Samoa and 11 other Pacific countries are in a better position to address the unique challenges in preparing for, and responding to oil spills.

It follows their participation at the 2023 SpillCon Conference and Regional Workshop on developing oil spill preparedness and response planning in Pacific Small Island and Other Developing States, held in Brisbane, Australia, from September 12-15, 2023.

The SpillCon Conference is a triennial international oil spill conference for the Asia-Pacific region that allows participants to share international experience and current knowledge on key issues of oil spill preparedness and response.

Participants were also trained on a suite of environmental management and governance tools and had the opportunity to learn from the experiences gathered in other parts of the world with similar characteristics as the Pacific.

The Director General of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), Sefanaia Nawadra, highlighted the importance of partnerships in addressing oil spill response challenges in the Pacific region, when he addressed the conference.

He called upon countries to update their legislation and contingency plans and strengthen relationships between regulators and the private sector.

“In the Pacific, we do not have any specialised oil spill response organisations within our own countries or within the region. However, we have partners who are willing to come and assist us when we need it but we also have a role to play,” he said.

“We need to get our house in order. We need to make sure that our legislation is up-to-date and allows for a quick and effective response to oil spills.

“We also need to ensure that our plans are current and that they are exercised regularly so that people know their roles and responsibilities under the PACPLAN. This means that you need to establish strong linkages between yourselves as regulators and the private sector in your country, which may have the facilities and resources that are needed to respond to an oil spill.”

The Pacific’s participation at SpillCon and the regional workshop was organised by SPREP, through the Pacific Islands Marine Oil Spill Contingency Plan (PACPLAN) project with funding support from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and by the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

One of the highlights of the conference was the high number of women participants, highlighting the positive impact of programmes like the IMO International Maritime Law Institute (IMLI) in promoting gender diversity within the maritime sector. This was not lost on SPREP’s Director General.

“Today, I'm happy to see so many women in this workshop. It's good to see the level of interest in areas that were traditionally male dominated. When we started, there was only one woman and one of the things we did through the IMO platform programme was to send women to IMLI. These women have done so well, one became head of maritime authority and another gained a PhD in Law and became Head of Law Reform Commission,” Mr Nawadra said.

“The programme that graduated these women in maritime law has really paid off in the long run, not specifically in the area they were targeted to address, but in the wider developmental work of the member country. I know that this will continue because we will continue to encourage our women to be involved.”

IMO’s Technical Officer,. Will Griffiths emphasised that while the instances of large scale oil spills may be decreasing internationally, the ever-present threat of such incidents and the potential consequences are of concern in the region.

Participants will have at hand the National Oil Spill Contingency Plans of their countries as well as any related information, regulations, policies or procedures.

The countries supported by SPREP at the regional workshop includedCook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu

The PACPLAN Resilience Project 2022-25 is funded primarily by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).