Recommendations targeting the unacceptably high fatality rates in the fishing and ferries industries will be published later this year.
Lloyd's Register Foundation (the Foundation), a charity helping to protect the safety of life and property by supporting education, research and public engagement, held a workshop on March 19-20 to explore ways to improve safety in two of the world's most dangerous industries – fishing and passenger ferries.
The estimated average number of annual fatalities in the fishing industry is 24,000, and in the ferry industry, 3,000. Most of those deaths occur in a relatively few countries in Asia and Africa.
Input was received from industry experts either currently working in or having extensive experience in Canada, The United States, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Sweden, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, The Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand.
Many potential areas for improvement were discussed in concentrated breakout sessions – including regulatory, vessel design, construction and maintenance, human behavioural factors, safety culture, training, competence and certification, weather, and safety equipment.
The Foundation will publish two insight reports later this year, one for each industry, which will collect the expert group's ideas and recommendations for the most impactful actions to maximise lives saved in each industry.
Richard Clegg, Foundation Chief executive, said: "As a charitable Foundation we're driven by the impact we can make in line with our charitable purpose of enhancing the safety of life and property. Our challenge in doing this is twofold: firstly, to identify those industry sectors in greatest need, and then how to design interventions that will lead to greatest benefit. The workshop and insight reports have brought together some of the best minds in the world to help us understand the problem and arrive at evidence-based recommendations. Fishing and ferries are two of the most hazardous occupations globally, and anything we can do will save real lives".
Tom Boardley, the Lloyd's Register Group’s Director of External Affairs, said: "The initiative taken by the LR Foundation is to be welcomed; there is much work to be done in the maritime sector to ensure the best practices in the fishing and ferry sectors are applied more consistently globally. Only then will safety standards in these industries be more comparable with other parts of industry, where global regulation has resulted in much better performance and consistent improvement."
For further information, please contact Daryl Attwood: daryl.attwood@lr.org.