Environmental Working Group Appointed at FISA Executive Committee Meeting.

The FISA Executive Committee has appointed a new Environmental Group during its meeting in Bucharest, Romania on November 2 – 4. The newly created group will be chaired by Ms Anna Van Der Kamp, Canadian Olympic silver medallist in Atlanta in the women’s eight.

The group is to ensure that the FISA environmental policy is implemented in all rowing events and will be in charge of environmental related issues including promotion of environmental responsibility in all aspects of event planning and staging, as well as the raising of overall awareness on environmental issues throughout the rowing community.

Van Der Kamp will be assisted by Mr Timothy Richardson, a practising lawyer from New Zealand, Mr David Stubbs, Executive Director of the Committed to Green Foundation in Great Britain, and Indian-Canadian Rano Basu Ray, a private consultant working on international environmental policy.

Bruce Ford, a 1985 World Champion, has been appointed as a resource person and alternate for the group. He is a board member of the Canadian Olympic Association (COA) and the chair of the COA’s Environment Committee.

The first aim of the working group will be to establish a policy document for FISA.

Its purpose is to inform and bring a new aspect to facility development and re-development.

A FISA Environmental Handbook is to be created which will provide a resource for people involved with rowing. The handbook will clearly explain the environmental issues pertaining to the sport of rowing, with practical suggestions for ways to minimise the environmental impact of the sport.

But the group will not only work on large scale international projects – the intention is to launch smaller localised projects in clubs increasing environmental awareness by generating projects such as bank restabilisation, habitat regeneration programs, and minimising chemical use for equipment maintenance.

In the longer term, the rethinking of equipment production process could be a possibility in the hope that this will help minimise the environmental issues related to rowing.

FISA currently has 14 specialised Commissions, and this is the first recognised working group within the federation.