WDC Blog - From the Front Line

Further to yesterday's press conference here in Rome about the threat posed by marine noise pollution, here is a summary of the evidence:

Navigating the oceans of noise

Underwater noise pollution is a significant threat to whales, dolphins and porpoises, but one that is still in many respects poorly understood. These are animals that primarily experience their world acoustically and, as such, they can be expected to be especially vulnerable to changes in the marine acoustic environment. The available evidence more than supports this. Increased noise levels may produce an acoustic fog which prevents them communicating normally. Previously, some of the larger whales may have been in communication across entire ocean basins and now such long distance communication may be drowned out by human noise. The full implications of this for these animals are unclear but an important function that may have helped distant animals find each other and perhaps also their key habitats may now be compromised.

Noise may also startle and disrupt normal activities as it does for terrestrial animals. When these activities include breeding and feeding or migration, population level impacts may be induced. Historically, in some countries, loud noise has even been used to drive whales in hunts, and there is growing evidence that loud noise today has inadvertently caused strandings and death. In particular, unusual multiple mortalities of deep diving beaked whales have been associated with certain military sonars. Whales from these events have been found to have distinctive embolisms in their tissues (similar to the lesions caused in human divers in the condition known as the ‘bends’) and the most likely mechanism for their production is that the whales exceed their physiological tolerances by being forced to change their normal diving patterns, perhaps as a panic response to loud noise. It is also possible that loud noise may directly cause damage to organs at high exposure levels. The same embolisms have recently been found in other species indicating that they may too be affected. In fact some non-beaked whale species have been associated with unusual stranding events, including high profile events this year in the UK and Madagascar which are still being investigated.

Furthermore, a rather unexpected link has recently been made between rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and ocean acoustics. As sea water becomes more acidic, in addition to other effects, scientists have recently calculated that this will change underwater acoustics and make the seas noisier, with potential knock-on affects for cetaceans and human activities. The researchers concerned commented that ‘Ambient noise levels in the ocean within the auditory range critical for environmental, military, and economic interests are set to increase significantly due to the combined effects of decreased absorption and increasing sources from mankind's activities’.

The main sources of loud extraneous noise in the oceans are boat traffic (typically the bigger vessels are the noisier ones at least at lower frequencies), seismic surveys (as used in marine fossil fuel exploration and monitoring) and military exercises. Perhaps not surprisingly, the links between military activities and problems for whales have proven to be highly controversial and hotly debated. They have also been the source of numerous court cases in the US and the matter has even reached the US Supreme Court and the White House.

Noise pollution should be regarded as an emergent threat and parallels can be made between our current state of knowledge and where we were with chemical pollution and the threat that it posed to cetaceans some decades ago. Cetaceans, as deep diving marine animals, are particularly difficult to study and there are good ethical reasons (as well as practical ones for the larger species) that quite rightly inhibit exposing them to potentially harmful stimuli. In the 1960s and 1970s it started to become clear that cetaceans were likely to be vulnerable to the immunosuppressive and reproductive-impairment effects of certain ubiquitous chemicals. The evidence was based on high levels identified in their bodies, rapid transfer of these substances to their young and knowledge of how such substances affect other species. In other words, the evidence was circumstantial but pointed towards a significant problem. However, showing a simple cause-effect relationship was illusive. Fortunately action to address this nascent threat did not wait for such proof. Most recently studies based on large numbers of stranded bodies have strengthened the evidence that cetaceans are harmed by some chemicals because, for example, measurable effects on immune function can be seen above certain levels in tissues.

In the case of noise pollution, the evidence is again based on exposure levels, some field observations and some pathology (some of it very unusual), but like other threats in the environment, ‘scientific proof’ is again notably hard to find, and, arguably, this is not helped by some aspects of the issue being of so high profile. Hence we are in a situation where we are weighing the evidence; a situation where the evidence indicates a significant problem requiring a precautionary response. The International Whaling Commission recently looked at this matter and identified (IWC Resolution 1998-6) the impacts of anthropogenic noise as a priority topic for investigation within its Scientific Committee, and that the Scientific Committee, in its report to the 56th meeting of the IWC, concluded that military sonar, seismic exploration, and other noise sources such as shipping pose a significant and increasing threat to cetaceans, both acute and chronic, and made a series of recommendations to member governments regarding the regulation of anthropogenic noise.

