A Hazardous and Noxious Substance (HNS) is defined as any substance other than oil which, if introduced into the marine environment,is likely to create hazards to human health, to harm living resources and marine life, to damage amenities or to interfere with other legitimate uses of the sea.

Recently, HNS spill incidents are getting increase due to high maritime transportation of HNS resulting from high portion of petrochemical and/or chemical industries. If HNS spill incidents occurred, it could result infire, explosion, suffocation, toxic ingredient, corrosion and etc. Unlike oil or oily mixture, various types and amounts of HNS demand special prevention method depending on the physical and chemical characteristics. Therefore governments, local and international organizations are trying to build an efficient control system for prevention, preparedness and response of HNS relating incidents. Internationally, OPRC-HNS Protocol was adopted by IMO in 2000, and is going to enter into force in June 2007.

The NOWPAP Members have been also exposed to high risk of HNS spills as well as oil spill due to the high transportation of HNS via sea area, but there is generally low level of preparedness for HNS incidents. For example, totally 52 incidents involving HNS took place during 1991-2004 year in People’s Republic of China (China), of which, 14 incidents with spill over 100 tonnes. During 2000-2005 year in Republic of Korea, total 22 HNS spills were occurred, with about 1,435 tonnes of spillage. There are also several incidents related to HNS spill every year in Japan.

As the risk of the HNS accident increases in the NOWPAP region, the NOWPAP Members are now trying to increase their respective national/regional capabilities on HNS spill preparedness and response, and proposing necessary measures for ratification of the OPRC-HNS Protocol in the near future. Based upon the recognition of the need that the NOWPAP Members have to respond jointly to HNS issues at the regional level, the Members recently started to develop regional co-operation system on HNS spill preparedness and response in the NOWPAP region, especially, within the framework of NOWPAP and MERRAC, with support from IMO and United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). In this regard, at the 10th NOWPAP Intergovernmental Meeting (December 2005), the NOWPAP Members agreed to expand scope of the MERRAC activity including the HNS issue.

Based upon the decision of the 9

MERRAC Focal Points Meeting, National Reports on HNS including general overview of national situations of the Member States are developing and will be used as a basic background for further co-operative activities of MERRAC on HNS issues. The 2006 Expert Meeting (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russian Federation, November 2006) was also organized to develop the draft texts of HNS regional contingency plan and its Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be applicable in the NOWPAP region. The Meeting agreed to the approach of developing a combined Oil and HNS spill contingency plan by adding HNS specific issues to the existing NOWPAP Regional Oil Spill Contingency Plan, rather than developing an independent regional HNS spill contingency plan. The texts of the draft revised "NOWPAP Regional Oil and HNS Spill Contingency Plan and its associated MoU" were developed by the Meeting and the drafts will be submitted for further consideration by the 10th NOWPAP MERRAC Focal Points Meeting in May 2007. In the near future, the NOWPAP Members can jointly establish efficient regional co-operative measure on marine pollution preparedness and response against HNS spills by establishing the HNS NOWPAP Regional Contingency Plan.

Consequently, in order to increase regional capacity to HNS spills in the NOWPAP region, it is required 1) to firstly increase national response capacities of the NOWPAP Members, 2) to finalize NOWPAP Regional Oil and HNS Spill Contingency Plan and its MoU, 3) to carry out technical co-operation, 4) to launch a regional HNS related educationand training, and 5) to increase capability of MERRAC to implement regional cooperative activities on HNS spill preparedness and response in the NOWPAP region, by being supported from IMO, UNEP and others.