Thread by @wang_seaver

An important article by @Chris__Reddy on the recent Mauritius oil spill:

"It is critical that casual observers stay informed about the realities of the situation, rather than abandoning Mauritius's economy..."

(a thread)

https://twitter.com/CNNOpinion/status/1297527085628624896?s=20

"If those notions become cemented in people's minds, it will hurt Mauritius's crucial tourism and fishing industries and could compound the country's problems by causing longer-lasting economic and psychological harm than the oil spill by itself." (1)

Dr. Reddy, who has studied oil spills for 30 years and conducted research as part of the response to the BP Gulf of Mexico spill, cautions that it is too early and potentially damaging to assume that the Mauritius spill damage is permanent. (2)

At the same time, we must also amplify the voices of Mauritians infuriated, devastated + deeply worried by the oil spill + its effects. For a nation with natural beauty, the ocean + the waterfront economy as core to identity, this is a terrible event (3)

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

I’m recalling some powerful quotes from interviews in a paper by @Meghan_M_Shea, James Painter, and @shannonosaka from this February on how climate/environmental reporting portrays Pacific Island nations: (4)

link.springer.com/article/10.100…

Mauritius is of course an *Indian Ocean nation*, not a Pacific island state, yet many of the same issues associated with reporting on small island countries are at play, so the following quotes from the above paper are worth considering within a broader context. (5)

“There’s a real lack of Pacific news in international news outlets. I mean, we hardly get mentioned … unless it’s a cyclone or an earthquake, you’re not going to see mention of the Pacific at all, which I think is a really big problem" - a Pacific NGO organizer (continued) (6)

"a region that comprises 30% of the ocean EEZs [Exclusive Economic Zones] doesn’t receive more attention … There’s a real gap in just our stories being told and being acknowledged as people." - a Pacific NGO organizer (7)

“I think there is still that kind of background, broad grand narrative around a kind of helplessness and incapacity that sort of contaminates a lot of reporting and diminishes the Pacific to a kind of passive entity to whom things are done…” - an Australian journalist (8)

A Nature feature on the Mauritius spill clarifies: “When you look at images in the media, it can feel like the whole of Mauritius is under oil. But the oil reached only 15 kilometres of the 350-kilometre shoreline, so it could have been much worse.” (9)

nature.com/articles/d4158…

As Dr. Reddy emphasizes, with the help of remediation, oil-contaminated ecosystems can recover with time. The current spill absolutely threatens fishing and affected marine + coastal life, but neither is it necessarily the final end times for this biodiverse ecosystem. (10)

I think this Nature feature does well in highlighting two things:

- the mobilization of Mauritians with international scientists + responders to contain/assess spill’s impacts
- the importance of remedies to prevent future groundings + reform compensation frameworks (11)

This was unquestionably an unacceptable accident. Japan has an obligation to lead containment and long-term remediation of the spill’s effects, and to compensate Mauritians for the ecological and economic consequences. (12)

Simultaneously, the international community should continue to extend aid to Mauritius while reforming marine navigation practices and restructuring oil spill insurance to remove the loophole reducing compensation for bulk carrier accidents. (13)

More broadly, important to reflect that island nations rarely receive coverage outside of crises, particularly given climate change, and we should reconsider whether int’l media coverage fairly reflects citizens’ circumstances, needs, demands, and ambitions. (END)