topic: Noise Pollution

topic: Noise Pollution

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Proposed copper mine modifications spark community outcry in Peru
- The Las Bambas mine in Peru, one of the world’s largest copper mines, has announced a new amendment to its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the fourth time.
- The change aims to expand a mining block that could have serious contamination of water resources.
- Communities and organizations have voiced concerns over the expansion’s potential environmental impacts and have lamented the lack of consultation and ambiguous information in the EIA amendment.
- In January, a consortium of local organizations and leaders requested that the Peruvian government annul the amendment and have said they plan to escalate the conflict if needed.

Keep it down: U.N. report lists ways to reduce ocean noise pollution
- A new report published by the U.N.’s Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) outlines possible solutions to human-caused ocean noise that impacts marine life.
- It focuses on three main types of underwater noise: shipping, seismic air gun surveys, and pile driving.
- Lindy Weilgart, the report author, said she believes it’s essential to move toward finding solutions rather than only studying the impacts of human-caused ocean noise.
- An outside expert praised the report but also questioned the likelihood of the suggestions being followed, and argued that the noise impacts of wind turbines have not been fully considered.

Potential impact on whales overlooked as deep-sea mining looks set to start, experts say
- Scientists say future deep-sea mining activities could impact cetaceans through noise pollution, which could interfere with their communication processes.
- According to an opinion piece, a team of experts say assessments of deep-sea mining impact have focused on species associated with the seabed rather than transitory megafauna that inhabit the proposed mining areas, and that urgent research is needed to understand the potential impact on cetaceans.
- However, a mining company says it is evaluating the potential impact of its proposed operations on cetaceans through the gathering of acoustic data during its recent mining test in the CCZ, which it will combine with three years of environmental baseline data.
- Deep-sea mining in international waters may begin later this year after the Pacific island nation of Nauru, which sponsors a subsidiary of a Canadian mining firm, requested accelerated approval of its mining operation.

Tense neighbors: Chinese quarry in Cameroon takes a toll on locals
- Vibrations from explosive blasting operations carried out at the Chinese company’s Jinli Cameroon LLC stone quarry have impacted homes located next to the site which are beginning to show cracks.
- Local communities accuse the company of air and water pollution and not respecting its local development commitments.
- The quarry manager denies these allegations, pointing to their new road development leading to the mine which has increased the value of land in the village.
- Local authorities receive money from the quarry through taxes but are not responding to local demands to reinvest in the area.

New criminal code rings alarms for environmental protection in Indonesia
- Indonesia has passed an overhauled criminal code that experts and activists say will weaken environmental protections and make it easier to persecute environmental defenders.
- Among the controversial provisions in the heavily criticized bill: an exemption from prosecution for companies that violate environmental laws; reduced punishment and the choice to pick a fine over a jail sentence for convicted violators; and a higher burden of proof for environmental crimes.
- It could also be used to prosecute environmental defenders who protest public works projects, on the pretext of insulting the president.
- The new code will not go into full effect until 2025, giving opponents time to challenge it at the Constitutional Court.

Will shipping noise nudge Africa’s only penguin toward extinction?
- The African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) is expected to go extinct in the wild in just over a decade, largely due to a lack of sardines, their main food.
- A colony in South Africa’s busy Algoa Bay is suffering a population crash that researchers say coincides with the introduction of ship-to-ship refueling services that have made the bay one of the noisiest in the world.
- They say theirs is the first study showing a correlation between underwater noise pollution and a seabird collapse.
- Current studies are investigating whether the ship noise is interfering with the penguins’ foraging behavior and their ability to find fish.

In revising its criminal code, Indonesia risks unraveling environmental laws
- Indonesia’s plan to revise its outdated criminal code could lead to a systematic weakening of existing environmental laws, experts warn.
- The latest draft of the code contains provisions that would make it more difficult to prosecute environmental crimes, such as dumping toxic waste in rivers and setting forest fires, the experts say.
- They note also that it makes punishment more lenient and lets companies off the hook, while potentially making it easier to prosecute environmental defenders.
- The experts have called on the government and lawmakers to go back to the drawing board and ensure that environmental crimes are treated as the extraordinary crimes that they are.