The question for CMS at this COP is how to best address the threats posed by noise pollution. CMS has already accepted this as an issue (CMS Resolution 8.22) and now needs to find an appropriate way forward. We recommend the development of precautionary guidelines and clear advice to parties, building on and linked to ongoing work conducted under the auspices of ACCOBAMS and ASCOBANS, and designed to reduce noise levels and mitigate the effects of noise pollution of all kinds. We also recommend an ongoing vigorous dialogue with other relevant bodies.

For more information see:

WDCS publication ‘Oceans of Noise’ available as a PDF at: http://www.wdcs.org/submissions_bin/OceansofNoise.pdff

L.S. Weilgart 2007. The impacts of anthropogenic ocean noise on cetaceans and implications for management. Canadian Journal of Zoology 85: 1091-1116.

Lunchtime finds Team WDCS split in two with Alison Wood contributing to a celebration of the Year of the Dolphin in the Austrian Room... far away, Mark Simmonds (in the Iran Room) is contributing to a press event about the threat posed by noise to cetaceans.

The net result of this is that Alison gets a good lunch and Mark gets none... but hopefully some articles are generated in the press. We shall see.

Meanwhile here are some pictures:

Mark Simmonds and CMS Executive Secretary at the Press Conference

And back to the report of the full day:

Wishing the gorillas well.

The Chair opens the meeting and announces that we shall be considering agenda 21, 22, 24a, 23 c and d, 16 a and b, 17 a and e and, obviously, 20.

It is December 3rd and we are back in the COP of the Convention for Migratory species The WDCS team disappears rapidly under a pile of meetings papers, half drafted interventions, detailed instructions and computer cables, and spend the next few hours trying to work out what the heck is going on. We move seemingly randomly between the Conference of the Party (with one chairman) and the Meeting of the Whole (with another), for reasons that no one seems to fully understand.

Actually it turns out that we begin with a very pleasant, if slightly confusing, morning here at the COP where several countries pledge substantial sums of money to help the gorillas (we are after all heading towards the CMS Year of the Gorilla). Germany pledges 200,000 Euros (which brings riotous applause) and then details how it should be spent; France 137,000 Euros (more applause) and Monaco 30,000 Euros (and more applause again).

We move on to Partnerships with CMS and WDCS speaks to say how pleased it has been with the progress of the Year of the Dolphin and that we hope that the Year of the Gorilla is also a big success. (No applause but some gorilla orientated-organisations smile).

The programme of work for terrestrial mammals follows; and antelopes, polar bears, and others gallop by. (Norway notes that other bodies are working on polar bears and perhaps implies that the same is true for other animals.)

Plans for new CMS agreements pop up and Australia speaks eloquently about its aspirations for marine work. The EU says very little.

Marine species are touched on later and India notes that it supports the Ganges river dolphin listing which is being proposed here. In the discussion of other listing proposals the Vice Chair of the Scientific Committee reported some problems with some of the proposed species, including two sharks, one barbary sheep and a Falcon. Some discussion followed and we have yet to learn the final outcomes.

WDCS winds up to make an intervention…. But the chairman looks at a long list of speakers and says ‘look’ just say if you support or not. So we shorten our intervention and get ready again…. But he closes the Conference of the Parties and opens the Meeting of the Whole (or maybe the other way around) and we have to wait until some other time.

There is then an announcement that agenda items 24, 20, 9.30 rev 2 and 9.5 will follow (or something like that) – and WDCS disappears again under a pile of papers.

Numerous working groups are struck during the day and just to add to variety are scattered around the geographically-named meetings rooms on different floors around the vast maze of the FAO building. Many delegates get lost and turn up to late to comment on matters of huge import to their governments.

In the evening, just to add to the difficulty of navigating the building, FAO turns some of the lifts off between floors.

One of us (we won’t identify him, although he is still grumbling about the lack of lunch) in the evening had sequential meetings in the Cuba Room at 6pm (Climate Change); The Mexico Room at 7pm (the Marine Resolution); 8pm in Ethiopia (Noise)… and other team members were also in the 6pm Future of the Convention meeting in the Green Room.

