sea transport as a safe and environmental friendly mode of transport.

The overall goal is, of course, to reduce the probability of accidents. I commend the Norwegian Coastal Administration for its brave “zero-vision” in this regard.

Maritime safety measures, as well as preparedness against pollution, must be based on risk assessments. Analysis of traffic development - and the related risk of accidents, as well as solid knowledge about vulnerable environmental resources constitute the fundamental basis for policy development in this field.

Based on such analyse the Norwegian government has allocated funds to improve the navigation installations along the coast as well as to modernise vessel traffic centres.

Monitoring and surveillance of ship traffic along with ship reporting systems are crucial for maritime governance. The establishment of efficient systems for sharing of this information between administrations nationally, as well as across borders, are important tools for the risk assessment of ship traffic along our coasts. It will facilitate the evaluation of the need for preventive measures.

The sea is used for several activities by stakeholders with at times diverging interests, such as fisheries, petroleum industry, maritime transport, aquaculture, and off-shore windmill parks.

Conflict of interest may arise over the best use of areas and resources. There is a clear need for overall coordinated management plans of our seas. I will get back to this shortly.

In addition to risk analysis research and innovation are fundamental to handling the challenges in the maritime and marine sector. In order to facilitate the development of cleaner ships, ensuring healthy oceans and improving the opportunity of maritime surveillance the Norwegian government has taken initiatives to strengthen the marine and maritime research.

Even though our marine environments and the ship traffic situation can differ, the European costal states are in many ways facing the same challenges. Thus it is important for Norway to embrace and enhance regional as well as global cooperation in order to find the best solutions for a future sustainable maritime and marine environment.

Norway will on the first of July 2010 assume the presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States. The Council provides a valuable arena for cooperation and dialogue between EU and non EU member states, including Russia. Maritime policy will be one of the priorities of the Norwegian presidency. Furthermore Norway will in the coming year chair an expert group on maritime policy for the Baltic Sea.

The EfficienSea project raises many important issues regarding our common future challenges. The Norwegian Coastal Administration’s participation in projects in the Baltic Sea area, including the EfficienSea, will be addressed later today by the Coastal Director Kirsti Slotsvik.

Allow me to touch upon a few of the issues of importance to Norway.

A traffic separation scheme was established in 2007 some 30 nautical miles off the coast of Northern Norway, after adoption of a Norwegian proposal by the IMO.  By this measure, risk traffic has been moved further away from the coast, and the risk of groundings and collisions has been reduced. 

By moving risk traffic further away from the coastline, we also have more time to respond to incidents: to activate emergency towage and oil spill response, as well as keeping traffic at an adequate distance from environmentally sensitive areas.

Based on our experience with this measure, we are proposing corresponding measures outside the west and south coast of Norway, the latter in close cooperation with Denmark and Sweden. A proposal has been submitted to the IMO for consideration in the sub-committee on Safety of Navigation in July 2010.

Secondly, a national ocean going tug boat emergency service, represents an important and effective preventive measure to avoid environmental damage when a ship is a drift. The Government has strengthened the tug boat service in North Norway and established a state emergency tug presence in southern Norway.

We are also considering establishing a state emergency tug service at the west coast. A State emergency tug service is costly, but the cost of environmental damage to our coast is considered much higher.

As a third point I would like to underline that the monitoring and surveillance of traffic in our coastal zones and oceans is one of the most important preventive measures to ensure cost-effective, safe and secure maritime transport.

In this respect terrestrial and satellite technologies play a crucial role in improving the maritime picture available to fisheries and maritime authorities. Thus information gathered by systems such as the Automatic Identification System (AIS), Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) and Long Range Identification Tracking Systems (LRIT) are vital for good maritime governance.

Norway actively contributes to the further development of these systems both on the regional and global arena.

I would like to mention the importance of creating a common information sharing environment in the maritime domain. Interlinking different user communities, by sharing information between civilian and military authorities, will enhance the general maritime situational awareness for all user communities.

This will create an effective interoperability among the different sector-specific systems and ensure that the collection, analysis and sharing of existing data and information can be put to the best possible use. In this respect we will avoid the unnecessary and often costly duplication of information gathering in the different sectors.

A growing industrial activity and maritime transport in northern ocean areas pose increasing demands and opportunities for the Norwegian marine and maritime management in the north.

The Norwegian Government’s strategy for the High North, states an ambition to develop a cross-sectoral, integrated system of maritime surveillance. 

A new integrated system will secure access to critical real-time and historical information on the northern oceans and coastal areas, and prospects to be a single-window “well of information” based on data from existing sector-systems.

A new system will serve national authorities in the management of marine resources and the environment, maritime transport, oil and gas, emergency response and other.

The strategic work on the establishment of the integrated surveillance system – currently called “BarentsWatch” – is well and truly in progress.

Under direction the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs, Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an interim project secretariat was established in October 2009. The object is to develop a report to the Ministries by June 2010, on a potential realization, development and administration of an integrated maritime surveillance system.

I would also like to address the issue of the global initiative on e-navigation. The iniative will play a significant role in improving maritime safety and reducing the risk of accidents at sea and possible environmental damage. The e-navigation concept aims to simplify the electronic administration of information on board the ship and ashore and will improve the efficiency and reduce costs for the maritime transport.

This initiative by the IMO is of importance to Norway and we gladly accepted the proposal to chair the IMO working groups on e-navigation. The Norwegian Coastal Administration has taken this challenge on board and I am confident that they will manage to navigate this “ship” to shore in line with the mandate and time frame given by IMO.

It is very positive that e-navigation is a part of the EfficientSea project. I am sure that the results of your work will contribute greatly in ensuring a global implementation of the e-navigation strategy.

As a final issue I would like to stress the need for a sustainable management of the oceans to ensure the production of food for future generations.

The Norwegian government has developed integrated management plans for two marine regions, The Norwegian Sea and (the Norwegian part of) the Barents Sea including a specified area off the Lofoten Islands. An integrated management plan for (the Norwegian part of) the North Sea and Skagerrak is in the pipeline, and this will be the third and final plan.

The plans establish the overall framework for both existing and new activities in these waters. They facilitate the co-existence of different industries, in particular the fisheries industry, maritime transport and petroleum industry. The overall aim is to establish a holistic and ecosystem-based management of activities in Norwegian waters.

The Government has attached great importance to obtaining a sound scientific basis for the management plans. The Norwegian Coastal Administration has a central role in this work. They chair a working group on risk assessment and coordinate risk-reduction initiatives.

The integrated management plans show that sectorial cooperation is crucial if we are to ensure a sound management of the activities in our waters.

I would like to end by encouraging you all to continue your joint effort in creating further synergies to enable economic growth and environmental sustainability in the maritime and marine sector. The regional cooperation in the Baltic sea area, such as the Council of the Baltic Sea States and Interregproject EfficienSea are important fora that will enable us to jointly improve maritime safety, and reducing the risk of accidents at sea and possible damage to the valuable marine resources and coastal areas.

I would like to wish you all every success at this meeting.

Thank you