[Report] ASEAN Capacity Building Training on Oil Spill and Tar Ball Identification and Identification

Summary

　The Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF), established to support ASEAN's efforts to integrate towards the establishment of an ASEAN Community, was utilized by the International Center for Environmental Technology Transfer (ICETT) to conduct a training course on oil spill composition, analytical methods, and the use of various support tools to identify the cause of oil spills and tar balls in the ocean, an ASEAN-wide issue. In response to a proposal by the Pollution Control Department of Thailand, the Secretariat of the ASEAN Working Group on Coastal and Marine Environment, JAIF provided training on oil spill composition, analytical methods, and the use of various support tools to identify the cause of oil spills and tar balls into the sea, which is an ASEAN-wide issue.
　A total of 29 trainees from ASEAN countries in charge of marine environmental conservation and chemical analysis participated in the training, which was held from May 15 (Mon.) to 19 (Fri.) in Yokosuka City and other locations in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Contents

　The trainees visited companies and organizations specializing in oil spill removal technology, oil spill diffusion forecasting, and chemical analysis, where they attended lectures and toured actual oil analysis facilities and oil spill recovery facilities. They also attended lectures by Japanese research institutes and university professors who are conducting advanced research in this field in Japan to further deepen their knowledge.
　On the last day of the training, a discussion was held on how ASEAN as a whole can establish a mechanism to identify the cause of oil spills, and each trainee expressed his/her active opinion.
　From now on, concrete individual and region-wide efforts will be made among the member countries to realize these concepts.