Much remains hanging in the air…. We hope we can report some more concrete progress tomorrow, meanwhile we can celebrate a little for the gorillas.

Day 2 opens. The rain is falling outside; part of Rome is under the snow and the local TV also shows some fairly serious flooding near by.  In the meeting room we are quite snug and the various daughter conservation agreements of the Convention are telling us about their progress. The cetacean agreements make their reports: ACCOBAMS (the Mediterranean and Black Sea agreement) tells the meeting about the progress it is making – the list is long and impressive.

ASCOBANS (The North and Baltic Seas Agreement) follows with another thorough report. WDCS congratulates ASCOBANS, its Parties and the Secretariat on their hard work in this last period and calls for the Parties to redouble their efforts for small cetaceans in this region. WDCS comments that there have never been more threats to these animals and concrete actions are needed to conserve them. In particular the threat of bycatch must be addressed. The ongoing deaths of thousands of animals in fishing nets in the North East Atlantic, for example, is totally unacceptable and should urgently be addressed. We would also be remiss if we did not congratulate ASCOBANS on its hard work, the WDCS spokesman adds. There is a report-back on elephant work that follows; we move on to turtles; then UNEP reports on its work.

Over lunch we attend a rather scary marine species working group – a rather complicated line up of resolutions is being discussed. Lunch is grabbed out on the wet streets…. Then back into the ‘Meeting of the Whole’. In the afternoon, we start a discussion on the budget (this is swiftly withdrawn behind closed doors) and then bird flyways are discussed, including the situation of the Siberian Crane. This is a migratory flagships species – critically endangered and depends on large water areas to survive. For more about it see http://www.scwp.info.

All the delegates at the meeting are being given the gift of an animal adoption by the Italian Government – they have a choice of a Siberian crane, a saiga antelope or a bottlenose dolphin – the latter c/o WDCS.

The day closes with another working group on the climate change resolution and a reception on the famous 8^th floor of the FAO building hosted by France. There is some very animated discussion between some European countries and some NGOs as it is far from clear what the EU is supporting.

WDCS CMS COP Team: Mark and Alison at the front, Niki and Nicola behind.

Here are the texts of a couple of interventions that we made today. Firstly on the budget:

WDCS believes that CMS is important. It is the only international implementing treaty that provides a flexible platform to develop measures that can be tailored to particular conservation needs, and has the mechanisms to implement on-ground conservation activities, attributes that offer a great potential for multiple threat mitigation and the protection of endangered species. The growth of Parties to CMS in the past triennium indicates that Governments agree with this position. Therefore, it cannot be overstated how important it is that the work of this convention is supported and encouraged to grow. We urge delegates at CMS CoP9 to give close attention to the issue of resources. The CMS Strategic Plan 2006-2011 demonstrates the breadth of work that is to make a significant contribution to the conservation of migratory species and biodiversity in the aquatic and terrestrial environments. No other convention has this mandate or capacity. CMS’s position in the global conservation effort is vital, and it is imperative that we sufficiently support the CMS in order to drive an agenda that is of the greatest importance to us all.

And the  WDCS opening statement:

Thank you chairman and thank you Rome and FAO for hosting this very important CMS conference.

WDCS has been honoured to operate as a CMS Partner and to also be one of the Founding Partners to the Year of the Dolphin. Through the three years we have worked closely with the CMS Secretariat and the Secretariat of ACCOBAMS, ASCOBANS and the Pacific Cetaceans MoU and TUI. We look forward to a similar relationship being developed with the Western African Aquatic Mammals MoU.

Despite the success of Year of the Dolphin, many cetacean species remain endangered or critically endangered and most populations still require conservation measures to secure their futures.

CMS has a central and important role in the conservation of these species and it is important that this Conference of the Parties takes this opportunity to progress important decisions and to position the convention for the decade ahead. We need to address the status of marine mammals listed by the convention but where currently no agreements cover their range, particularly addressing the situation of animals in the Arctic including the narwhal, as well as stimulating the progress of new agreements for cetaceans in the Indian Ocean and South East Asia.

We urge this Conference of the Parties to look for ways to strengthen the CMS Family; build CMS’s important role in cetacean conservation; increase CMS’s role with other multi-lateral environment agreements and most importantly to ensure substantive resources for marine work is provided within the core CMS budget.

