World’s Largest Container Line is Rerouting its Fleet to Avoid Collisions with Endangered Blue Whales

Mediterranean Transport Firm (MSC) has taken a significant step to assist defend blue whales and different cetaceans dwelling and feeding within the waters off the coast of Sri Lanka by altering transport lanes to keep away from their habitat.

A world chief in container transport and logistics, MSC started in mid-2022 to voluntarily re-route its vessels passing by Sri Lanka, on a brand new course that’s roughly 15 nautical miles to the south, consistent with the recommendation of scientists and different key actors within the maritime sector.

The choice was based mostly on analysis surveys accomplished by the Worldwide Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), with the World Commerce Institute (WTI), Biosphere Basis, College of Ruhuna (Sri Lanka), and supported by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Westbound ship site visitors is now restricted to a latitude between 05 30N and 05 35N, and eastbound site visitors is proscribed to a latitude between 05 24N and 05 29N as a way to keep away from designated cetacean habitats.

Sri Lanka lies within the Indian Ocean, between Asia and Europe, and the port of Colombo is a significant transshipment hub for world commerce.

The world off its southern coast is among the busiest transport lanes on the earth and can be inhabited by giant populations of whales, that means that these animals could also be susceptible to colliding with ships.

Simulations have proven that shifting the official transport lane 15 nautical miles to the south may scale back the strike danger to blue whales by a whopping 95%. Nevertheless, regardless of years of advocacy by scientists, the transport business and NGOs, the boundaries of the official transport line haven’t been reassigned to scale back the chance of ship strikes on cetaceans.

MSC is now taking measures to guard marine wildlife critically, from adapting transport service networks to stay away from designated whale breeding and feeding grounds, to decreasing vessel pace and re-routing ships to keep away from reported marine wildlife populations.

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“We imagine that the business transport sector has an vital function to play in defending cetaceans, particularly in serving to to scale back the chance of ship collisions with whales,” said Stefania Lallai, Vice President Sustainability at MSC.

“MSC is proud to rank at or close to the highest of whale security transport rankings. Nevertheless, we aren’t in any respect complacent. We imagine that elevating consciousness of those points and inspiring collaboration between business, scientific our bodies, civil society and governments is crucial as we try collectively to do extra to reduce the chance of ship strikes.”

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In Sri Lanka particularly, the liner transport business led by the World Transport Council, of which MSC is a member, has advocated to create a brand new official marine site visitors scheme that’s totally separated from the blue whale feeding space.

It’s hoped that this may quickly turn into a actuality, so all large-scale business marine site visitors strikes to the extra southerly zone that MSC ships are actually guided to comply with. Within the meantime, MSC urges all different ship operators to contemplate selecting a extra southerly route previous Sri Lanka, to considerably scale back the opportunity of whale strikes.

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