mcbem-2014-01-submission-wwf-en

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have no specific management plans, but countries are responsible for managing resources within their EEZ. Regarding the status of MPA protection for sensitive beaked whales, 65 MPAs (out of 570 total) in the waters of 12 countries list Cuvier’s beaked whales as resident or transient, but they are not the key or most common species present or the focus of conservation activities (Hoyt, 2011). Only one MPA has a substantial size and potential protection: Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals. After the widely publicized Cuvier’s beaked whale strandings around the Canary Islands associated with midfrequency sonar, the Spanish Navy agreed to a 50 nautical mile (92.6 km) exclusion zone around the Islands which has worked in terms of eliminating strandings since 2007 (Fernández et al., 2013). On this basis, a map is being prepared of Cuvier’s critical habitat in the Mediterranean through sightings, surveys and habitat modeling with recommended 50nm exclusion zones for military sonar (Notarbartolo di Sciara, pers. comm.). Only one species of beaked whale has dedicated habitat under explicit legal protection as an MPA: the northern bottlenose whales of the Gully. The high seas occupy more than 50% of the surface of the ocean yet only 0.17% is in MPAs (Spalding et al., 2012). Currently, responsibility for high seas protection is divided among four treaties or conventions while a much wider remit for international protection is being sought through the United Nations. OSPAR covers the North Atlantic high seas and CCAMLR the Antarctic region, and both are in the early stages of creating MPA networks. The Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) has seven regional agreements focusing on marine mammals, all of which can recommend MPAs that then need to be implemented by the countries signing the agreement. The agreements are ACCOBAMS (for all cetaceans in the Mediterranean and Black seas and adjacent North Atlantic), ASCOBANS (for small cetaceans of the Baltic & North seas and adjacent North Atlantic), Wadden Sea Seals, cetaceans in the Pacific Islands Region, dugongs, Mediterranean Monk Seals, and West African aquatic mammals. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has the most far-reaching mandate, covering all of the high seas, and its influence extends into national waters. The CBD process has been largely focused on identifying ecologically or biologically significant areas (EBSAs) through seven key criteria (Hoyt, 2011). Over the past two years, CBD regional workshops have gradually moved from ocean basin to ocean basin around the world, inviting species and ecosystem experts, as well as key authorities in adjacent countries, to select sites based on data and expert assessment. These are not MPAs, but represent potential MPAs as recommended through this scientific process to identify important high seas habitat. The CBD has also recently acknowledged that background chronic noise and acute noise sources are having an impact on biological diversity at sea and that efforts should be made to control noise, although specific measures have yet to be recommended. Besides CBD, the CMS treaties in the Mediterranean-Black seas (ACCOBAMS) and the Baltic and North seas (ASCOBANS) as well as OSPAR have produced recommendations on noise mitigation as part of their mandates but awareness has yet to move to active implementation in designated MPAs. In conclusion, planning has been slow to incorporate noise pollution concerns and needs to catch up (in terms of size issues for MPA design and zoning proposals, as well as in terms of awareness of stakeholders, management plan provisions and reviews). Is it possible to designate or create new lownoise zones surrounding existing MPAs? Further work on designing MPAs from the start using the marine biosphere reserve model with noise mitigation and reduction of ensonification, would be productive. Creating low noise areas is important for (1) precautionary conservation and sustainable business approaches — because we don’t know the full extent of what our big “noise experiment” will 22
do to the ocean’s biodiversity (our biological capital) and the health of the ecosystems that support all of us; (2) education — the perception of the public that we are all aware of this issue and working to do something about it; and (3) science — to learn more by comparing highly protected quiet areas with ensonified areas to quantify measurable differences in life history outcomes or persistent welfare issues for marine mammals. References Fernández, A., M. Arbelo, and V. Martín. 2013. No mass strandings since sonar ban. Nature, 497: 317. Hoyt, E. (2011). Marine Protected Areas for Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises: A world handbook for cetacean habitat conservation and planning. Earthscan, New York Spalding, M.D., I. Meliane, A. Milam, C. Fitzgerald and L.Z. Hale, 2013. Protecting Marine Species: global targets and changing approaches. In A. Chircop, S. Coffen-Smout, M. McConnell (eds.) Ocean Yearbook, v. 27, Martinus Nijhoff. 23
Page 1 and 2: Finding Management Solutions for Un
Page 3 and 4: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................
Page 5 and 6: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Recognizing that
Page 7 and 8: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS WWF Canada is grat
Page 9 and 10: Acoustic reserves as a strategy to
Page 11 and 12: Pressure amplitude rms amplitude =
Page 13 and 14: Rodkin, R.B. and J. A. Reyff. 2008.
Page 15 and 16: Figure 4. Number of vessel visits b
Page 17 and 18: extent, the shared vessel traffic 7
Page 19 and 20: No. of Detection Days whales spread
Page 21: III - TOOLS TO MANAGE NOISE: MPAs M
Page 25 and 26: Figure 8. Summary of the EU Marine
Page 27 and 28: activities are subject to the Act
Page 29 and 30: Hatch, L.T., C.W. Clark, S.M. Van P
Page 31 and 32: At the operations stage, Northern G
Page 34 and 35: Mechanisms for Managing Underwater
Page 36 and 37: The acoustic environment can be a f
Page 38 and 39: Hobday et al., 2011; Lawson & Lesag
Page 40 and 41: Framework to Incorporate and Quanti
Page 42 and 43: A Compensation and Mitigation Strat
Page 44 and 45: equirements that vessels meet noise
Page 46 and 47: develop a 3 year work plan for envi
Page 48 and 49: For the future, the IMO Energy Effi
Page 50 and 51: The CG prepared a report for DE 56
Page 52 and 53: The IMO and Potential Solutions for
Page 54 and 55: Consider a zoned approach, with a c
Page 56 and 57: There are multiple approaches that
Page 58 and 59: D. What could we achieve within the
Page 60 and 61: Push for administrative actions. Th
Page 62 and 63: Address masking, a significant thre
Page 64 and 65: The Federal government should suppo
Page 66 and 67: speaker) revealed that only 11 of 1
Page 68 and 69: As part of the efforts by the volun
Page 70 and 71: Friday June 7, 2013 Time Activity S
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First Name Last Name Affiliation Do
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Amplitude Table A1. The speed of so
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Table A2. The five functional heari
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There are a number of ways to descr
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Amplitude 1 0.5 Rise time 0 -0.5 .0
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thrusters, machinery noise (esp. th
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threshold shifts in hearing ability
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Henderson, D. 2007. Creation of noi
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Underwater noise and other forms of
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iological diversity, fish populatio
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If the impacts cannot be mitigated,
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ii PROVISIONS FOR REDUCTION OF NOIS
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xix xx Fisheries Act,RSC 1985, c F-
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