MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Red Ensign Conference concludes.

Falklands fishing vessels could soon be crewed by Chilean officers after discussions at the Red Ensign Conference in Stanley this week.

The conference concluded on Thursday after several days of discussion on topics including maritime safety, new shipping legislation and environmental issues.

The conference is held annually and attended by territories whose shipping registers are subject to the regulations of the UK's Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA). Ships on their registers all fly the Red Ensign flag. As well as open discussion forums, the conference included the chance for several of the 12 territories attending to meet directly with MCA representatives.

The Falklands' marine officer, Jon Clark, said that within his own meeting, progress had been made in discussions on the trading areas open to vessels, and the MCA agreed to delegate some of the decisions currently made by their officials in Southampton to staff in the Falklands. There were also moves to ease the recruitment of senior crew members from outside the UK and the Islands.

Mr Clark said: "Our fishing vessels are mainly crewed by Spanish officers and in order to sail on a UK ship those officers, apart from having their Spanish certificates of competency, should have a certificate of equivalent competence issued by the flag state of the vessels."

Until now, these have been issued by the MCA in Southampton, but it has now agreed that it is prepared to let Falklands authorities issue those certificates, as long as satisfactory procedures can be set up. Even with this easing of red tape, Mr Clark said there was a danger that the supply of Spanish officers could dry up and fishing companies would need to look elsewhere, and progress has been made here, too: "For some time now companies have wanted to employ Chilean officers on their fishing vessels, but at the moment Chilean certificates aren't recognised by the MCA," he explained.

The MCA agreed at this week's conference that Chilean officers could be accepted in future, although officials will first have to travel to Chile to assess training standards there. The MCA has even offered to joint fund the development, although precise details of the funding split have not been revealed. Chilean officers would only be able to work on Falkland Island vessels, and the new rules would only apply to crew of officer grade: more junior Chilean crew members are already allowed on board.

Mr Clark said of the change: "It will make it much easier for ships to obtain crew because although Spain still has a fairly good fishing industry it may become more and more difficult as the years go on to source officers from there."

The conference also saw the launch of a new website, www.redensigngroup.orgwhich contains information about member territories and links to their own sites.

The conference may have closed, but the work is not over for those in charge of the Falklands shipping register, as MCA chief executive, Captain Stephen Bligh explained: "All registers within the Red Ensign Group are run to the highest standard. We carry out regular monitoring visits and one of our number will be remaining on the Islands for a further week to carry out that monitoring visit. The opportunity is taken to look at things, make suggestions, identify areas where a different opinion might have been taken and it's a good opportunity for an exchange of information."

Sue Gyford (MP) Stanley