Off the Coast of Morocco: The Shadow of Environmental Disparity Carried by the Atlantic Wind (1970s-1990s)
The Moroccan coast was a strategic point on the Atlantic shipping route, and many tankers used to pass through the area. In the latter half of the 20th century, many aging flag-of-convenience (FOC) vessels passed through the area, causing frequent accidents due to the age of the vessels and poor management systems. The Canary Current carried oil slicks over a wide area, and once a spill occurred, a wide area of the coastline was affected. However, the lack of oil recovery equipment and specialized vessels along the Moroccan coast at the time, as well as the lagging development of infrastructure, delayed the initial response and left deep damage to the ecosystem, including seaweed, fish, seabirds, and shellfish. The damage to tourism and fisheries was extensive, and the sight of local residents picking up oil lumps with their bare hands shocked the international community.
Behind the attention paid to the accident in this area of the sea was the structure of environmental disparity in which developing countries were on the receiving end of the industrial activities of developed countries. The situation in which ships built by developed countries were granted less regulated nationality, leaving the heaviest burden on the coasts of countries with weak environmental responsiveness, became a major issue in environmental policy discussions in the 1990s. The European Union (EU) strengthened its port state control (PSC) system and promoted the elimination of old tankers, but this did not lead to complete improvement and accidents continued intermittently.
The group of accidents off the coast of Morocco is positioned not as a mere oil spill but as a symbolic example of the link between international economic imbalance and environmental damage, and is treated in the article as a representative example of the global-scale environmental gap.
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