Interim report of the HELCOM CORESET project

Introduction
Draft Example for German, Swedish and Polish waters
- Data must be updated and other countries included
The introduction of invasive species into oceanic waters and especially coastal waters is among the four
highest risks for our marine environment and can cause extremely severe environmental, economic and public
health impacts.
These non-indigenous invaders can induce considerable changes in the structure and dynamics of marine
ecosystems. They may also hamper the economic use of the sea or even represent a risk for human health.
Environmental impacts comprise changes of marine communities changing e.g. the structure of the food
web by outcompeting original inhabitants. Economic impacts range from fi nancial losses in fi sheries to
expenses for cleaning intake or outfl ow pipes and structures from fouling. Public health impacts may arise
from the introduction of microbes or toxic algae.
Different vectors are made responsible for human introduced non-indigenous species (NIS). In some cases,
NIS have been deliberately introduced for fi shing or aquaculture, but most have been brought by ships,
which can rapidly transport aquatic animals, plants and algae across the world in their ballast waters and
attached to their hulls.
A problem for the non-indigenous species issue is that, once a marine organism has been introduced to its
new environment, it is nearly impossible to eradicate the unwanted organism, if it has established to the
area. The consequence is that assessing a status of an area as “bad” means that the area will stay in the bad
status without the possibility to return to the past condition. Therefore the status of the NIS in the Baltic Sea
is described by a trend of the number of new arriving NIS. The number of new species in each assessment
unit during a six-year assessment cycle is fi rst of all an indication of the pressure the NIS cause on the native
ecosystem, but it is also an indication of management success with the IMO Ballast Water Convention and
ballast water treatment and it encourages to take measures against new invaders instead of futile effort or
fatalistic inactiveness in view of effects of established ones.
The indicator uses primarily species data from the conventional biodiversity monitoring programmes, but
also additional information about new arrivals must be gathered, for example, harbours or in the vicinity of
main shipping lanes where ships exchange their ballast water or in the vicinity of areas used for aquaculture.
The impact on native communities, another indicator requested by MSFD, will be automatically covered by
monitoring for other descriptors or for WFD assessment of environmental status.
Policy relevance
Since the early 90s when the Marine Protection Committee (MEPC) of the International Maritime Organisation
(IMO) put the NIS issue on the agenda, the problem got more and more weight in marine environmental
protection. In 2004, the Ballast Water Convention was adopted by the IMO. The convention asks for
ballast water management procedures to minimize the proliferation of non-indigenous organism with ballast
water. Once entered into force every ship has to follow ballast water management procedures.
In order to minimize adverse effects of introductions and transfers of marine organisms for aquaculture ICES
drafted the “ICES Code of Practice on the Introductions and Transfers of Marine Organisms”. The Code of Practice
summarizes measures and procedures to be taken into account when planning the introduction of nonindigenous
species for aquaculture purposes. On the European level, the EC Council Regulation No 708/2007
concerning the use of NIS and locally absent species in aquaculture is based on the ICES Code of Practice.
With the maritime activities segment of the Baltic Sea Action Plan HELCOM expresses the strategic goal to
have maritime activities carried out in an environmental friendly way and that one of the management ob-
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