Noise pollution spooks whales the way predators would, study finds
- Whales appear to react to human-made noise in the ocean, such as naval sonar, in a similar way to which they respond to the sounds of their predators like killer whales, according to recent research.
- The authors of the study played the sounds of sonar and killer whales when whales from four species were present.
- The whales responded by breaking off their feeding forays, leading scientists to conclude that noise pollution in the ocean could leave them weaker and more vulnerable to predation.
- The researchers also suggest that marine mammals in the Arctic may be especially at risk as climate change alters their environment in ways that may make them more vulnerable.

Microplastics plus organic pollutants equals 10 times the toxicity, study finds
- A new study has found that interactions between microplastics and organic pollutants in aquatic environments can increase the toxicity of microplastics by a factor of 10.
- The researchers found that some “weathered” microplastics tended to absorb and release more contaminants than pristine microplastics, posing a threat to human health if these microplastics are ingested.
- Nations this week agreed to negotiate a global treaty that addresses the entire life cycle of plastics in an effort to suppress the harm it does to the environment and human health.

‘Our land, our life’: Okinawans hold out against new U.S. base in coastal zone
- Opponents of the planned relocation of a U.S. military base in Okinawa say they remain undeterred despite the defeat in elections last month of the opposition party that supported the cause.
- Local activists plan to continue opposing the relocation of the Futenma Marine base, from the densely populated city of Ginowan to the less crowded Henoko Bay coastal area.
- The proposed new facility and other military bases in Okinawa have been linked to toxic environmental pollution, military-linked sexual violence, and historical land conflicts between native Okinawans and the mainland Japan and U.S. governments.
- The Okinawa prefecture government recently rejected central government plans to sink more than 70,000 compacting pillars into Henoko’s seabed for construction, which would impact coral and seagrass that host more than 5,000 species of marine life.

If marine noise pollution is bad, deep-sea mining could add to the cacophony
- A new report suggests that the noise pollution produced by deep-sea mining activities could have far-reaching effects on the marine environment, from surface to seafloor.
- While there are many studies that measure the impacts of noise pollution on marine life, more research is needed to fully understand how sound from deep-sea mining could affect the ocean.
- Due to the paucity of information, experts say a precautionary approach to deep-sea mining noise is required and that clear regulations must be put into place by the International Seabed Authority.
- While deep-sea mining has yet to begin, a subsidiary of Canada-based The Metals Company plans to start mining in less than two years.

Project maps soundscape of human noise in northern Adriatic and impact on marine life
- The bottlenose dolphin population of Croatia’s Lošinj archipelago is increasingly faced with problems from noise disturbance produced by boats, particularly in the summer tourist season.
- Noise pollution is known to impact a wide range of marine species, from turtles to tuna to cetaceans, but its long-term effects are still little-understood.
- The SOUNDSCAPE project that started in 2019 in the northern Adriatic Sea, between Italy and Croatia, is trying to better understand the problem at the regional level and identify solutions.

Two threatened whale groups had a mini baby boom, but not because of lockdown
- Two rare whale groups — southern resident killer whales in the Pacific Northwest, and North Atlantic right whales — have had mini baby booms since the start of the pandemic, raising hopes about their survival prospects.
- But experts say a reduction in human activity during this period isn’t the cause, and that the underlying threats pushing these whales toward extinction still persist.
- North Atlantic right whales are threatened by fishing gear entanglement and ship strikes, while the southern resident killer whales have seen stocks of their favorite prey, the Chinook salmon, decline.
- Experts say that policies to protect the whales, including regulating shipping, closing fisheries and restricting certain types of gear, are not keeping pace with whales’ changing dynamics, and that changes might need to be applied throughout their range.

Do birds try to shout down airplanes? The evidence suggests they do
- A sweeping analysis of nearly a million recordings from 48 national parks in the U.S. shows that birds vocalize more in the presence of airplane noise.
- The data collected by scientists at the U.S. National Park Service will help answer questions about how birds respond to airplane noise.
- With air travel increasing, bird communities across the world are likely to be exposed to the drone of airplanes, and not just near airports.
- Bioacoustics, the study of how sound is produced, distributed and perceived in the natural world, is already helping shape human understanding of animal communication.

India’s Ganga River dolphins are being shouted down by noisy boats
- India’s Ganga River is getting noisier with increased ship traffic and dredging, and that’s stressing the river’s iconic dolphins and changing how they communicate, a new study has found.
- When fewer than five vessels moving on the river per hour, the dolphins seem to enhance their vocal activities to compensate for the high-frequency noise generated by the propellers.
- But as vessel traffic increases and water levels fall during the dry season, leading to more intense and sustained noise pollution, the dolphins don’t seem to alter their clicks much compared to baseline levels, the researchers found.
- This is likely because having to continuously emit clicks in a persistently noisy world can be physically taxing, forcing the endangered mammals to “either call at baseline levels or shut up,” according to the researchers.

