Anthropogenic noise

Although we know that anthropogenic sound in the ocean is a serious threat, we do not have sufficient information at this time to understand the full extent of the problem. One of the biggest challenges faced in regulating the effects of noise is our ignorance of the characteristics and levels of sound exposures that may pose risks to marine mammals. Given the current state of our knowledge we must therefore take a precautionary approach in the regulation of noise.

Thanks to the collaboration of Ocean care and NRDC, a peer review on the impact of ocean noise pollution was submitted to the United Nation Division for ocean Affairs and the law of the Sea (DOALOS), pursuant to paragraph 107 of Resolution 61/222 (2009) inviting Members States and Intergovernmental Organisations to submit appropriate peer-review articles on the ocean noise issue for DOALOS website.

Following the adoption by the 4^th Meeting of the Parties of the Resolution 4.17 on “Guidelines to address the impact of anthropogenic noise on cetaceans in the ACCOBAMS area”, a Working Group was established that will focus on the mitigation of the noise impact issues.

The Working Group is composed by the following

Experts:

Yanis SOUAMI (Coordinator)

Natacha AGUILAR

Michel ANDRE

Martine BIGAN

Jose-Luis BUCETA

Draško HOLCER

Elie JARMACHE

Gianni PAVAN

Javier PANTOJA

Ana TEJEDOR

Peter TYACK

Involved Organisations:

ASCOBANS (Heidrun FRISCH and Karsten BRENSING as coordinator of ASCOBANS Working group on Noise)

IFAW (Tim LEWIS, Robert KLESS)

NRDC (Jasny MICHAEL)

Ocean Care (Sigrid LÜBER)

OSPAR Convention (David JOHNSON)

Pelagos (S.E.M. Patrick VAN KLAVEREN)

WDCS (Karsten BRENSING and Mark SIMMONDS)

Others:

Mats AMUNDIN

J.R. CADDELL

Manuel CASTELLOTE

Dick DE HANN

Marchien DE RUITER

Kim DETLOFF

Sarah DOLMAN

Peter EVANS

Steve GEELHOED

Jan HAELTERS

Sven KOSCHINSKI

Russell LEAPER

Alexander LIEBSCHNER

Stefan LUDWIG

Sonia MENDES

Marije SIEMENSMA

Jacob TOUGAARD

FR VAN FLOCHERT DIJKEN

Stefanie WERNER

Jo WHARAM

Terms of Reference:

** For more information, please click on the following links ***

Link: Interdisciplinary Center for Bioacoustics and Environmental Research (CIBRA)

Please check the Marine Science Review from the SeaWeb from August 23^rd, 2012.