Noise pollution at sea

• Main Author: Karomo, Adelaide Aquiline
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Nelson Mandela University 2020
• Subjects: Marine pollution; Greenland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/48091; http://vital.seals.ac.za:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/vital:40470

Marine species heavily rely on sound to perform day to day functions and, since the advent of industrialisation, anthropogenic noise in the marine environment has been on the increase and is expected to increase further as countries continue to develop. The impacts of anthropogenic noise on marine species have been deeply scrutinised especially by the international community and it has been established that this humaninduced noise at sea must be reduced to conserve marine biodiversity. A background of the major contributors to anthropogenic noise is discussed, as well as the international instruments regulating them. For instance the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (hereinafter referred to as “the UNCLOS”),1 is discussed because it is the primary instrument regulating activities at sea and the protection of the marine environment and the species therein. South Africa has ratified the UNCLOS and is under a legal obligation to comply with its provisions by implementing them into domestic rules and regulations. Furthermore, the applicable global and regional instruments dealing with marine environmental protection from anthropogenic noise are weighed against the national South African legislation and this assessment serves the purpose of ascertaining the extent to which South Africa has complied with its international law obligation. The dissertation goes a step further by identifying and assessing the efforts made by foreign jurisdictions, specifically Australia, Greenland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. This determination is meant to determine whether there are lessons South Africa can learn, if any, from these jurisdictions in order to improve its current marine environmental protection legislation in fulfilment of international law. The dissertation also shows that there is need to improve the South African environmental protection legislation by taking into account some of the developments made by international organisations, such as the International Maritime Organisation (hereinafter referred to as “the IMO”) and by foreign jurisdictions. These improvements to South African legislation would comprise of adopting activity-specific regulations, such as the IMO’s guidelines on minimising noise emitted by commercial shipping vessels and the United Kingdom’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee (hereinafter referred to as the “JNCC”) guidelines on seismic surveys. The regulations adopted by the international community are especially essential to fill the gap as far as the South African regulation of noise emitted by offshore renewable energy processes and naval operations are concerned.