On one island, a microcosm of Vietnam’s environmental challenges
- It is also a popular tourist destination, and like many parts of the country faces the challenge of balancing development with environmental protection.
- Tenuous conservation success stories can be found here, but current and future developments in surrounding areas pose acute threats.

Environmental issues among top priorities of urban Indian voters: Report
- With India just a few weeks away from the general elections, a new survey has found that clean drinking water and agriculture-related governance issues feature prominently in the Indian voters’ list of priorities.
- High levels of water and air pollution, which have been plaguing Indian cities over the past few years, were not a top priority nationally but were of importance to the urban voters.
- Some other environment-related concerns that found a place in the overall list of the voters’ priorities include sand and stone quarrying, traffic congestion, river and lake pollution, and noise pollution.

New research teases apart complex effects of naval sonar on whales
- A pair of recent studies shows the unique responses of different whales to sonar, typically used by navies to detect submarines.
- Sonar sounds have been linked to hearing loss, deadly mass strandings and interference with whales’ communication with each other.
- One of the studies found that the distance the whales were from sonar sounds didn’t matter — they generally fled whether they were close to or far from it.
- Another study showed that sonar affected the feeding patterns of deep-diving blue whales, but not those that were feasting on krill at the surface.

Pod-cast: New app streams whale songs for web users in real time
- Researchers have developed a web application to enable citizen scientists to listen for the sounds of a population of killer whales off North America’s northeast Pacific coast in real time.
- A network of underwater microphones will stream sounds from under the sea to citizen scientists, who can then report any unusual noises and help decode orca language.
- The researchers have found that human listeners can readily detect unusual sounds amid a stream of underwater noise, and their participation can complement machine-learning algorithms being developed.

Whales and dolphins change the way they communicate in a noisy ocean
- Two independent teams of biologists looked at the impact of ambient sound from ships on whales and dolphins.
- The research on whales revealed that noise from a passing ship led humpbacks in the vicinity to stop singing, sometimes for 30 minutes after the ship had passed.
- In the study on dolphins, the scientists showed that dolphins abbreviated their whistles in response to the sound.
- Both teams raised concerns about whether sound in the ocean increases the stress on marine mammals and how it might affect their ability to communicate with fellow members of the same species.

Taking it slow can help reduce impacts of Arctic shipping on whales (commentary)
- Thanks to climate change, traveling through the Northwest Passage is quickly becoming an exotic option for cruise ship passengers — and an enticing shortcut for cargo ships.
- But an increasingly ice-free Arctic means more than just a chance for a new sightseeing adventure: Significantly increased ship traffic is altering the submarine calm of one of the quietest places on Earth. That could have serious implications for marine mammals and fish that rely on sound for group cohesion, socializing, finding mates, navigating, and detecting threats.
- As we grow sensitive to plastics and other toxins that plague ocean species, we must remember that while noise is the one form of pollution that we cannot see, we can work together to turn down the volume.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Red flags abound as a warming Arctic opens up to shipping
- Ship traffic through the Arctic is expected to increase dramatically as global warming renders a growing proportion of the region ice-free.
- Conservationists warn that the higher number of vessels raises the risks of pollution, oil spills, and disturbances to marine mammals from propeller noise.
- They propose a slate of regulatory measures that could help mitigate the anticipated impacts, which could then be extended to other vulnerable maritime regions.

Cities need forests too: A call for forests amid our concrete jungles (commentary)
- More than half the world’s population lives in cities, and that’s set to rise to two-thirds – more than 6 billion people – by 2050. Yet we still depend on forests more than we think.
- Having wild places around is critical, not just for nature but also for people. A wealth of studies have shown that cities with plenty of trees feel like healthier, happier places than those without.
- While deforestation has many drivers, one underlying challenge is that society doesn’t value forests enough. That’s something we can – and need to – change as individuals and as a collective. It starts with spending time in forests, connecting with nature, and showing that we care.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

‘Ships, sonar and surveys’: Film explores impacts of a noisy ocean
- Sonar, air gun charges for oil and gas exploration, and ship traffic in the ocean can interfere with marine mammal communication, cause physiological problems and drive animals to strand on beaches.
- A new film, “Sonic Sea,” traces the risks of an increasingly noisy ocean to whales, dolphins and porpoises.
- The film is a finalist for the Best Science in Nature prize at the 2017 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival in Jackson, Wyoming.
- The winners will be announced Sept. 28.

