Combating Piracy – House of Commons 25 October 2012

‘Why are you here, Sir?’

‘Pirates’

‘Not that Johnny Depp, Sir?’

No – Somali pirates….’

The Met Police security at Portcullis House at 18.30 on Thursday was rather better humoured (but probably far more effective) than most of the security screens you meet. On Thursday Chris Bellamy attended a meeting chaired by Eric Joyce, MP, ex-British Army and now involved in a number of working parties dealing with piracy – the number one Maritime Security problem at the moment. There were brief opening talks by journalist Liz MacMahon from Lloyd’s List who has written 220 articles on piracy in the past year, and Peter Cook, founder of the Security Association for the Maritime Industry (SAMI), who recently won Lloyd’s List‘s ‘Newsmaker of the Year’ award.

The good news was that pirate attacks – and, therefore, successful attacks, in the Indian Ocean and off the east coast of Africa were well down on last year. The not-so-good news was that the proportion of attacks that were successful had risen, and also that piracy attacks on the other side of Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea, had increased. The decline in attacks in the Indian Ocean could be attributed to successful Naval operations, but also to the longest Monsoon in at least ten years. The Monsoon was now abating, so this welcome trend might not be irreversible…

Last October David Cameron announced that British-flagged ships would be allowed to carry armed guards. Peter Cook had been widely quoted as saying that the minimum strength of an armed team – four – should not be reduced in attempts to cut costs. However, there was another problem. Although British-flagged ships could now carry armed teams, those teams were in danger of carrying illegal weapons. Why? Because the provenance of each weapon – as well as its serial number and other details – had to be squeaky clean. Many weapons were held in floating armouries – on the High Seas, and therefore out of the jurisdiction of littoral states. This seemed an ideal solution. But, having allowed British-flagged ships to carry armed teams, the British Government had not got as far as licensing or approving the principal floating armoury whence the weapons could be drawn. This was at sea off Sri-Lanka, licensed by and operating with the full approval of the Sri Lanka Government. The ship itself was joint Mongolian- Sri-Lankan flagged. In discussion, with several shipping companies represented, it emerged that there were estimated to be 17-20 floating armouries around the Indian Ocean – mostly Mongolian flagged. At the moment, however, a British security team drawing weapons from one of these floating armouries would be in breach of the law. If they got into a shooting match with pirates, this could cause a problem.

On the face of it, solving the problem the problem should be quite simple. Approve the Sri-Lankan- Mongolian floating armoury, and maybe another one at the other (west) end of the Ocean. But the subject had so far elicited little interest from the relevant Ministers. Chris suggested that maybe a Parliamentary Question could unlock the problem.

After a lively discussion, which also included the problems of charging and trying pirates, the meeting adjourned to ‘the other part of the Palace’. Portcullis House, built in the 1990s, is linked with the main Houses of Parliament by an underground passage. The old and the new have been merged skilfully: 1990s tudor-gothic revival with the 1830s gothic revival and pugin. You descend some stairs, pass between a stone lion and unicorn, and are very quickly passing below Big Ben and into the catacombs below the Palace of Westminster. A good deal of ‘networking’, appropriately lubricated, then followed.

Chris Bellamy

New Professor of Public International Law Joins University of Greenwich

A specialist in international security and maritime affairs, Steven Haines, has been appointed as the inaugural Professor of Public International Law. A former serving naval officer and member of the Central Policy Staff in the Ministry of Defence, his academic interests include international law relating to oceans and maritime affairs, as well as the use of force and the conduct of military and security operations.

Steven’s new post is based in the splendid historic setting of Sir Christopher Wren’s former Greenwich Hospital. Now home to the university’s Greenwich Campus, it previously housed the Royal Naval Staff College where Steven studied in both 1979 and 1993. “I really feel I am coming home” says Steven, “especially as my office is two doors down the corridor from what was my cabin in 1979!

“I am delighted to be in Greenwich because the university’s plans for developing postgraduate teaching and research provide a rare and genuinely exciting opportunity for us really to develop a distinctive identity for the Law School. It is a wonderful privilege to be a part of this.”

Most recently, Steven has been working as an academic international lawyer in Geneva, for the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and as an adjunct member of the Faculty at the Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.

He has just been appointed a Visiting Fellow of the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Programme and has also held academic posts at Royal Holloway College, University of London; St Antony’s College, Oxford; and Cranfield University. Recent publications include two contributions to International Law and the Classification of Conflicts published by OUP in August (edited by Elizabeth Wilmshurst). Currently, Steven is writing the commentary on maritime aspects of the Geneva Convention for a major OUP publication, and drafting international guidelines for the protection of education during armed conflicts.

Steven will also contribute to the School’s research interest in maritime law, working closely with colleagues in the university’s Greenwich Maritime Institute.

