IMW Initial Phase Report 



International Mussel Watch: introduction and overview 



The International Oceanographic Commission (IOC), in collaboration with the United 

 Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric 

 Administration (NOAA) have supported the creation of the International Mussel Watch Project and 

 completed an initial monitoring program in the Latin America region, including central-South 

 America and the wider Caribbean area including Mexico, in 1991-92 (Figure 1). The program has 

 been directed by the International Mussel Watch Committee and coordinated and administered by 

 the Project Secretariat office based at the Coastal Research Center of the Woods Hole 

 Oceanographic Institution. 



The genesis of the International Mussel Watch Project can easily be traced to the 1975 

 Marine Pollution Bulletin editorial where Professor Edward Goldberg of Scripps Institution of 

 Oceanography called for a global marine monitoring program to serve as a "spring board for 

 action" (Goldberg, 1975). In his editorial, Prof. Goldberg outlined a global scale monitoring 

 program based on the sentinel organism concept that is capable of detecting trends in 

 concentrations of several important marine contaminants. Since the mid-1970's, scientists of 

 several countries have used bivalve filter-feeding mollusks to monitor for selected chemical 

 contaminants in coastal marine waters. Such contamination of coastal waters might result in 

 chemical changes that are deleterious, over the long term, to both the integrity of the coastal 

 environment and to human health. Because of their sedentary habits and their ability to 

 bioconcentrate the pollutants of interest, mussels and other bivalve species appear to be appropriate 

 sentinel organisms (Table 1 and Phillips, 1980). This approach to marine monitoring has been 

 successfully applied in several national and regional programs in Europe, Taiwan, Canada and the 

 United States and an extensive scientific literature has been generated from this work (NOAA, 

 1991). The mussel watch approach has been adopted as one of several coastal environmental 

 quality monitoring strategies by United Nations programs and the International Mussel Watch 

 Project is working to build on this cumulative experience. 



Particularly important among the monitoring programs that were established during the 

 1970's were those of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and of 

 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. The United Nations Environment Program 

 has also created its Regional Seas Program which has placed a major emphasis on the development 

 of host country capabilities for measuring the levels of pollutants in coastal and marine 

 environments. The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the UNESCO 

 sponsored the formation of a Task Team on Marine Pollution Research and Monitoring in the West 

 Pacific region. National governments of many countries have initiated their own programs to 

 provide for longer-term protection of coastal zones from the deleterious effects of chemical 



