Oceans of noise - Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society

6.3 ASCOBANS and ACCOBAMSTwo regional agreements that are specific to cetaceans have been concluded under the auspices ofthe Convention for Migratory Species: the 1992 Agreement for Small Cetaceans of the Baltic andNorth Seas (ASCOBANS), and the 1996 Agreement on the Conservation of Cetaceans of theBlack and Mediterranean Seas and Contiguous waters (ACCOBAMS).The ‘purpose’ of ASCOBANS is to “maintain a favourable conservation status for smallcetaceans” and each party is meant to “apply within the limits of its jurisdiction and in accordancewith international obligations the conservation, research and management measures presented inthe Annex.”In the Annex Point 1.d commits the Parties to work towards “…the prevention of other significantdisturbance, especially of an acoustic nature”, and Point 4 in states that“Without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 2 above, the Parties shall endeavour toestablish (a) the prohibition under national law of the intentional taking and killing ofsmall cetaceans where such regulations are not already in force.”However, “take” is not defined in the Agreement text.ACCOBAMS came into force in June 2001. It is the more ambitious of the two agreements andrecognises “disturbance” in one preambular paragraph and LOSC in another. Here again, Partiesare required to “take co-ordinated measures to achieve and maintain a favourable conservationstatus for cetaceans” and Article II 4 requires that in implementing the prescribed conservationmeasures the Parties shall apply the “precautionary principle”.The “Conservation research and management measures” for ACCOBAMS are again spelled outin an annex (Annex 2), where Point 1c requires that Parties shall“Require impact assessments to be carried out in order to provide a basis for eitherallowing or prohibiting the continuation and the future development of activities that mayaffect cetaceans or their habitat……including…..offshore exploration and exploitation,nautical sports, tourism and cetacean watching, as well as establishing the conditionsunder which such activities may be conducted.”In the original text of the Act “take” is defined (Article 13) as “to harass, hunt, capture or kill, orattempt to harass, hunt, capture or kill any marine mammals.”More latterly, the ASCOBANS parties have recognised again the threat of disturbance and noiseby, for example, passing a resolution on this issue (Resolution No.4) at the last meeting of Partiesin 2000 (ASCOBANS, 2002).Similarly, at the first meeting of ACCOBAMS Parties, a resolution providing a detailed code ofconduct for whale-watching was passed (This is provided here in Box 1, as an illustration ofwhale watching guidelines ).The consequences in practice of the “soft law” provided by such resolutions can only be gaugedover time. The guidelines for whale watching agreed by the ACCOBAMS parties are unusual inthat they are provided as an exemplary regime for states in the agreement area to follow. Theguidelines, which are still under development, are reproduced in full here as Annex A2.65