Clean Ships, Clean Ports, Clean Oceans: Controlling Garbage and Plastic Wastes at Sea (1995)
Chapter: 8 Measuring Progress in Implementation of Annex V
8
Measuring Progress in Implementation of Annex V
Regardless of what steps are taken to improve implementation of Annex V, it is important to be able to measure any resulting progress, not only to determine which interventions are effective but also to enhance scientific understanding of the oceans. A progress assessment would have two primary components. The first would involve record keeping to gauge Annex V compliance rates among vessels. The second component would involve environmental monitoring to determine whether the flux of vessel garbage to the marine environment is being reduced. To provide the data needed for these two types of evaluations, appropriate record-keeping practices and environmental monitoring techniques would need to be developed and employed.
This chapter examines possible approaches to record keeping and environmental monitoring from the perspective of measuring progress in implementation of Annex V. The first half of the chapter addresses the collection of records on compliance. There are numerous opportunities for routine collection of such information (as suggested at various points earlier in this report), but few data are compiled or analyzed systematically. The second half of the chapter outlines the options for environmental monitoring. It should be noted that this approach cannot be employed as the sole measure of progress in Annex V implementation, because vessel garbage is only one source of debris in the marine environment. Thus, although the committee concentrated on the problem of vessel garbage, this aspect of the analysis focuses on the broader problem of marine debris.
