Story lead: Environmental
An alien species establishes itself somewhere in the world every two months. It may sound like science fiction, but it’s fact: every stopover on the Volvo Ocean Race is under threat by alien marine species that hitchhike across oceans in the ballast water of ships.
Fast forward nine months and 37,000 miles, and there will, of course, be just one winner of the 2008-09 Volvo Ocean Race. This year, however, all the teams are sure of a place in the history books, due to an environmental research project they’ll be leaving behind them as a legacy. All entries in this year’s Volvo Ocean Race are taking part in a pioneering research project aimed at finding out how the world’s oceans have been affected by ships’ ‘ballasting’ – the exchanging of billions of tonnes of ballast water and the marine life it contains at destinations across the world.
Fifty years ago, before the post World War 2 shipping boom, ships carried almost anything, and would trade on routes that saw them carrying cargo on both the outward and return legs. These days, massive crude oil or dry bulk cargo carriers are dispatched to a destination carrying a specific amount of their single product; oil to the US and Japan for example, iron ore to China. Once they have discharged, these ships take on huge amounts of water as ballast to stabilise them on their empty journey to the next loading port, where they will discharge the ballast water and take on new cargo. The problem with this cosmopolitan mix of water is simple: ballasting transports marine life as well as water from one port to another. Species found in the coastal waters of the South China Sea or the Gulf of Mexico are totally alien from those of the Arabian Gulf or West Africa; mixing them causes total upheaval of the natural symbiosis of the environment.
It is estimated that at least 7,000 different species are carried in ships’ ballast tanks. Discharged thousands of miles from home, often in waters with no natural predators, invading species act on the principle of ‘survival of the fittest’, preying on whatever indigenous creatures come their way. As a result, entire ecosystems are being changed.
In the USA, the European Zebra Mussel has infested over 40% of internal waterways, requiring US$750- $1 billion to be spent on control measures between 1989 and 2000. In southern Australia, Asian kelp is invading new areas rapidly, displacing the native seabed communities, while in the Black Sea, a filter-feeding North American jellyfish has reached densities of up to 1kg of biomass per square metre, depleting native plankton stocks to such an extent that it has contributed to the collapse of entire Black Sea commercial fisheries.
With an ever-expanding shipping sector that moves over 90% of the world’s commodities transferring an estimated 3-5 billion tonnes of ballast water internationally each year, the problem is an ecological, economic and health threat.
Enter the Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL) project. The race route provides scientists with a rare opportunity to analyse the biomass of the water in open seas not on the regular shipping routes, and to find out the kind of micro-organisms that are regularly transported in ballast water.
‘We have a three-pronged approach to the problem’, says WWL’s Global Head of Environment, Melanie Moore. ‘We need research and technical solutions to help solve the problem, we need legislation to help prevent the problem and we need community education to inform the world about the problem. The Volvo Ocean Race project will help with all of this.’
During the race, the dedicated media crew member on board each racing yacht will be responsible for taking regular water samples using a sophisticated testing process using a measuring instrument called a luminometer. He or she will then record the information and pass this on to research scientists, who will analyse the data and publish a report of the findings post race. ‘What we want to look at is the mass of species along the race route”, says Moore. “That’s the benefit of what the crew can do for us. It’s about conducting research that will go towards creating some better ballast water treatment systems for the future.’
WWL initiated its first ballast water project in 2003, and this helped develop PureBallast, a potential solution to the problem. PureBallast is a chemical-free solution that uses advanced oxidation technology to target organisms present in ballast water. Sea trials gave encouraging results, and it has since become one of the treatment methods approved by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the United Nations marine body.
Volvo Ocean Race water sampling could refine the solution even further, says Moore: ‘Our understanding of the problem has been limited to coastal areas until now. We don’t really know the scale of the problem out there. The Volvo Ocean Race takes us into the unknown… collecting the data will be a benefit.’
Better research and solutions will also help WWL to push ballasting towards legislation. The IMO is in the process of getting member nations to ratify a convention that would force countries to ensure that their ships treat their ballast water so that it doesn’t carry invasive species to other oceans. Treading through treacherous waters, the crew of this Volvo Ocean Race will help WWL stretch towards its ultimate goal, preventing wave after wave of marine intruders changing the face of our oceans and preserving marine life.
September 2008