We believe in CMS and we will participate in this Conference of the Parties and the work lies ahead of us all as serious stakeholders.

Outside the the sun shines over the Circus Maximus; down the road sits the Coliseum; this is the centre of Rome – the heart of an ancient city. Here on one of the famous hills, the city was founded. Here Romulus killed Remus. Here the Sabines came to a party and were forcibly detained and worse. Here, in the 21st century, we find the modern vast maze of a building that hosts the head quarters of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

This week FAO hosts the meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Convention of Migratory Species (CMS). WDCS is here to follow a number of issues and encourage certain actions for cetaceans. On the agenda are issues affecting birds, bats, gorillas, antelopes, whales, dolphins and more besides. The opening ceremony starts a little after 10am. Present are a number of dignitaries, including at least one prince. Indeed, following an introduction from Robert Hepworth, the Executive Secretary of CMS, Prince Albert of Monaco welcomes everyone and talks about the first 25 years of CMS and the commitment of his own country; he mentions the Pelagos Sanctuary (concluded between Monaco, Italy and France) and the local cetacean agreement ACCOBAMS (which Monaco proudly hosts).

He also mentions the situation of the highly endangered Mediterranean monk seals. Migratory species, he says, allow our world to breathe. And he stresses that nature is necessary for our planet to survive; the survival of other species is key in the survival of our species. He highlights the plight of the gorillas, which are a major focus of this meeting. As he speaks photographs of endangered migratory species appear on the screen behind him. (We recognize one image of two leaping bottlenose dolphins in the Moray Firth as originating with our own Charlie Phillips.) He concludes to warm applause and Rob Hepworth thanks him for his comments and support, especially with regard to CMS’s Year of the Dolphin.

The Italian Minister for Environment, Land and Sea speaks next. She describes the biodiversity of Italy, the need for the best international partnership and her pride in the new Italian Atlas of Migratory Species. She also tells us that Rome has just set up a center for the rehabilitation of bats (which live in the many nooks and crannies of Rome’s ruins). Italy also has a lot of sea with migratory species (and she too mention the Pelagos sanctuary). She also notes that Italy will soon have the presidency of the G8 and commits to work there to the benefit of the environment.

The Prince, the CMS Executive Secretary and the Italian Minister.

The Environment Commissioner of the city of Rome comes to the microphone next and talks enthusiastically about the natural wealth of Rome. He mentions many statistics including 2,500 species of insects (14% of the Italian total). 30 mammal species are also found within the city boundary and he stresses that they are working hard to enhance this. Then a new bat agreement is signed and there is an exodus from the platform. The prince leaves with the Minister and their entourages.

The CMS executive director now tries to introduce Achim Steiner, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (the body that overseas the work of a number of agreements including CMS). He is pre-recorded and pops up on the screen… but there is no sound. So the film is abruptly stopped after a few minutes of Steiner miming and the last (but not the least) speaker of the opening ceremony the WDCS CEO, Christopher Butler Stroud, is called on to contribute. The CMS Secretary introduces him noting that WDCS is one of CMS’s strongest partners in recent years – and a founding partner of Year of the Dolphin. Chris moves to the microphone and starts with a few words of Italian… before he gets much further he is interrupted by Achim Steiner, who has come back to life on the big screen. The recording of Achim is again stopped and Chris resumes. He looks for the slides that he has painstaking chosen as a backdrop to his presentation but the big screen only shows the start of the Steiner film. Chris’s speech (which we have posted on this blog) is greeted by much applause.

Mr Hepworth thanks him for that stirring speech and for the support that WDCS gives CMS almost on a daily basis. Then Achim Steiner is allowed to speak, although acoustic problems cause his tone to occasionally become rather trombone-like. He talks about the history and the awareness-rising activities of CMS. He also salutes the ten CMS champions, which include our own Margi Prideaux (who later in the day receives an award.) He wishes the meeting well. The opening ceremony ends.

