On the night of Saturday, July 25, the Wakashio MV (merchant ship) ran aground on coral reefs southeast of tropical Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. The ship, a Japanese-owned granelero registered in Panama and designed to carry unwrapped goods, such as coal or grains, without cargo, had approximately two hundred tons of diesel and 3,800 tons of heavy fuel oil on board. The boat remained seated for more than a week before the cracks gave the impression of its hull.
The oil began to leak into the vast open-air turquoise lagoon of the seaside town of Mahébourg. Stunning satellite photographs show the resulting oil spill weaving a black spot between the mainland at D’Esny Point and the flat, circular island of Aigrettes Island. The affections most noticeable are horrible. On August 7, nearly two weeks after the sinking, the government declared the incident a national emergency.
With at least 1000 tons of fuel oil already emptied into the lagoon, two ships moved to move the remaining fuel in a race opposite the time, as the vessel threatened to cut in half.
I am a Mauritian who lives in the UK and I stop at my father’s space in Mahébourg once or twice a year. The coast of the affected sea is the promenade at the end of our street and the beaches where we bathe and picnic. It’s scary and writing this 10,000 km away, but it’s inspiring to see other local people act and join.
Spills like this damage marine life because the chemicals that make up the oil are poisonous for plants and animals, adding mangroves and corals that build the reefs. While the heavy, sticky oils used to force ships are less poisonous than soft oils such as diesel or oil, they persist longer and stifling life at sea and on the coast. Ecological effects interconnected marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
It is very difficult to expect the severity of the effects in Mauritius, and how temporary or simply surrounding, is based on even detailed analyses of case studies and ecology of mangroves and coral reefs. There are too many variables, adding the complexity of ecosystems, the addition of spilled hydrocarbons and how cleaning is attempted, which can also have negative effects on the environment.
The 22 hectares of mangroves that make up the Pointe D’Esny wetlands (approximately the length of 22 football fields) are designated as Ramsar Site, a domain of wetlands of foreign importance. Mangroves are home to species and habitats of conservation importance and fish nurseries that support coastal fishing.
Just along the coastal road to the south is blue Bay Marine Park, Ramsar site, with 353 hectares of coral reefs, seagrass meadows and other mangroves. It is home to turtles, 72 species of fish and an exceptional coraline diversity of 38 species from 15 families.
Ile-aux-Aigrettes, unlike Pointe D’Esny, has the last coastal ebony forest of Mauritius and is an island where I lived for 3 months as a volunteer in my youth. The coastal ebony species is one of 11 endemic ebony species left in Mauritius, a 12th would be extinct. This 27-hectare island nature reserve is named after egrets, long-legged heron species and sometimes white feathers that fish on those shores.
Successful conservation efforts have restored the number of the pink dove, one of the rarest birds in the world in 1990, in Ile-aux-Aigrettes. It was brought to the island through the Mauritius Wildlife Foundation, the conservation charity that has carefully restored its ecosystems. Environmentalists have been helped through the reintroduction of giant free-range turtles that act as ecological engineers in the recovery of coastal islands.
Local fishermen have the lagoon, which is now contaminated by hydrocarbons, for their livelihood and local populations count on it for the maximum component of the fish they eat. Many small, family-owned local businesses, such as guesthouses, tour guides, restaurants and hiking shops, cater to tourists attracted to the beautiful sea, beaches and nature that Mauritians enjoy every day.
And it seems that the oil spill can devastate most of Mauritius’ east coast. This includes more north-north spaces that house a large portion of luxury coastal hotels. Coronavirus has closed foreign tourism since March. This would have been a slow recovery even without environmental degradation.
The MV Wakashio was shipwrecked in the same position where a British sailboat with a steel hull, the Dalblair, sank while transporting coal to Mauritius in 1902. The irregular remnants of its decaying hull stick out to this day as a milestone on the waves, which in sunlight would have been a sobering warning.
After the oil spill, the same old prospects of families walking the sea were temporarily replaced by volunteers working hard in a popular effort towards their coast. Packing straw from the top and undulating sugarcane fields into artisanal floating prey, self-organized teams of other people and local activists deployed them along miles of coastline with visibly apparent success, stopping the spread of the stain and absorbing oil.
The Mauritius government told the volunteers to warn and leave any effort to the authorities. But other local people and organizations continue to manufacture and deploy dams, which is the only obvious action on oil floating at sea. It is more important to threaten a fine or arrest than to prevent. And local sentiment turns out to be unanimously negative about the slowness of the government’s reaction and the lack of action on the stain.
Why this mistrust? Just 4 years ago, on June 17, 2016, another granelero, the MV Benita, ran aground in Grand Port, just 7 km along the coast to the south. I was in Mauritius when this happened and I saw the MV Benita (which had a fifth of the mv Wakashio’s cargo capacity) from Blue Bay Beach.
There was reportedly a combat on board and the ship lost power before drifting towards Mauritius, without drawing the attention of the national coast guard. How the shipment can simply crash into Mauritius without the government knowing that other people are locally baffled.
The boat remained there for five weeks earlier, even though everything was refloated, fortunately the oil was removed without primary spills or tank failures. It was being towed to be demolished in India when it then sank 90 km from Mauritius.
Satellite evidence suggests that in July 2020, the WAKashio MV on a transparent direct collision course with Mauritius for several days and hit the reefs of Pointe D’Esny with a maintained cruising speed, meaning the returning government probably caught the surprise. The same evidence suggests that it took the government six days to even send a tugboat to check and refloat the ship.
The recent tragedy in Beirut, a fatal explosion of ammonium nitrate in the long-term port garage, and now this incident in Mauritius raise questions about governance and safety in foreign shipping. Boats can register (declare) in any country of their choice, which means that owners must locate jurisdictions with the least amount of regulations. As advised in a Forbes article: “It is not known to what extent the regulators of the flag countries were effective in ensuring that the protection of the vessel, port, equipment and posts crossed the ship. This will have to be studied.
Read more: Beirut Explosion: The Disaster Was Exceptional, but the occasions that preceded it were: researchers
Mauritius is perhaps the most productive known for the bird that cannot fly, the dodo, which has become an emblem of the island and its extinction. The tragic case of the dodo has become a lesson for environmental lovers who developed the fashion conservation movement. If the grounding of the Wakashio MV and its destruction of the environment and livelihoods can become a lesson for world leaders who can make changes, we may, in spite of everything, have a foreign expedition adapted to world fashion.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Adam Moolna works, consults, owns shares or obtains investments from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed any applicable associations beyond his university appointment.