Scottish Environment Minister Highlights KIMO International’s Achievements

Delegates from northern Europe attending the KIMO International conference last week, hosted by Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City Councils, were told how the organisation’s lobbying and projects continued to drive environmental awareness in the maritime sector and help clean up our seas.

Scottish Environment and Climate Change Minister Stewart Stevenson MSP opened the Conference by praising the work KIMO is undertaking on projects such as Fishing for Litter and its leading role in bringing issues such as marine pollution to the fore.

He said,

“The Fishing for Litter scheme in Scotland is an excellent example of what can be achieved through imaginative solutions and partnership working. It is a credit to KIMO, the fishing industry and its other partners that 160 Scottish vessels in 18 harbours participate in the scheme.”

During the 2002-2004 Save the North Sea project KIMO helped to pioneer environmental awareness courses for crew on commercial ships, participants in Aberdeen were told how these courses had now been ratified by the International Maritime Organisation under the SCTW Convention, which meant that they would now be a mandatory training requirement worldwide.

More recently KIMO has been lobbying the European Parliament, EU governments and shipping companies to reduce the number of containers lost at sea. The meetings heard that the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) were now calling for measures to reduce the number of lost containers from shipping, a call that mirrored many demands made by KIMO.