Steve Agbota, [email protected]

With a coastline of 852 kilometres bordering the Atlantic Ocean in the Gulf of Guinea and a maritime area of over 46,000 km2, 80 per cent of transport trade in Nigeria is done through the seas.

Seas and other water bodies have for long connected human populations, serving as a route for transportation of people as well as merchandise, and today more than 90 per cent of all worldwide trade goods are transported on the ocean with ships.

Shipping is essential to the global economy, providing the most cost-effective means of transporting bulk goods over long distances. Today over 90 per cent of all global trade including everything from food and fuel to construction materials, chemicals and household items are carried by ships.

Shipping moves over 80 per cent of the world’s commodities and transfers approximately three to five billion tonnes of ballast water internationally every year. Ballast water is essential to the safe and efficient operation of shipping, but it also poses a serious ecological, economic and health threat through the transfer of invasive aquatic species inadvertently carried in it.

Experts say that as these ships move on seas from one area to another with ballast water and discharging them on the ocean without being treated, could result to Invasive Alien Species (IAS). Presently, the United States of America is said to be spending over $5 billion on their waters as to safeguard it against IAS, which is why Nigeria also needs to protect its exclusive economic zones from IAS.

Daily Sun learnt that every nine weeks, a new species is introduced somewhere in the world. Everyday, 7000 plus species of plants and animals are transported in ballast. Every year, the world’s fleet moves 3-5 billion tonnes of ballast around the world.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, noted that over the past century, the impact of IAS has been particularly high on islands, and predicted that its impact over the coming decades will grow in intensity especially in inland waters and coastal areas. IAS are now recognised as one of the major direct causes of biodiversity loss, and of changes in ecosystem functioning as well as provisioning and supporting services.

However, studies carried out in several countries have shown that many species of bacteria, plants and animals can survive in the ballast water and sediment carried in ships, even after journeys of several weeks duration. Subsequent discharge of ballast water or sediment into the waters of port states may result in the establishment of colonies of harmful species and pathogens which can seriously upset the existing ecological balance.

Although other methods have been identified by which organisms are transferred between geographically separated sea areas, ballast water discharge from ships appears to have been prominent among those identified.

If the environmental conditions in this new geographic area are suitable, the alien species may then not only survive, but may establish and spread, in many cases causing, or with the potential to cause, harm to the local environment, economy, or human health.

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To regulate the ballast water discharge from ships and to control the transfer of invasive species; the International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ship’s Ballast Water and Sediments (BWM Convention) in February 2004. The purpose of the Convention is to prevent, minimise and ultimately eliminate the risk of introduction of Harmful Aquatic Organisms and Pathogens, which use the ballast water as a hub.

A key international measure for environmental protection that aims to stop the spread of potentially invasive aquatic species in ships’ ballast water entered into force on September 8, 2017.

Speaking at a sensitization workshop for implementation of Ballast Water Management Convention and Compliance for stakeholders organised by Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Environment (HSE Division) Tin Can Island Port Complex, the Assistance General Manager, Environment, NPA Khadijat Sheidu-Shabi, said that IMO convention on Ballast Water Management, which came into force in 2017, would be fully implemented in Nigeria by 2024, hence the need to educate all stakeholders, ship owners and everybody that would be involved in the process.

According to her, the purpose of sensitisation programme is in line with the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), that guides the ports all over the world to ensure that all member nations have standard rules so that each vessel moving from one location to another would not have problem getting to the ports.

She added: “We are here to let them know what Nigeria is doing to carry the stakeholders along, we are also here because we have one of us in NPA who has PhD, the first of its kind in Ballast Water Management and has been able to come up with a concept that is cheaper and more acceptable within the region, and the other regions have been accepting what he has been working on, so we need to sensitize our people, let them know what we are doing.

“And every year, when we come, this is what we have been doing since last year, so that by the time the Convention comes into force by 2024, Nigeria would be fully prepared or else, like every other thing that happens in the world, we end up becoming a dumping ground that everybody just drop their species or organisms into our environment and these species can either dominate what we have here or they survive and even if they survive, they create an adoptive method, which will be different from where they are coming from, by the time they become a problem, we cannot even solve it because what they have created here is a combination of what they met here and what they brought from where they are coming from.”

While delivering a paper at the workshop, Dr. Chukwuemeka Isanbor (Associate Professor) Chemistry Department, University of Lagos, said in marine and coastal environments, invasive species have been identified as one of the four greatest threats to the world’s oceans along with land-based sources of marine pollution, over-exploitation of living marine resources, physical alteration/destruction of marine habitats.

He said Ballast water is thus recognised as one of the principal vectors of potentially IAS, and is estimated to be responsible for the transfer of between 7,000 and 10,000 different species of marine microbes, plants and animals globally each day.

Speaking on the impacts of IAS to human health and wellbeing, he said it decreased recreational opportunities, and overgrowth of aquifers and smothering of beaches, as well as parasites and disease.

He said the spread of toxic phytoplankton and increasing occurrence of harmful algal blooms are of significant health concern.