The Indo-German iron fertilization experiment
(LOHAFEX) near Antarctica has been suspended
pending independent assessment of the
environmental impact of the experiment.
The suspension follows intervention by the
German Ministry for Education and Research
following pressure from environmental groups.
The Montreal-based ETC group, the Indian
Biodiversity Forum and others had protested
against the experiment on the ground that it
was fraught with severe ecological
consequences and violated the Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD). Subsequently, the
German Ministry of Environment wrote to the
Ministry of Research seeking its intervention.
India’s National Institute of Oceanography
(NIO) is collaborating with the Alfred Wegener
Institute for Polar and Marine Research,
Germany,and scientists from nine other
institutions in India, Europe and Chile in the
experiment which envisages dumping of about 20
tonnes of iron sulphate in the Scotia Sea near
Antarctica to induce an algal bloom.
Now, they plan to complete an environmental
assessment shortly and get the go ahead from
the German Ministry,according to information
reaching here. The scientists had left for
Antarctica a week ago on a ship carrying iron
sulphate. The NIO has claimed in a document
posted on its web site that LOHAFEX does not
violate any existing international law. The
CBD recommendation was aimed at preventing
large-scale commercial ocean iron
fertilization, making an exception for
scientific experiments. “That such experiments
were to be restricted to coastal waters was
perhaps an aberration,” it said referring to
objection to fertilization of outer sea. The
NIO has pointed out that the algal bloom plays
a key role in regulating concentrations of the
greenhouse gas carbon dioxide thus paving way
for checking global warming). However, the
environmental organisations maintain that the
risks involved have not been assessed and that
the moratorium under the CBD is declared until
“there is an adequate scientific basis on which
to justify such activities.”