There is a swift break and we start the business of the meeting, with Italy in the Chair. Initially this focuses on various procedural matters, including formally letting all the NGO observers including WDCS in. Reports on the effectiveness and status of the Convention and its daughter agreements are presented. 110 countries are now parties. We hear from the Standing Committee and Scientific Council. A presentation on climate change follows .This includes a mention of narwhals and the threat posed by a decline in krill. A discussion then follows around the issue of the Climate Change resolution proposed by Australia. WWF and a little later WDCS speak up for the development of a new resolution to recognize the plight of arctic marine species. This is a little awkward because no such text has been circulated and the recommendation of the Scientific Council on this theme has not yet been circulated. For the countries, Monaco speaks up boldly in support of this issue too. The chair sums up and asks the Australians to try to revise their resolution to address this. Monaco asks for the floor again to say that we need a separate resolution. Ok, says the Chair, let’s work on this and we need something by tomorrow afternoon. Avian flu is discussed at some length. It’s important but we will not dwell on it.

Then Heidrun Frisch of the CMS Secretariat gives a rousing presentation on the behalf of migratory marine species. This details the extensive work of the secretariat, partner organizations and others on this theme. Discussion on some aspects of this including bycatch and climate change follow. Monaco again raises arctic species. Some speakers notice that some of the issues need to include consideration of birds. IFAW speaks up to support all the marine species initiatives. The US speaks (probably for the first time at a CMS COP as this is their first attendance) to broadly support initiatives. WWF also makes a supportive intervention. The EU seemed less enthusiastic, but did support the bycatch resolution although they were worried about harmonizing it with the work of ASCOBANS. New Zealand seemed pleased about things.

The IWC Secretariat notes how much work on all these matters they were already doing. The main meeting closes. A climate change working group breaks out up in the India room two floor higher in the vast FAO meeting (many delegates get lost trying to find it). Simultaneously, the evening event celebrating the CMS Champions occurs on the ground floor (Margi Prideaux is given this award) … and then shortly after this everyone is treated to some rather nice food and drinks on the eighth floor.

 

Here we open our coverage from Rome of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention of Migratory Parties:

CMS COP9 High level Opening Ceremony, 1^st December 2008

CMS COP9 High level Opening Ceremony Speech by Chris Butler-Stroud, CEO, WDCS International:
"It is rare that one NGO speaks for all NGOs, and I am honored to have been given this opportunity. For one thing, it means that I can look around the room at my NGO colleagues here and see all of them sitting on the edge of their seats wondering precisely what I am about to say on their behalf!

Despite our differences in recent years, I feel much closer to them all than I have in the past. In early 2007, WDCS, together with our colleagues represented here, awoke to the shock of the first cetacean species, the baiji, or Yangtze River dolphin, becoming extinct under our watch. And so we reluctantly joined that club of conservation NGOs that mourn the permanent loss of species due to human activities. It has been a sobering time, as we survey several other whale and dolphin populations reduced to no more than a few hundred individuals. But, like our colleagues, we are not daunted.

We can not afford to be daunted. Never before have the threats been so great; the impacts of human activities so strongly felt: climate change, bycatch, habitat loss, noise, pollution and teetering ecological balances.  Has there ever been a more difficult time for those that swim, fly, walk or run across invisible borders?

But never mind the scale of what we face. Along with our colleagues who also Partner with CMS, we remain determined that there are solutions to slow the tragic loss, to rescue the future, even as the time frame to 2010 tightens day by day and the situation for many species and populations deteriorates rapidly.

Thinking about CMS’s key role before the CoP, I have been struck by how much the economic and political events of recent months reveal the interconnected nature of our world. Yet, the common perception of conservation seems to be that we remain a few steps behind, removed from global politics.

In the early 1980s, when the United Nations General Assembly asked the World Commission on Environment and Development to formulate a ‘global agenda for change’, the sheer scale of the environmental and policy landscape seemed to be our foe. The world appeared to be a big place; there was so much we didn’t know. We were all grappling with how to imagine solutions that could fit in with the existing structures of the world – a world that was, and is, defined by borders.

It was at this time that CMS was born. And CMS remains today one of the most enlightened initiatives of the global community during the past 30 years. Even though the world has been slow to recognize the invitation, CMS offers a key to looking past borders, a key to cooperation.

