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Oil spills
According to Fattal et al., oil spills in marine environments can have long term effects not only
to wildlife, coastal habitats and fisheries but also to human beings respectively (889). Even
though the number of oil spills has decreased from tanker accidents, accidental oil spills caused
by maritime transport are still a significant source of pollution for the oceans in the world. Oil
spills can occur when individuals make mistakes or become careless thus causing an oil tanker to
leak oil into the ocean. In addition to that, oil spills can occur when equipment breaks down thus
making the tanker to get stuck on shallow land. This eventually forces individuals to start driving
the tanker thus resulting to creation of a hole that initiates the leaking of oil. When two countries
are at war, one of them may decide to dump oil into another’s country ocean to gain attention or
make a point. Some people also dump oil illegally into the oceans as they do not want to spend a
lot of cash on decomposing their waste crude oil or breaking up the oil.

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Effects of oil spills on the environment and how it affects the world
Over the years, oil spills have significantly contributed to marine and coastal pollution thus
causing disturbance of the coastal environment. The potential harmful effects of this hazard have
been taken into account through the implementation of preventive actions in Coastal zone
Integrated Management (Fattal et al. 879).
Effects of oil spills on wild life and Habitats
Oil spills have a diverse impact on the wildlife and its habitats through physical contact
inhalation, ingestion and absorption. Floating oil often contaminates planktons which includes
fish eggs, algae and larvae of various invertebrates that inhabit the waters. Fish that feed on the
plankton that are contaminated with oil spills, often affects the larger food chains including the
bigger fish, birds, terrestrial animals and even the human who consume the contaminated
organisms. Oil spills have a great impact on the species that use the water surface including the
waterfowl and sea otters and also the species that inhabit the near shore environment (“Effects of
oil spills on wildlife and habitats” 1). Due to the persistence of oil spills in the environment for
longer periods often results to the shifts in population structure, species diversity, abundance and
their distribution. Loss of habitat and prey items through oil spills has the capability of affecting
wildlife and fish populations at large.
Impacts of oil spill on a country’s economy
Oil spill results to direct and indirect effects. The indirect effects consists of the following, loss
of jobs in the tourism and fishing industries , destruction of the people’s health, vitality and the
rich culture communities in the coastal region, imminent bankruptcies and vast environmental
damages that persists for decades resulting to the disruption of seafood markets nationwide.

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These indirect effects impacts heavily on the economy in that majority of the people are rendered
jobless especially those practicing fishing and working in the fishing and tourism industries due
to disruption of wildlife habitats hence leading to death of aquatic organisms. In addition to that,
those nations that depend on tourism as a foreign exchange earner will receive a blow as the
coastal ecosystems are tempered through the loss of biodiversity e.g. wildlife and plants. Large
amount of money will also be channeled to cleaning the mess rather than it being used for other
purposes such as development.
Mitigation measures put in place to combat oil spill environmental damages
The increased number of oil spills since the 1960s has triggered the design and implementation
of international liability regime known as CLC/FUND regime, devoted to the compensation for
the damage caused by oil pollution (Hay 29). This regime has implemented a multiple-tier
system which has aimed at compensating on an objective basis for damages cost by oil pollution
affecting countries which have ratified the FUND and CLC conventions. The shipping and cargo
interests often share the burden of this regime. The bottom layer of the tier comprises of shipping
industry, objectives and the financially limited civil liability of tank owners while the upper layer
is made up of supplementary compensation funds limited at the expense of oil companies based
in member countries who contribute by paying according to the proportion quantities of oil they
receive annually.
A variety of articles have put their focus on the interest of using liability and compensation
means in the field of marine oil pollution prevention. The article analysis is based on the well
established feedbacks in environmental laws and economics. They have efficient and effective
levels of prevention which might be achieved via passing on the overall cost of damage to the

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parties that are responsible for an accident. However there exists some limitation in
implementing these policies. For example, insufficient financial caps and a restrictive approach
in defining damage entitling compensation which jeopardizes the possibility of internalizing the
social cost of pollution.
Conclusion
Human beings should try to coexist with other ecosystems so as to achieve a clean and healthy
environment free from pollution.

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Work Cited
Effects of oil spills on wildlife and habitats retrieved from
<http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=12&hid=15&sid=dc5f6ea3-7426-
4918-9f06-ea27cf4641b3%40sessionmgr1> on 28 November, 2011.
Fattal, P., et al. “Coastal Vulnerability to Oil Spill Pollution: the Case of Noirmoutier Island
(France)”. Coastal Research 26. 5(2010):879–887.Print.
Julien, Hay. “How efficient can international compensation regimes be in pollution prevention?
A discussion of the case of marine oil spills”. Int Environ Agreements 10(2010): 29–44.Print.