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Redefining maritime security – business group welcomes new strategy
Logistics UK has welcomed a five-year strategy to enhance maritime technology, innovation and security and reduce environmental damage, launched by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps MP earlier this week (15 August 2022).
The strategy sets out the guiding principles for the UK government’s approach to managing threats and risks at home and around the world, including leveraging the UK’s seabed mapping community and tackling illegal fishing and polluting activities at sea.
Redefining maritime security as upholding laws, regulations and norms to deliver a free, fair and open maritime domain, the strategy will also officially recognise environmental damage as a maritime security concern to address modern issues such as illegal fishing and polluting practices.
SEABED MAPPING DATA TO INFORM MARITIME SECURITY
Hydrography, or seabed mapping, will be used to provide the foundation dataset that underpins almost every part of the maritime sector, including maritime trade, environmental and resource management, shipping operations and national security and infrastructure within the industry.
To enable the UK’s world-leading seabed mapping sector to collaborate to collect more and better data, the government has established the UK Centre for Seabed Mapping UK (UK CSM), which has also been registered as a UK government voluntary commitment to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
The hope is that by working with the newly established UK CSM, administered by the UK Hydrographic Office, government will have better quality seabed mapping data, helping to underpin not just the UK’s maritime security, but its trading and environmental objectives too.
TACKLING NEW AND EMERGING THREATS
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “Mankind has better maps of the surface of the moon and Mars than of our own ocean. To ensure the UK’s maritime sector is based on informed and evidence-based decisions, we must build our knowledge of this dynamic ocean frontier.
“Our new maritime security strategy paves the way for both government and industry to provide the support needed to tackle new and emerging threats and further cement the UK’s position as a world leader in maritime security.”
MARITIME SECURITY VITAL FOR LOGISTICS
Alexandra Herdman, Public Policy Manager, Logistics UK, said: “As an island nation, 90% of everything the UK buys arrives at our shores by sea. Maritime security is vital for shippers and freight forwarders that depend on the shipping lines to import and export their goods, as, in a wider sense, is the need to limit environmental damage.
“We welcome this five-year strategy from the government which promises to both strengthen the trade in ocean freight and reduce the level of environmental damage to our oceans.”
*www.logistics.org.uk/campaigns/maritime-logistics
Published On: 18/08/2022 16:00:44
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