BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

Captain Thomas Fag8
RIGA
September 1993
ORGANISATION OF OIL SPILL RESPONSE AUTHORITIES
1. Introduction
Mr Chairman, dear spill response colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.
My headline “Organisation of spill response authorities” covers a very big task, from
how to explain the many different matters, which influence the structure of an
authority to how to organize a sea going or a beach cleaning team.
I will try to give some general ideas and afterwards give time for questions and
discussions.
The most common question I get when discussing this item is “How will the best
oil spill response organisation look like”? The answer is very simple, there is no best
organisation applicable for all authorities working in this field. There are better or
worse solutions.
Let me try to explain that statement a little by mentioning some of the main causes
for why there are different solutions.
2. Basic factors
The most basic but also the most diffuse one is culture.
I will not try to explain what constitutes culture and cultural differences but I think
we can all agree that there are such differences in the world. Let me try to show you
some examples. Of course with this I don’t intend to state that one organisation is
better than another, only show you that also culture affects the structure of an
organisation.
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