New Zealand Marine Oil Spill Response Strategy

In accordance with section 283 of the Maritime Transport Act, the New Zealand Marine Oil Spill Response Strategy recently underwent its five-yearly review.

The purpose of the New Zealand marine oil spill response strategy is to improve New Zealand’s national readiness and response to marine oil spills by describing the actions to be taken in response to a marine oil spill in New Zealand and promoting the co-ordination of regional- and operator-level marine oil spill contingency plans.

The original Strategy was developed in 1992 and has been revised regularly since then. The Strategy provides Maritime NZ’s strategic intent and direction on the response arrangements that should be in place for the strategy period and serve as a basis for the foreseeable future beyond this period.

Proposed Changes

It was proposed that the updated strategy covering 2022-2026 should have the same structure and similar content, including the same Goals and Objectives which form the basis of the strategy.

The following is a summary of the major changes to the Strategy:

1. Two new Principles have been included (page 18):
   
    Apply defined measures of a successful oil spill response; and
    Seek continuous improvement in all areas of readiness and response.
2. Four new Drivers for the strategy have been included (page 13):
   • Health and Safety;
   • Environmental Scan 2020;
   • Community Focussed Response; and
   • Remote Area Response.
3. A Strategy Implementation Plan will be developed which will describe the actions to be taken to implement the Strategy and achieve the desired response capability (page 15). This will replace the Capability Plan under previous versions of the Strategy.
4. The activities required to achieve each of the Strategy Objectives have been reviewed and updated. (Further detail on these activities, including completion dates, will be outlined in the Strategy Implementation Plan).
5. A new Appendix B outlines MNZ’s implementation of the National Disaster Resilience Strategy.
6. A new Appendix G outlines New Zealand’s targets for national response capability.

Contact us

If you have any questions about the Strategy, please email:
Renny.VanderVelde@maritimenz.govt.nz