Story by Public Relations, University of Greenwich

Shivering Sands

A not inappropriate name for one of the many constantly shifting sandbanks of the Thames estuary but no obvious shivering when viewed by a GMI group on October 7^th.

An autumn cruise on the Waverley , the world’s last sea-going paddle steamer, has become a regular feature of the GMI year and from Tower Pier there have been visits to the Medway, Whitstable and this year to the Thames estuary forts.

In 1942/3 a number of fortified towers were positioned to provide anti-aircraft protection for London and its sea approaches, some towers being controlled by the Navy (Rough Sand, Sunk Head, Tongue Sands and Knock John – each with two towers) and others by the Army (Red Sands, Shivering Sands and Nore – each a cluster of seven towers). Favourable tide conditions allowed Waverley to approach closely the Red Sands, Shivering Sands and Knock John towers giving us close-up views of these fascinating remains.

Effectively abandoned by government in the late 1950s the towers reflect the ravages of age and damage by ship collision with Nore dismantled as a hazard to shipping and Shivering Sands losing a tower. Several of the towers became homes for pirate radio stations – remember Screaming Lord Sutch? – and one for a time became the Independent Principality of Sealand!

Old Father Thames is far from dead and Waverley provides an unsurpassed picture of the estuary environment, navigation problems, the history and down-river migration of port activity, progress on the new Thames Gateway port project, the variety of shipping and trade and this year a security problem of great historical interest. On the return up river in the warmth of the restaurant an erudite discussion on the origin and distinction between terms such as quay, wharf, pier, berth and mooring – these GMI students! Altogether an enjoyable social and interesting academic day – why not join us next year?

Text and Image: Dr David Hilling

Women as visible and invisible workers in fisheries: A case study of Northern England

Worldwide, women play a wide range of roles within fisheries, making significant contributions to the industry across sectors from a variety of positions, however their role and contribution is often under-recognised or ‘invisible’. They contribute as fishers’ wives, traders, operators in processing factories, managers and administrators in fishing or fishing-related companies. Women are clearly an important part of the workforce, whether paid or unpaid and making a significant contribution to the industry, their families and their communities.

The existing information about women in today’s English fishing industry was found to be inadequate, fragmented and scattered and official statistics show that women’s participation in fisheries is low with the exception of the processing sector. This means that the ‘invisible’ women in fisheries are denied access to institutional and state support as well as many other things. The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in the UK and the European Commission (EU) commissioned a group of researchers to investigate exactly what the contribution of women is, in an attempt to contribute to knowledge in this area whilst also aiming to inform policy makers.

A paper recently published in Marine Policy and written/researched by staff from the Greenwich Maritime Institute and Iris Consulting, also looks into various other elements such as women in families, enterprises & communities; sexual harassment and cultural taboos; women as a labour source in fisheries; women in processing factories, trading and management.

To view the full paper: Zhao M, et al. Women as visible and invisible workers in fisheries: A case study of Northern England. Marine Policy (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2012.04.013

This research is now being built upon as part of a three-year EU-funded Project, Geography of Inshore Fishing and Sustainability (GIFS). To view the progress of the GIFS project please see the following website: www.gifsproject.eu

Legacy for London Waterways?

BACK TO WATER

by David Hilling

For too long Britain has turned its back on water transport but government rhetoric and a wide range of environmental considerations suggest that we should go back to water transport wherever possible. Mode shift back to water has been recognised with the creation of a Mode Shift Centre by the Freight Transport Association.

As part of a World Heritage Site, its proximity to the National Maritime Museum and the recently restored Cutty Sark and with a view over the Thames , the GMI could hardly be other than concerned with the idea of legacy. It was, of course, a case based on its possible legacy that brought the Olympics to Stratford and Greenwich Park and much is now being made of this with respect to sporting activities and a transformation of East London based on residential, cultural and commercial developments in the area of the Olympic Park.

But why not a legacy for waterway transport? Look out of GMI’s windows at the underutilised highway that is the Thames and the few remaining Greenwich peninsula wharves used for freight – does it have to be like this? Every year over 600,000 tonnes of containerised London waste is barged from Wandsworth to an incinerator wharf at Belvedere and Crossrail used barges to move excavated material away from its Canary Wharf station site. In October dredging of Bow Creek will facilitate barge removal of Crossrail tunnel excavated material from Limmo and Instone wharves.

Bow Creek is but the southern end of the Lee Navigation which passes through the Olympic Park to Edmonton (where there is already a waterside incinerator plant), Enfield and on into Hertfordshire – a waterway which stimulated food production and industries for the expanding London market. The new developments proposed for the Olympic Park area will require considerable excavation, vast quantities of aggregates and other building materials and will create land uses which continue to generate waste and recyclables way into the future. There could, indeed should, be a role for water transport in this and the London Legacy Development Corporation is being urged to give it serious consideration and ensure that possible wharf sites and their accessibility are not taken over by land uses for which a waterside location is not a necessary condition.

