International Global Transport Punishment Increases As 47 Whales Confirmed Dead In Mauritius

On Monday, it was revealed that 47 whales were found dead along the South East coast of Mauritius, including pregnant women and minors. The numbers continue to rise every day, around the place of the crash and sinking of the part in front of Wakashio.

This comes in the midst of the extreme secret of the operation to rescue the back of the ship, dumping the removed oil and clearing the oil along the coast. The lack of transparency regarding the methods used for cleaning is raising additional concerns for any long-term risk with the use of chemical dispersers. Comparisons are now being made between the Mauritius clearing and the oil spill and refining operation in Venezuela earlier this month in its famous Morrocoy Reserve.

Already, there were concerns about the controversial decision to deliberately sink the front of the Wakashio in an undiscovered place on the shores of Mauritius. Two days later, many dead dolphins and whales began to be stolen dead off the coast of Mauritius.

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Concerns about Wakashio rescue operation

• This follows the main weekend demonstrations in Mauritius and around its embassies around the world over the weekend, which attracted 100,000 marchers (about 10% of the country) according to a report in Independent UKs Newspaper. Protesters had marched peacefully in the streets of the capital, demanding justice and responsibility for the impact on the polluting environment, including dead whales and dolphins.
• This comes as an international ocean NGO, Shepherd of the Sea discovered it was over 203,000 tons of ballast water aboard the ship when it struck the Mauritius reefs (200 times the amount of oil spilled). Given the concerns and international laws created in recent years to stop the harmful spread of marine diseases through the release of ballast water, it is unclear whether this ballast water was safely removed from the ship. Ship owner, Transportation Nagahsiki did not respond to media requests for comments.
• At the same time, it is also being reported locally that the rescue team may have used seismic decay in sensitive areas around the Mauritian coast as part of the rescue operation. This is a famous area for its whale nursing sites, and some whales and juvenile-headed pregnant female melons have already been found washed in recent days. If it is true that such a seismic explosion has been undertaken, serious questions will have to be asked under whose authority such tests were carried out and whether a full environmental impact assessment of the area had been made before the test, when there are dozens of Hotels Luxury Five Star along the East Coast of Mauritius offering tourists sightseeing tours for Dolphin and Whale in the area.

International NGO Criticism of Global Transport

The international NGO community has also begun to raise serious questions about the role of the global transport industry in this incident. In a statement to Forbes, the global ocean protection NGO, Ocean Conservation has called for a full and independent investigation into the deaths of whales and dolphins in Mauritius.

Chris Robbins, head of Scientific Initiatives at Ocean Conservancy and who worked for a decade in response to the oil spill and ecosystem restoration after BP Deepwater Horizons the tragedy highlighted the danger to dolphins especially after a major oil spill.

Marine mammals like dolphins were among the most severely affected marine species affected by the Deepwater Horizon disaster and recovery is estimated to take decades. Marine mammals are exposed to toxins in the oil through absorption, ingestion, aspiration, and absorption of the skin, resulting in immediate death or sub-lethal effects such as lung disease, immune system damage, and reproductive failure.

From the outset, Ocean Conservancy recognized that long-term monitoring is essential to track the recovery of affected species such as marine mammal populations as well as the wider marine ecosystem. Dolphins are long-lived and, as we saw in the northern Gulf of Mexico, the health effects of the spill could wave across local dolphin populations for years to come.

De-carbonization of the international transport fleet

Ocean conservation has also continued to call for bold transport reform, echoing calls from other international environmental groups such as Green Peace, WWF and Shepherd of the Sea for the same, mentioning the heavy engine fuel used as one of the main reasons for this catastrophe was so widespread.

In the ongoing uncertainty about the science being used to assess the impact of the oil spill on Mauritius, one thing is clear: we need to move rapidly from fossil fuels to renewable energy. This includes, as a priority, the de-carbonization of the international transport fleet.

We estimate that full de-carbonation must occur by 2034 to stay within the 1.5 Celsius target set by the Paris Agreement. Accordingly, this will lead to the replacement of all burning HFO (Heavy Oil) vessels with pure green fuels such as hydrogen or ammonia, which will also dramatically reduce the risk of a spill affecting marine mammals. .

Japan and Japanese-based Nagashiki Shipping, owners of MV Wakashio, have a key role to play in all of this. As one of the largest shipbuilding nations along with China and the Republic of Korea, Japan can set standards to prevent future Wakashio and publicly commit to accelerating the international IMO deadline for full decarbonisation . This outpouring should be a wake-up call for all nation-building ships.

This statement from Ocean Conservancy echoes WWFs calling for justice including the ocean calls for reform of comfort regime flags, a system that many have argued for years has allowed shipowners to behave with impunity in the world’s oceans. A range of legal and financial instruments have been highlighted by the WWF for how a country like Mauritius can strive to restore this unique ecosystem, based on other lessons from the West Indian Ocean.

Warning for collateral damage from oil spill cleaning operations

Ocean Conservatives Chris Robbins went further and warned of many of the side effects of an oil spill cleanup operation he had learned from BP Deepwater Horizons tragedy, which ended up causing even more damage.

He listed these in an article on the Ocean Conservancy page where he listed a five-point plan, about how Mauritius should think about his response to Wakashio oil leak.

There are some lessons from the Gulf of Mexico after the BP Deepwater Horizon tragedy that can be applied to the ongoing tragedy in Mauritius on how to respond to a spill from the perspective of response, cleanup, document damage, liability and construction of a long-term restoration plan.

So far, there have been no additional comments from the ship owner either, Transportation Nagashiki the company, or the multi-billion dollar shipping operator that rented the ship, Mitsui OSK Lines, on the deaths of dolphins or whales.

In particular, there has also been no public statement on the oil spill by some other major UN or other ocean protection organizations, 37 days after this major ecological crisis.