New Ship Routing Measures to Protect Australia’s Coral Sea Agreed by IMO

New ship routing measures geared toward defending environmentally delicate areas in Coral Sea, residence to the Great Barrier Reef, have been agreed by the IMO Sub-Committee on Navigation, Communications and Search and Rescue (NCSR).

During its 2nd session held March 9-13, the NCSR sub-committee agreed to a beneficial “Area to Be Avoided” in addition to two-way delivery routes proposed by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA). The objective of the proposal is to cut back the danger of ship collisions by separating opposing ship site visitors, whereas guaranteeing ships hold away from environmentally delicate areas, corresponding to reefs, shoals and islets, in Australia’s Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve.

The new space will cowl roughly 564,000 sq. kilometers within the south-west Coral Sea and contains a variety of delivery hazards not lined by the present preparations, the AMSA says.

AMSA submitted the proposals, referred to as “Associated Protective Measures”, linked to a proposal to increase the Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait Particularly Sensitive Sea Area (PSSA) eastwards to elements of the Coral Sea. The PSSA extension proposal will likely be submitted by Australia to IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) in May 2015 for consideration.

The proposed ships routing measures will likely be submitted to IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee (MSC 95) in June for adoption.

In 1990, the Great Barrier Reef grew to become the primary “Particularly Sensitive Sea Area” to be designated by IMO. The extension of the prevailing Great Barrier Reef PSSA to incorporate the Torres Strait (Australia and Papua New Guinea) was later designated in 2005. They are two of the 14 PSSAs designated by IMO so far.

Video: Coral Sea Particularly Sensitive Area