Advanced Search

Wanna Argument?

The Global Cruise Industry: Cruising for an Environmental Bruising?

How is the environmental side of the cruise industry regulated?

Part of the problem with cruise ships is that, because they are involved in the travel and tourism industry, they visit environmentally sensitive areas of the world very often.

Image: College fjord in Alaska - the area is one of the last truly unspoilt environments on earth, but for how long? Copyright: Tim & Annette, stock.xchng

Cruises in North America as elsewhere have grown enormously in the past twenty years. They visit highly sensitive areas such as the whale watching zones off the Californian coast, as well as the Florida coastline. Alaska has become a highly attractive destination for cruise liners, as their customers hunt out new and previously pristine places to visit. In Antarctica, concerns have risen over potential damage to the seas and coastline, as more cruises arrive.

Seeing new sights, visiting new continents and experiencing different cultures - all of these are within the reach of the moderately affluent cruise holiday customer. Often these areas welcome the revenues that cruise liner visitors can bring. But is economic well-being a good enough reason to skirt environmental protection measures that would be the norm if the industry was land-based?

The MARPOL Convention is an international convention covering marine pollution (mar-pol). The convention aims to completely eliminate marine pollution caused by oil and other harmful substances. Shipping authorities across the world are invited to sign-up to the convention. The original convention was signed in 1973, but wasn't enforced at that time. It has had a degree of success in getting states to commit to the original agreement (119 countries are signatories), but as with many conventions, it changes as time passes.

So, for example, since it first came into force in 1983, it has been modified by no fewer than twenty times. This means that, as more has become known about the impacts of pollution on marine life, the convention has become more stringent. At the same time, fewer countries have been in a position to sign-up to the convention's most recent recommendations.

The International Maritime Organisation produced figures to indicate the degree of compliance with the various amendments to MARPOL. These data show that whilst the earliest of the convention's so-called 'annexes' (or chapters) have been agreed to by about 97% of world shipping, its later annexes which came into force in 2003 and 2005 only cover 54% and 63% of shipping respectively. Considering that these changes relate to the dumping of sewage at sea, we can see that the need for international agreement to the convention is pressing.

In the absence of any tight international regulation, the cruise industry for several years has encouraged the state authorities in the USA to enter into Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs). These are based on trust.

Back to the Argument