[Image: Martin Kleppe]
President Cyril Ramaphosa has just signed off on the Marine Pollution Amendment Bill, which brings tougher rules to keep our oceans cleaner and safer from ship-related pollution.
Given that SA boasts over 3,000 kilometres of beautiful coastline stretching from Namibia along the Atlantic all the way to Mozambique on the Indian Ocean, this move is a no-brainer to safeguard both our environment and economy.
It’s also a lekker contribution to the global push to protect the marine environment while making sure we use our ocean resources in a sustainable way.
With a massive economic zone and a marine economy that provided around 400,000 jobs in 2022—covering everything from shipping and shipbuilding to tourism and fisheries—keeping the ocean healthy is critical for our future.
The new law comes with the realisation that ships are huge culprits when it comes to polluting our waters, causing havoc with oil spills, chemical leaks, and garbage.
The old law did its bit to prevent oil spills and manage waste from vessels, but it wasn’t quite up to scratch for today’s environmental challenges. SA’s eco-warriors pointed out that it left some serious gaps, like dealing with greenhouse gas emissions and sorting out proper, safe ways for ships to handle sewage. Basically, it needed a serious upgrade to stay relevant.
So the new law updates the Marine Pollution Act to include new international rules, specifically Annex IV and Annex VI of the Global Convention for Pollution Prevention. Annex IV deals with how ships handle and dispose of sewage safely, while Annex VI focuses on reducing emissions and improving ship energy efficiency.
One big change is that the Minister of Transport now has more authority to make rules about air pollution and sewage from ships. And here’s the kicker—fines for serious violations have shot up from R500,000 to a whopping R10 million. That’s proper skrik money for anyone thinking of messing with our oceans.
While this is good and all, hopefully, it means the government is also thinking more seriously about what to do with those shoddy sewage outfalls along the Atlantic seaboard, wreaking havoc on the water quality in Hout Bay, Camps Bay, and Green Point.
That is still a weirdly contested issue – weird because surely we can all agree that our beaches and oceans are a huge part of what keeps our local economy afloat and therefore we would all do our best to make sure the sea is actually healthy!
[Source: gov.za]
