The island’s Council of Ministers imposed the closure order last July
because local politicians and hoteliers – powerful lobbyists in tourism-dependent
Cyprus – were convinced that the farm, known as Telia Aqua Marine, was the
cause of an infestation of an unpleasant and slimy weed called Cladophora
along the popular beaches of Ayia Napa.

The council issued the order despite studies by its own fisheries department
and two British groups that cleared the farm. Last October, a fourth report
by a Finnish firm of consultants also absolved the farm of blame.

Two of the foreign scientists that had earlier cleared the Telia Aqua
farm, marine biologists Donald Baird and James Muir from Stirling University,
began work in Cyprus last December on an FAO-backed development plan for
aquaculture in the Greek part of the island.

The fisheries department gave Telia Aqua a clean bill of health after
the weed was first detected in 1989. But opponents of the farm, led by local
mayor Nicos Vlitis, were not convinced. They continued to insist that the
farm, 10 kilometres to the west of Ayia Napa, was to blame and called for
its closure.

In 1990, Baird and Muir were asked to investigate. Both are well known
internationally for their expertise in marine aquaculture and its effects
on the marine environment. They not only cleared the farm, but also urged
that the agricultural area near Ayia Napa, where farmers apply large amounts
of nitrate fertilisers to their fields, should be studied.

Baird and Muir found that the nitrate levels in the sea off the farm
were one twentieth of those in Ayia Napa bay, and that the nearest outcrop
of Cladophora was more than a kilometre away from the farm. They also found
no sign of the weed in the sea and on the rocks near the farm’s outflow
pipe. For 80 per cent of the year the sea current off the farm flowed westwards,
away from Ayia Napa.

Despite the evidence, the farm’s opponents redoubled their calls for
the farm to be closed, backed by local press and media hostile to the fish
farmer.

Then Roger Apostolides, owner and founder of the Telia Aqua farm, called
in Robert Hughes of Queen Mary and Westfield College, London. His assessment
agreed with the earlier ones, but he also urged an investigation of the
sewage disposal methods applied by the hotels in Ayia Napa, because levels
of nitrates and sewage bacteria in the bay were very high.

This analysis brought the hoteliers’ association into the fray. Its
members were concerned that evidence of sewage in the sea would further
damage their trade, which had already been hit by the Gulf War.

Allegations of malpractice and vested interests by the scientists were
published in the Greek-Cypriot newspapers and aired on television. One allegation
– that the Stirling team had shares in Telia Aqua – prompted Baird and Muir
to threaten legal action. Last summer, Apostolides was warned of a bomb
on his farm, and told to close the farm for the sake of his family.

Finally, last July, the Cyprus Council of Ministers bowed to the pressure
from villagers and some hoteliers and ordered the farm to be closed.

The decision sparked protests by aquaculturists and marine biologists
all over Europe. Many, concerned that the government’s action might damage
the emerging European marine aquaculture industry, urged it to reconsider.

The government agreed to a further study, and commissioned the Finnish
group Soil and Water to investigate. Its report also cleared the farm, increasing
the government’s embarrassment. The farm is situated on the British Sovereign
Base Area, and its administrators remain reluctant to close the farm in
the absence of evidence that it caused the problem.

While the politicians prevaricated, nature stepped in. Cladophora has
a two-year growth cycle, and the infestation vanished in the autumn. The
beleaguered farmer is still in limbo, however. He says that banks were refusing
to honour loan agreements made before the closure order unless the government
rescinded it.

He fears that he may be forced to move to a less sensitive area – well
away from tourism – possibly at his own expense. The move that would probably
ruin him and hand victory to those who ignore scientific evidence in pursuit
of commercial interests.

The inventor is Steve Bell, a former Ministry of Defence scientist who
set up Firdell Multireflectors in the 1970s. This week, his company was
bought up by GEC-Marconi Defence Systems. He says that his design would
meet the most stringent specifications being proposed at the meeting but
it will not be considered because it is designed specifically for life rafts.
The IMO has not yet considered reflectors designed for particular types
of vessel and is still wrangling over how to classify the performance of
reflectors in general.

Radar reflectors are required on small vessels and life rafts by IMO
conventions. They are needed because such craft do not provide a good radar
echo, particularly in bad weather, making them difficult for rescue vessels
to spot. The present specification applied by IMO for radar reflectors is
a derivative of one drawn up in 1977 by Britain’s Department of Transport.
The specification is based on an old and ineffective design, known generally
as an octahedral reflector.

International performance specifications and approval procedures for
different types of reflectors are based on the octahedral type. But they
assume the reflector is mounted at the correct attitude and is stationary.