Dr David Hilling is Research Adviser and Visiting Lecturer in Maritime History at the Greenwich Maritime Institute. He was a lecturer in Geography at the University of Ghana from 1961-66 and a lecturer and senior lecturer at the University of London (Bedford College and Royal Holloway), until retirement in 1996. He has undertaken consultancy work on African port organisation and the cruise shipping market and destination/port lecturing on cruise ships (Western Mediterranean, Iberia, Atlantic Islands, Western Africa). During his career he has lectured at the Universities of Western Michigan and West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. Dr Hilling is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He is also UK vice president of the European River Sea Transport Union.

Image by Victoria Carolan

Public Lecture on Marine Fishing, 28th March 2012

The importance of the marine fishing industry to English and French coastal communities is the subject of a free public lecture at the University of Greenwich’s Medway Campus on 28 March.

The lecture will examine the social and cultural importance of marine fishing to coastal communities along the English Channel. Audio recordings and photographs will be used to provide a colourful glimpse of the contribution that marine fishing makes to the identity of coastal places.

People, plaice and chips: Marine fishing and coastal communities along the English Channel will be presented by two academics from the university’s School of Science: Dr Tim Acott, Principal Lecturer in Environmental Geography, and Dr Julie Urquhart, Research Fellow. Both are involved in the English-French collaborative project CHARM (Channel Integrated Approach to Marine Resource Management), co-funded by the INTERREG 4a Channel Programme.

The pair are also leading a €4.6 million project, called the Geography of Inshore Fishing and Sustainability (co-funded by the INTERREG 4a 2 Seas Programme), exploring the social, cultural and economic importance of marine fishing for the development of sustainable coastal communities.

Dr Acott says: “Many coastal communities have strong links to fishing that span generations and fishing is a way of life that goes beyond the means to earning a living. Fishing’s influence is not confined to those activities that take place at sea, but spills over onto land to create a particular identity and sense of place in coastal towns inherently linked to fishing.

“Many people enjoy the spectacle of fishing while on holiday, the bright boats, the atmosphere of a real fishing place and the heritage taking us back to simpler times when villages and towns grew up on the back of the fishing industry.”

Last year the University of Greenwich hosted a major international conference about the cultural and social impacts of marine fishing on coastal communities, titled It’s Not Just About The Fish.

The lecture takes place in the Pembroke Building, Medway Campus, at 6.30pm and will be followed by light refreshments. If you would like to attend, please email science-public-lectures@gre.ac.uk and register your name.

For more details on the School of Science’s conferences and events, please visit www.gre.ac.uk/about/schools/science/about/events

GMI Short Course Programme 2012

We are delighted to announce that we are running an exciting short course programme again this year which covers a variety of historical and contemporary subjects.

• Maritime Crime: There’s Wreckers About – Saturday 9th June – £60

• Silencing the Silent Service?: Naval Propaganda and Censorship during the Second World War – Thursday 14th June – £60

• ‘Enemies of All Humanity’: Sea Piracy A Modern Perspective – Saturday 16th June – £60

• Caricature and the Navy during the Eighteenth Century – Thursday 28th June – £60

• Baroque Navies at War: Britain, the Netherlands and France 1688-1713 – Friday 29th and Saturday 30th June – £120

• China’s Rise as a Powerful Maritime Nation: Factors and Influences – Friday 20th July – £60

Everyone is welcome to register for these courses so please do feel free to register yourself or pass on to anyone else you think may be interested. You can find more information about each course and a registration form on our website: http://bit.ly/wATcht

Call For Papers – Maritime Law & Policy Postgraduate Research Student Conference 2012

Friday 23rd March 2012
City University, Northampton Square, London, EC1V 0HB

The London Universities Maritime Law and Policy Research Group are proud to announce that the Third Annual Maritime Law and Policy Conference for researchers and postgraduate students will be taking place on Friday 23 March 2012. We invite all researchers and postgraduate students wishing to present their research work to a friendly and supportive environment to join us at this conference. We welcome submissions in all areas of Maritime Law and Policy, including relevant interdisciplinary work.

Each speaker will present their research ideas or papers for 15 minutes and a 10 minute discussion will follow. There will also be invited speakers who will focus on a topic relevant to the maritime law and policy research communities. Researchers and postgraduate students who do not wish to give a presentation are also very welcome to attend.

You must prepare an abstract (250 words) and send to Mrs Suzanne Louail: s.louail@gre.ac.uk by 2nd March 2012.

