Securing Maritime Borders
There are about 620,000 kilometres (372,000 miles) of coastline worldwide. One hundred and eighty two independent countries and thirteen dependencies have a coastline. Many of the world’s major cities are also coastal ports.
Those coasts are connected to around 165 major rivers and many thousands of smaller rivers, giving access to hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of internal national territory.
The main transport mode for global trade is ocean shipping, with around 90% of traded goods transported by ship and 61% of global crude oil and petroleum products transported by sea.
But still much of the world’s coastlines and rivers are remote, rugged and inaccessible.
The difficulty of securing coastline is also an opportunity for all sorts of bad actors, such as drug and people traffickers, terrorists, smugglers and even pirates.
These bad actors are able to utilise freighters, speed boats, jet skis, submersibles, semi-submersibles, underwater unmanned vehicles, planes, microlights and drones.
Given the importance of ocean trade as well as length and difficulty of securing much of our coastline, managing maritime borders is one of the greatest challenges facing national governments.
So, what are the real challenges and threats and what can be done to better secure our coastlines and river systems?
The Operational Response Division includes Field Operations Unit, Coast Guard and Law Enforcement Unit and Centre of Excellence for Combating Document Fraud. The Division is also in charge of the Frontex Operational Coordination Centre.
She started working for Frontex in October 2009 being seconded as Liaison Officer of the Agency in Brussels.
Ana Cristina joined the Portuguese Immigration and Borders Service in November 1990. There she carried out functions as Head of Borders Division and Director of the Central Directorate for Borders. She participated in many International “fora” related to Border Management and chaired the Frontiers WP from the EU Council during the Portuguese Presidency in 2007.
Ms. Jorge is a graduate of the Institute of Political and Social Science of the University of Lisbon, where she earned her Degree in International Relations.
He participated in various multinational exercises (SEA SHIELD, MAVI BALINA etc.), cooperation initiatives (BLACKSEAFOR, US-ROU Tailored Forward Presence program), NATO SNMG, and in Operation Sea Guardian. In 2021, he was a lecturer and facilitator for the Maritime Security syndicate in the CORE20 exercise in Odesa, Ukraine.
He graduated the Naval Academy in Romania, holds a MA in Maritime Security, master’s degree studies in security and diplomacy, ASW specialization at San Diego Fleet Training Centre, a postgraduate diploma in security policy making , and he is currently a PhD Candidate in Military Sciences at the Carol I National Defence University, Romania.
