A sea fog descends upon the Minch..

..And so we turn our attention from the marine wildlife to the NATO exercise Joint Warrior that is now happening on our doorstep in the Moray Firth and in the homes of the whales.

The fog provides an opportunity to think more about the exercise, which under this name and others, including Joint Maritime Course – has happened in Scottish waters since 1946. That’s 60 years of ongoing exercising, repeatedly, two or three times a year.

The tranquil surroundings of the west coast have now returned. On Sunday we had a fleeting meeting from two sailors from HMCS Athabaskan of the Canadian Navy, shortly after which this Canadian warship that had been patrolling in our field survey area for days, finally disappeared. There are no more fighter jets overhead – usually by the time we find them they have already passed by and are circling over Skye – unless they come directly overhead, when there is no mistaking their whereabouts! Helicopters no longer buzz about between distant warships, continually on the move.

The amount of military activity in western Scotland has been considerable, and so the potential for lethal and sub-lethal impacts upon whale and dolphin populations in this region is high. Mitigation measures that are used on board naval ships are important, but they are also untested. They can not be guaranteed to protect marine wildlife from the repeated exercising, especially at night and in poor weather conditions – including sea fog, when seeing the nose in front of your face can be a problem!

Generally, communication is improving, dramatically. WDCS welcome the opportunity to sit around the table with the MoD, JNCC, SNH and other stakeholders to progress issues related to naval activities. But communication is only the first step! We need better conservation action. With this in mind, we recently wrote to the Secretary of State for Defence, Rt Hon Bob Ainsworth to ask him to:

? Conduct a full and transparent Environmental Impact Assessment of all of the activities that are undertaken on each of its exercise areas. The US Navy is currently in the process of conducting Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) for each of its ranges and we believe that the UK Ministry of Defence should do likewise. EIA is routinely conducted by all industries to assess environmental impacts in preparation for activities to be undertaken in the marine environment around the UK and elsewhere;

? Update the passive Sonar 2117 system to include consideration of behavioural as well as threshold shift and injury impacts, as developments in this field have been considerable; and disturbance is a legal issue in Scotland;

? Funding of long term, independent field research to determine population trends in naval exercise areas and to enable the full assessment of potential impacts.

Joint Warrior will return to Scotland in April and October in 2010… But this exercise isn’t over yet! And you can read more about our concerns here: www.wdcs.org.uk