Major project to tackle marine litter

Anew global project to prevent and reduce marine plastic litter from shipping and fisheries has been launched by IMO and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), with initial funding from the Government of Norway.

The GloLitter Partnerships Project will help shipping and fisheries move to a low-plastics future. GloLitter will assist developing countries identify opportunities to prevent and reduce marine litter, including plastic litter, from within the maritime transport and fisheries sectors, and to decrease the use of plastics in these industries, including identifying opportunities to re-use and recycle plastics.

The project will consider the availability and adequacy of port reception facilities; look at enhancing awareness of the marine plastics issue within the shipping and fisheries sectors, including seafarers and fishers; and encourage fishing gear to be marked so it can be traced back to its owner if discarded.

These and other actions to reduce plastic litter have already been identified in IMO’s Action Plan to address marine plastic litter from ships, adopted in 2018.

The GloLitter project will develop guidance documents, training material and toolkits to help enforce existing regulations, including IMO’s International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) Annex V. Since 1988, this has prohibited the discharge of plastics, including discarded fishing gear, into the sea from ships.

The project will also promote compliance with relevant FAO instruments (including the Voluntary Guidelines on the Marking of Fishing Gear) and will target waste management in ports. It will, additionally, emphasise implementation and enforcement of IMO’s London Convention/London Protocol regime on dumping of

wastes at sea, which requires waste (such as from dredging) to be assessed before permits to dump are granted.

The GloLitter project will include private sector participation through a global industry alliance and is seeking partners from major maritime and fisheries companies. Ten countries, from five high priority regions (Asia, Africa, Caribbean, Latin America and Pacific) will be selected to spearhead the project. At country level, GloLitter will expand government and port management capacities and instigate legal, policy and institutional reforms. Regional cooperation will also be enhanced.

The project is intended to be a multi-donor programme. The initial funding of NOK 40 million (approximately US$4.5 million) from the Government of Norway provides for a 3.5-year project, executed by IMO in partnership with FAO.

Collaboration with other international, regional and national partners through additional in-kind co-financing is envisaged, from the private sector as well as beneficiary countries. The planned Global Industry Alliance (GIA) will link with the UN Global Compact, which has adopted Sustainable Ocean Principles for responsible business practices.

The GloLitter Partnerships project will directly help to achieve one of the of the specific targets in the global Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 - to “prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, in particular from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution, by 2025”.

The GloLitter Partnerships Project agreement was signed by IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim and His Excellency Wegger Chr. Strømmen, Norway’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, on Thursday 5 December, 2019.