Perhaps because NGOs and the animals we care about so flagrantly cross jurisdictions that countries have responsibilities to defend, the NGO community has left the view of a world with borders behind us. Perhaps NGOs have the freedom simply to interpret CMS as being about ensuring the protection of animals as they traverse the landscapes of their lives – regardless of where their homes are. These are lives that we now understand are socially complex. These are lives that have evolved in a thousand different forms, yet resonate as similar to our own. These are lives that bring richness to our lives just by being on this earth with us. I am sure that my colleagues would agree with me in saying that we understand that the greatest obstacle now is not the tyranny of the commons but the tyranny of borders – borders that are about land, sea, policy, law, interest and the mind.

Each NGO has its own mandate and style but in this room we do share an important agenda. We all know that isolated initiatives will not work. And we believe that CMS offers the key to looking past borders, the key to connectivity.

We know that recognizing connectivity brings with it responsibility – responsibility to respect that we must protect what we share, to act while we can, and to work in Partnership.

Over the past three years, the Partner NGOs to CMS have worked hard to deliver positive progress toward the commitments made during the last CoP. We have all invested heavily in this work and have been welcomed by the Secretariat as serious stakeholders in the conservation progress that has been jointly achieved.

For WDCS’s part, we were honored to be a Founding Partner to the Year of the Dolphin. We worked closely with CMS, ACCOBAMS, ASCOBANS and TUI throughout the successful campaign and gained a wealth of experience through this close Partnership. WDCS is confident that the Year of the Gorilla will be equally successful. We have also been pleased to participate in the development of the two newest aquatic mammal agreements, in the Pacific Islands and Western African regions, as part of the CMS marine mammal conservation network which also includes ASCOBANS, ACCOBAMS, Mediterranean Monk Seals MoU, Wadden Sea Seals Agreement, and the Indian/Pacific Ocean Dugong MoU. Indeed, we believe that CMS now commands an important international, and increasingly central, position in aquatic mammal conservation. This global network of marine mammal agreements will be at the core of future conservation in a challenging environment.

The Secretariat report that is before you on CMS Activities with Partners demonstrates that CMS’s network of relationships now contributes substantially to the global CMS agenda. Partner NGOs are increasingly prepared to demonstrate our commitment, to bear scrutiny and be accountable. We all believe that CMS is important to the future and we want to continue in Partnership. In return we ask that all of us here – NGOs and Governments together – agree to walk through the door that CMS opens; that all of us here look past the borders and seize the opportunity for connectivity and a shared future.  And that together we repay the richness that we’ve received from our swimming, flying, walking or running friends by giving them our steadfast commitment that we will ensure their protection and the protection of our shared habitat on earth.

On behalf of the NGO Partners to CMS, I wish you well for the deliberations of this CoP."

For those of us living in the US, Thanksgiving is a time when thoughts turn to tradition (for more on this you can visit our North American blog).  So my eye was caught when reading an article in Iceland’s Morgunbladid newspaper on an award that had been given to two students by the American Anthropological Association for their study of traditional Icelandic food habits.

Sveinn Sigurdsson and Ashlan Falletta-Cowden looked at generational changes in diet, and concluded that most of the younger generation in Iceland were no longer sure as to what constituted traditional Icelandic foods. Eating habits have changed greatly over the course of the past three decades, and Sigurdsson pointed to the fact that today’s youth in Iceland are more apt to eat chips and pizza than traditional foods such as singed sheep heads.

This would tally with a poll that was conducted in 2006 by the Capacent Gallup Group, which showed that whale meat was being consumed on a regular basis by only 1.1% of households in Iceland.  The same poll found that roughly 82% of people aged 16 to 24 never eat whale meat. 

So just why is Fisheries Minister Einar Gudfinnsson trying to promote the Icelandic whaling industry?  It could be that Japan’s recent decision to allow imports of whale meat is causing hope that the stagnating domestic demand for whale meat could be offset by sales to Japan.  The only problem? Japan’s market seems to be equally on a downhill slide, as the leading whale meat restaurant in Tokyo has said it will close its doors due to economic losses.

A key issue across all of this is this attempt to define exactly what constitutes tradition.  Culture is both evolutionary and adaptive, more fluid than static.  Discussions on “traditional whale eating cultures” are at the very center of the current debate in the IWC, with pro-whaling nations attempting to blur the distinction between whaling for true subsistence need and whaling for profit.