Paul Kelway has recently joined the OSRL team as Wildlife Preparedness & Response Manager.
Paul joins Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL) from Sea Alarm - OSRL’s long-time partner and technical adviser in wildlife preparedness and response. As well as serving as a Senior Technical Adviser with the Sea Alarm Foundation in Brussels for the last five years, Paul was also the Project Coordinator of the Global Oiled Wildlife Response System (GOWRS) Project from 2015-2019 – an oil industry-funded project involving 11 leading wildlife response organisations aimed at designing an international framework for oiled wildlife response that would meet the needs of both the oil industry and the wildlife response community.
Paul has been involved in the field of oiled wildlife response since 1999, also working as Emergency Relief Manager for the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s (IFAW) Oiled Wildlife Division in London and Executive Director of International Bird Rescue in California. He has responded to oiled wildlife incidents in France, Spain, Norway, Mexico, South Africa, the U.S. and, most recently, The Netherlands.
Wildlife response preparedness has been identified as a strategic priority for OSRL for the coming years. In this new role, Paul will be responsible for guiding the long-term strategic development of OSRL’s wildlife preparedness and response capabilities and services in collaboration with the oil industry and stakeholders from the field of wildlife response, including Sea Alarm and the GOWRS Project partner organisations.
To date, some of the key outputs from the GOWRS Project have included standard operating procedures for international wildlife response, internationally agreed animal care standards (resulting in a new IPIECA Technical Support Document: Key principles for the protection, care and rehabilitation of oiled wildlife) and other good practice guidance, as well as enhanced collaboration between leading wildlife response organisations.
The GOWRS Project has now culminated in a proposal being submitted to OSRL for a collectively delivered Tier 3 Assessment Team service. If adopted, this service would provide a guaranteed four-person team that could be deployed to evaluate and advise OSRL members on the feasibility and appropriate scale of a wildlife response, and to serve as a force multiplier for their tiered preparedness for wildlife incidents. If accepted, this service will be available from 2021.