BIOSECURITY New Zealand says it is continuing to actively work on biofouling issues with cruise ships and the cleaning/treatment methods they use, as operators experience further itinerary disruptions in NZ. It’s understood almost 20 cruise ships have been denied entry to some areas of New Zealand waters (most notably the...
BIOSECURITY New Zealand says it is continuing to actively work on biofouling issues with cruise ships and the cleaning/treatment methods they use, as operators experience further itinerary disruptions in NZ.
It’s understood almost 20 cruise ships have been denied entry to some areas of New Zealand waters (most notably the Fiordland region) over the summer season, with the issue of perceived hull contamination still continuing to disrupt itineraries operating this week.
Last month a whistleblower made allegations to Cruise Weekly about the potential falsification of some pre-arrival inspection reports, which we raised with the NZ Ministry for Primary Industries.
Biosecurity New Zealand Environmental Health Manager, Paul Hallett, said the organisation was not able to confirm the claims of falsified documentation, but added “we have noted some inadequacies with some recent underwater inspection reports”.
“Inaccurate reporting, whether intentional or not, presents a biosecurity risk to New Zealand’s marine environment so is treated seriously”, he told Cruise Weekly.
“Wherever we have concerns with the reports presented to us, we elevate our on-arrival verification activities.
“That means we may require more information to be supplied or a dive inspection may be undertaken on the vessel in question when it arrives in NZ to verify the state of the hull.
“If this shows a discrepancy between the report and the status of the vessel’s hull, we will continue to verify the quality of the work done on future vessels arriving to NZ until we are satisfied the company is meeting biosecurity requirements.
“If vessels do not comply with our biofouling standards, they may face itinerary restrictions or be directed to leave New Zealand and manage the biofouling risk before they return,” he said.
The claims made to Cruise Weekly concern a particular hull cleaning contractor which allegedly threatened to “throw staff overboard” if they didn’t comply with a demand to prepare fraudulent certification.
The whistleblower claims one of the fake reports stipulated the entire hull of one of the affected cruise ships had been treated, but in fact only about 4% was covered because the devices used were unsuitable for the size of the vessel – with only a small selection of images supplied to support the claims in the report.
