Mangaluru: A Level–I Pollution Response workshop for the state of Karnataka was conducted on October18, at Coast Guard Headquarters No.3, New Mangalore. A total of 30 personnel participated in the workshop representing all Marine stakeholders viz, Navy, State Pollution Board, NMPT, MRPL, HPCL, Fisheries, IMC, Port Official, NPCIL Kaiga, CMFRI, ISPRL and Indian Oil apart from ICG officials.
In the opening address DIG K R Suresh, TM, Commander, Coast Guard Karnataka stressed that, environment security is one of the most important elements of national security. Environmental damage due to war and military preparations, and using environment as a weapon of war are not strange issues. The intentional discharge of oil into the Persian Gulf during the Gulf War is one of the examples. Such incidents indicate that we cannot discount intentional spills in the marine environment. It could come up as an act of war or militancy, or just for economic reasons. The Commander emphasized that 70 per cent of cargo coming into the state of Karnataka is petroleum products and this forum with all stake holders present should carry out self assessment whether we are ready to respond to any major oil spill.
The Coast Guard identifies marine environment security through four activities i.e., Protection of marine environment, Preservation of marine environment, Prevention of marine pollution and Control of marine pollution. This is termed as the P3C factors of environment security.
During the forenoon session of the workshop various presentations from stakeholders were presented and importance of identifying responsibility of each stakeholder and timely response were deliberated during any real time scenario. In the afternoon, a practical demonstration of pollution response was carried out at NMPT.
The workshop concluded that, any oil-spill response requires inter-agency coordination and necessary preparedness measures need to be addressed collectively. Also that environment security is a crucial element of national threat matrix with other elements being military security, economic security, resource security, and energy security.