If, however, such a reflector is mounted incorrectly or is moving because
the boat is in a rolling sea, it reflects the radar signal away from the
receiving antenna, so no echo is seen on a rescue ship’s radar screen. A
small vessel or life raft would not be visible on a ship’s radar for most
of the time.

In 1987, the IMO set about trying to find a way to specify reflector
performance more precisely. Britain’s Department of Transport proposed a
marginally improved version of its original specification. Germany’s Federal
Office of Marine Transport and Hydrography proposed a grading system, numbering
the performance of reflectors in three classes.

How well a reflector reflects is defined by giving the cross-section
size of a sphere that would reflect the same amount. Britain presently requires
that reflectors be equivalent to a sphere of 10 square metres at best, and
2.5 square metres at worst. At the meeting next week, Germany wants this
minimum raised to 5 square metres.

Steve Bell’s reflector design, known as Blipper, folds flat while a
life raft is stowed. When deployed it comprises a helical array of reflectors
which ensure that no matter what its attitude, some of the surfaces will
be correctly positioned to return a radar signal. It reflects radar signals
equivalent to a sphere of over 5 square metres in all directions and when
tilted by up to 30 degrees.

But perhaps more importantly, Bell has produced a more rigorous version
of the German classification system (with four classes) and has developed
a computer-based method of displaying reflector performance, that takes
into account its pitching and rolling on a vessel at sea. His ‘target pattern
mapping’ shows at a glance whether a reflector reflects signals of the right
amplitude through 360 degrees in the horizontal plane and tilted by plus
or minus 30 degrees.

But Bell says the Department of Transport has ignored his representations.
The department declined to comment this week.

In a stinging attack earlier this month in Limassol, Cyprus, Intertanko,
the international trade association that represents independent tanker owners,
castigated the US for its indecision. Until the US ratifies the convention,
one that is approved by the International Maritime Organisation, it seems
that many other nations will not do so, obstructing the establishment of
international protocols setting out who pays how much and for what.

The convention specifies at present that tanker owners will pay the
first part of the cost, up to $600 per gross registered tonne, the cargo
owners will shoulder the next instalment, again up to $600 per GRT, and
a special American fund worth $1 billion would underwrite additional costs.
In the case of the Exxon Valdez – a ‘very large crude carrier’, or VLCC,
with a GRT of 125 000 tonnes – ship and cargo owners would have been automatically
liable for $75 million each, the American fund picking up any additional
costs.

This is much more than anyone has offered under the existing voluntary
agreements, and has the advantage that it cannot be negotiated away either
by ship or by cargo owners.

The council of Intertanko, which held its annual autumn meeting this
month in Limassol, is angry that earlier this month the House of Representatives
in the US again failed to vote on the current proposals for ‘procedural’
reasons. Shipowners interpret this as meaning that representatives of many
states oppose the increase in the price of imported oil that would be necessary
to build up the American fund. Unless Congress passes legislation to allow
the US to ratify the 1984 convention before February next year, certain
proposals will fall, and ‘the whole process will have to start all over
again’, according to Andreas Ugland, the vice chairman of Intertanko.

The council is also horrified at recent suggestions that tanker owners
should alone pay to clean up a spill, with unlimited liability. Ugland claims
that such a risk would be uninsurable and that tanker owners belonging to
Intertanko (which own 85 per cent of the tonnage not belonging to oil companies)
would not then be able to serve ports in the US. The gap would then be filled
by less scrupulous shipowners: ‘Unlimited liability would be counterproductive
for clean seas,’ says Ugland.

Last week’s meeting also raised the issue of what to do with the sludge
and water that accumulates in the holds of tankers. This problem remains
largely unresolved.

Another outstanding issue is potentially more damaging to the environment.
The average age of the world’s tankers is increasing as the rise in energy
demand and falling strategic stocks encourages shipowners to bring ships
out of retirement. New ships are being built, but in small numbers because
ship builders have doubled prices in the past 18 months, and charter rates
are low. For example, a shipping company would have to achieve a charter
rate of some $40 000 per day to make building a new ship commercially viable;
average rates for VLCCs are about $12 000 per day.

‘At the current rate (of new VLCCs being built) it will take 40 years
to replace the current fleets,’ Ugland claims. But VLCCs have a lifetime
of 25 years at best, often less if they are not regularly given expensive
refits. Naosuke Yasuda, chairman of Navix Line (one of the world’s largest
operators of VLCCs) adds, ‘The tanker fleet is ageing and must be renewed
some day. How and when I don’t know.’ Those who recall the 12-month period
in the late 1970s when 13 VLCCs either sank or ran aground, causing massive
oil pollution and considerable loss of life (often due to age or poor maintenance),
should now be demanding more positive answers to their questions.