To register your place as either a delegate or a presenter please complete the booking form: http://bit.ly/zxpOSg

For information about the London Universities Maritime Law and Policy Research Group please please email Mrs Suzanne Louail at s.louail@gre.ac.uk or Prof. Jason Chuah at Jason.Chuah.1@city.ac.uk or visit http://lumlpg.blogspot.com/

University of Greenwich leads €4.6 million project to help regenerate fishing communities

Researchers at the University of Greenwich are leading a €4.6 million project helping to regenerate coastal fishing communities on both sides of the English Channel and the southern North Sea.

Focussing on towns and villages with traditional small scale fishing fleets, they will look at the ways local inshore fishing contributes to the identity of places and their communities, as well as seeking new sustainable opportunities to boost regeneration and economic growth.

The University of Greenwich team is headed by environmental geographers Dr Tim Acott and Dr Julie Urquhart, from the School of Science and social scientist Dr Minghua Zhao from the Greenwich Maritime Institute. They joined forces with research colleagues in France and Flanders to secure co-funding from the European Interreg IVa 2 Seas programme for the three-year project, Geography of Inshore Fishing and Sustainability.

Dr Urquhart says: “Inshore marine fishing is at the heart of so many places, whether they have just a few small fishing boats pulled up on a shingle beach or a harbour that is the centre of activity for a larger fishing fleet.

“You cannot think about places like Whitstable, Brixham or Newlyn without recalling fishing and local seafood. Inshore marine fishing is central to their identity as communities and places.”

The project was one of just 12 successful bids out of a total of 49 applications to the most recent European Regional Development Fund 2 Seas cross-border programme.

Project leader Dr Acott says: “We will be building on valuable research we have already been doing in fishing communities.

“Working with researchers in France and Flanders gives us a cross-cultural perspective and opportunities to share ideas and solutions to common problems – not least how the sense of identity within fishing communities can make a significant contribution to regeneration and sustainable economic growth.

“Our findings will help to provide the information people need to develop new activities on the ground to regenerate their communities and feed into policy decisions which will ensure a sustainable future. We are hoping to help to create a sense of shared identity in fishing places across the region.”

Plans include photographic exhibitions exploring life in fishing communities and a demonstration project of fishing heritage-led regeneration at the fishing village of Arnemuiden, in The Netherlands.

For further information contact Project Manager, Suzanne Louail. s.louail@gre.ac.uk

GMI MPhil/PhD Studentship

Women’s Contribution to Social Cohesion in Coastal Communities

University of Greenwich – Greenwich Maritime Institute

Ref: PGRO-GMI-2-11

Greenwich Maritime Institute, Greenwich, London

Greenwich Maritime Institute is pleased to offer one externally funded MPhil/PhD Studentship as part of the Interreg 4a 2 Seas project GIFS (Geography of Inshore Fishing and Sustainability). The GIFS project will explore the socio-economic and cultural importance of inshore fishing including governance, economic regeneration and the cultural value of fishing, and provides an opportunity for the successful candidate to be part of a cross-border inter-disciplinary research team. The research topic will relate specifically to women’s contribution to social cohesion in coastal communities in four European countries: Belgium, Britain, France and the Netherlands and the investigation will focus on these dimensions: (1) Women’s employment, income, health and education; (2) Women’s perception and feelings of safety, security and freedom; (3) Women’s access to and construction of networks amongst themselves and with others; (4) Women’s participation in main stream institutions

The successful candidate will be working as part of the cross-border GIFS project team and will be expected to travel and participate in fieldwork, project activities and meetings in the above noted four countries.

The successful candidate will receive a £13590 per annum bursary plus a contribution of up to £4000 per annum towards the tuition fees during the term of the studentship (three years), subject to satisfactory performance. An additional £2,000 per annum will also be available for fieldwork expenses.

Applicants must hold a 1st Class or Upper 2nd class Honours Bachelor’s or Master’s degree (UK or UK equivalent) in a relevant discipline for example geography, history, woman’s studies, environmental studies, political science, sociology or anthropology. Applicants should have previous experience of undertaking research, preferably in gender studies, and ideally experience of fisheries related to European counties. Excellence in English speaking and writing is essential, preferably also with an ability to speak fluent French or Dutch.

For further information please contact: Dr Minghua Zhao, M.Zhao@gre.ac.uk, Tel: 020 8331 7661

For additional information about the studentship and links to the application form please go to:http://www2.gre.ac.uk/research/study/studentships

The application form should be completed and returned to: postgraduateresearch@gre.ac.uk and include: an attached pdf file of a comprehensive CV and a one page covering letter explaining your interest in the project and how it relates to past experience and present motivations.

The closing date for applications is noon on 31 January 2012.