Volunteers as an Integrated Part of the Oil Spill Response Capacity in Finland

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Responding to a major oil spill is a labour intensive operation and involves several governmental and regional authorities, agencies and voluntary organisations. In Finland, The Finnish Border Guard is the competent pollution response authority that conducts the response measures in the event of an oil spill on the open sea. The RFRSs are in charge of oil spill response operations both in coastal and inland waters. The environmental agencies assist the RFRSs in executing the response operation e.g. by providing expertise in nature protection prioritisation. Along with the authorities, several non-governmental institutions as well as voluntary organisations are involved. Especially the Voluntary Oil Spill Response Troops of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Finland are prepared to assist in responding to an oil spill contaminating shorelines. The response capability of the WWF voluntary troops is based on long-term training and pre-education. Today, the troops consist of over 9000 volunteers, 3000 of which have completed response training and can easily be integrated into an authority driven operation. The collaboration between authorities and volunteers is regularly tested by means of co-operation exercises and real spill response cases. This paper studies the collaboration framework of the voluntary troops and the RFRSs and the benefits of the pre-established system.