WOC Launches International Ocean Industry Working Group

The World Ocean Council’s newly formed Marine Sound Working Group is a collaborative industry forum focused on identifying and implementing real-world technical and operational solutions to understand and reduce potential negative impacts of sound from industrial activities on marine life.

Ocean businesses concerned with the marine sound issue are invited to the Sustainable Ocean Summit (SOS 2013) session on this complex challenge to help move forward with cross-sectoral collaboration and leadership in tackling the ocean sound issue.

The WOC Marine Sound Working Group will create business value and economies of scale in addressing marine sound by bringing together a diverse range of industries to:

•  Form partnerships with existing efforts on ocean sound and marine life.
•  Engage industries that generate sound but have been less involved to-date.
•  Enable responsible industries to be proactive rather than reactive to the evolving complexity in scientific findings and regulatory requirements.
• Discuss and seek tangible solutions and applied research strategies and priorities

 

The working group will kick off at the SOS 2103 2013 session and begin developing the its focus, likely to include:

• Undertaking education and outreach on marine sound and marine life among ocean industries.
• Promoting baseline data gathering and operations monitoring to assist in determining cumulative impacts.
• Identifying responsible business practices regarding marine sound, such as reducing sound input through quieting technologies and operational measures, and making industry monitoring data on animal presence, abundance and impacts available.
• Integrating passive acoustic and other monitoring efforts into ocean observing systems and platforms of opportunity.
•  Identifying and enabling applied research on behavior and physiological impacts, emphasizing sound sources that are less well known.

The Marine Sound Working Group is co-chaired by two of the world’s leading marine sound experts, Dr. Brandon Southall (SEA, Inc.) and John Young (CSA Sciences, Inc). The co-chairs are clearly aware of (and actively involved in) other efforts to understand and reduce the impacts of sound on marine life, including those of the Oil and Gas Producers Association (OGP) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The cross-sectoral WOC Working Group will be structured and focused to create synergies with the important efforts of industry, government and others.

Limited space is still available at the SOS 2013 for members of the ocean business community only.  (Please note that registration for non-business stakeholders closed on 28 February.)