Move to open U.S. Atlantic coast to oil drilling meets increased opposition
- In April, Trump issued an executive order aimed at implementing his so-called “America-First Offshore Energy Strategy,” which called for a review of the 2017-2022 Five Year Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program finalized under the Obama Administration and proposed that all U.S. waters be considered for offshore drilling.
- The executive order also instructed federal agencies to “streamline” the permitting process for “seismic research and data collection” and “expedite all stages of consideration” of Incidental Harassment Authorizations required under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
- A species of particular concern is the North Atlantic right whale, which is listed as critically endangered under the US Endangered Species Act. There are only about 500 of the whales left, and their only known calving ground is off the coast of the southeast US, including the area where seismic surveying has been proposed.

Manmade noise pollution even more prevalent in US protected areas than researchers expected
- About 14 percent of the land mass in the United States has been afforded some kind of legally protected status, and noise pollution is noticeable even in these more remote areas where manmade disturbances are supposed to be kept to a minimum.
- According to a study published this month in the journal Science, the noise pollution from airplanes, highways, industry, and resource extraction is encroaching ever further into U.S. protected areas designed to preserve habitat for biodiversity.
- Using baseline sound levels for each study area established by machine learning algorithms that took into account geospatial features of the area, the researchers determined that anthropogenic noise pollution exceeds three decibels (dB), essentially doubling background sound levels, in 63 percent of the nation’s protected areas.

Whalesong, interrupted
- Baleen whales broadcast complex songs over long distances underwater, but maritime noise pollution from ships and other sources is squeezing their ability to communicate.
- With regulatory and technical solutions to ocean noise slow to spread, some researchers are optimistic that whales themselves will be able to change their vocalizations to overcome the din.
- Meanwhile, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last week released a strategy to study and mitigate rising noise levels and their effect on marine life.

New study identifies acoustic sanctuaries for marine mammals
- A new study has identified some of acoustic sanctuaries off the coast of British Columbia in the hope that they may be protected.
- Researchers emphasize that these opportunity sites can be protected with little change to current shipping patterns, which makes them a relatively easy target for conservation.
- Seizing the opportunity to protect acoustic sanctuaries now, is invaluable to the longevity of protected marine mammals.

Noise: an invisible threat that harms wildlife, degrades habitats
- Researchers tested the independent impact of road noise on migratory birds, by setting up a “phantom road” in a forested region in southwest Idaho.
- The phantom road consisted of an array of speakers that played road noises at moderate volumes, simulating traffic on an actual road.
- In response to the noise, birds either left the phantom road areas, or they stayed, but at the cost of their health, the study found.

Energy Sprawl: Comparing biodiversity impacts of oil, gas and wind production

Energy has become a contentious and politicized topic, spurring activism, whether it be the fossil fuel divestment campaign, Keystone pipeline protests, or concern over wind turbine harm to birds. But whatever energy future we choose, two things are clear: an expanding human population will need more energy, and no matter what energy source we pick, […]
No longer ‘deaf as a stump’: researchers find turtles chirp, click, meow, cluck

Turtles communicate to synchronize hatching, socialize Turtles comprise one of the oldest living groups of reptiles, with hundreds of species found throughout the world. Many have been well-researched, and scientists know very specific things about their various evolutionary histories, metabolic rates, and the ways in which their sexes are determined. But there was one very […]
Cute animal picture of the day: pygmy killer whale saved after stranding

Transporting a stranded pygmy killer whale back to the wild. All photos by: Scubazoo. On Tuesday a female pygmy killer whale (Feresa attenuata) was found stranded on Tanjung Aru beach, in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo. After being moved to a swimming enclosure at a local resort for recuperation, the […]
Noise in oceans leads to ‘severe acoustic trauma’ in octopus, squid

Researchers have documented for years how noise pollution impacts dolphins in whales, but a new study in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment finds that even low intensity noise can severely injure cephalopods, which include octopus, squid, and cuttlefish. The injuries are bad enough to possibly lead to stranding and death, thereby providing a feasible […]

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