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The Pacific Ocean Pollution Prevention Programme (PACPOL) mission is to protect public health, safety, environment and natural resources of the Pacific Islands from the effects of ship sourced marine pollution

Marine pollution is widely recognised as one of the four major threats to the world’s oceans, along with habitat destruction, over-exploitation of living marine resources and invasive marine species. Spills of oil and other chemicals into the marine environment, both from ships and land-based sources, is a significant source of pollution.

Assisting the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme's (SPREP) island members to plan, prepare and respond to marine spills is one of the four activity areas of the Pacific Ocean Pollution Prevention Programme (PACPOL). PACPOL activities currently include a regional risk assessment regional and national contingency plans, formulation of a regional equipment strategy and facilitating regular workshop to discuss marine spill issues. The aim of this initial shipping risk study was to identify and quantify the shipping routes, frequency of voyages and types of cargoes transported in the region as well as to map shipping incidents, navigational hazards and assess the risk of marine pollution across the region, EEZs and at a port scale. The regional and EEZ distribution of risk potential showed clusters of high risk in Fiji, French Polynesia, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. Smaller clusters occurred in Tonga, the Samoa's, Vanuatu and the corridor from Chuuk northward past Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Another potential marine pollution risk for the Pacific is the fuel oil and cargoes remaining on WWII shipwrecks deteriorating in the waters of the region. More than 1000 such wrecks have been identified amounting to over 3 million tons of shipping lost.

Report on the Strategic Environmental Assessment Oil Spill Incident USS Mississinewa, Ulithi Lagoon, Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia : Draft, 18th September, 2001 / by Trevor Gilbert