A WORKSHOP ON “ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS RELATED TO WASTE ORIGINATING FROM SEA-DUMPED CHEMICAL MUNITIONS” IS HELD IN GDYNIA
An international workshop “Environmental Effects Related to Waste Originating from Sea-Dumped Chemical Munitions” was held on 5 November in Gdynia, Poland. The event was organised as a joint initiative of the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Environment, Polish Naval Academy in Gdynia and Lithuanian and Polish environmental protection agencies.
The international workshop was opened by the Rector–Superintendent of the Polish Naval Academy, Rear Admiral Czesław Dyrcz. Key opening addresses were given by Lithuanian Ambassador-at-Large Vaidotas Verba and Andrzej Jagusiewicz, Chief Inspector of Environmental Protection in Poland.
The event was attended by representatives from environmental research institutions, science centres, international and non-governmental organisations from Lithuania, Denmark, Canada, Russia, the U.S.A., Japan, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Germany and other countries.
The first UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/65/149 “Cooperative measures to assess and increase awareness of environmental effects of waste originating from chemical munitions dumped at sea” was submitted by Lithuania and adopted unanimously at the end of 2010. The resolution calls on countries and international organisations to cooperate more closely on the evaluation of threats to the environment posed by sea-dumped chemical munitions. Countries agreed to raise public awareness of the issue and to jointly evaluate the relevance of this environmental issue.
The Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs held an international seminar on environmental effects related to waste originating from sea-dumped chemical munitions in Vilnius in 2011.
The research that was carried out in many countries shows that chemical munitions were dumped and rest in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Mediterranean Sea, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and elsewhere. It is a well-known fact that after the Second World War considerable amounts of chemical munitions, which contain 13,000 tons of toxic chemical warfare agents, were dumped at the Baltic Sea.
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