Marine pests cost billions in damage to fisheries, coastal communities and infrastructure – and they are spreading

Science Daily: Marine pest species costing billions in damage to fisheries, coastal communities and infrastructure are spreading as the world’s shipping nations continue to largely neglect bringing into effect an international treaty setting out requirements for consistent handling and treatment of ships’ ballast water.

Silent Invasion, a new report issued by WWF as International Maritime Organization (IMO) delegates met to consider environmental aspects of shipping in London July 13, details 24 cases where significant marine pests were most likely introduced or spread through discharges of ships ballast water during the five years in which the Convention on the Control and Management of Ship’s Ballast Water and Sediments was ratified by only one of the world’s top ten shipping states.

In that time, the North American comb jellyfish that virtually wiped out the anchovy and sprat stocks in the Black Sea in the 1990s has been expanding in the Caspian Sea, North Sea and the Baltic Sea. The Chinese mitten crab has established itself on both sides of the north Atlantic and is estimated to have caused damage to river banks, fishing gear and industrial water systems to the tune of €80 million in Germany alone.

“The IMO Ballast Water Convention provides the set of agreed practices and standards for effective control of ballast water internationally, minimizing the spread of marine invasive organisms while imposing minimal costs upon shipping and trade,”. said Dr Anita Mäkinen, WWF’s head of delegation to the IMO meeting….

A comb jellyfish