The ocean's fish, animal and marine mammal life are all under direct threat today by the world's
militaries, specifically the United States Navy.
The issue is noise pollution, which can physically disrupt and even kill sea animals. The US Navy, NATO and other
navies are balsting the world's oceans with enormous sound waves as part of their tracking systems to detect enemy
submarines.
Low, mid and high frequency active sonar, used by 60 percent of the US Navy's nearly 300 ships and submarines, is
introducing powerful and highly intrusive new sounds in the ocean environment, directly affecting the health and
well-being of all sea creatures. The sound levels are physically harmful to fish and marine mammals, and in many cases
deadly to whales, dolphins and other creatures through which hearing is their most important underwater communications, mating and food finding sense element.
Recently, the US Bush Administration has pushed through legistlation that exempts the US military from core provisions
of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, leaving the armed forces much freer to harm ocean marine mammal life in the course of using
underwater sonar.
The proliferation and use of sonar in the world's oceans is a major global environmental problem, affecting the survival of entire populations
of whales, dolphins and porpoises. Mass strandings have occured off the coast of Washington state in 2003, in the Canary Islands in 1985, 1986, 1989, 2001 and 2002, in the Bahamas in 2000, in the
US Virgin islands in 1998 and 1999, and in Greece in 1996. In July, 2004, researchers uncovered an extraordinary concentration of whale strandings near Yokosuka, Japan; the site of a
major US naval military base. The US military is planning to deploy active sonar use in nearly 80% of the world's oceans.
However, in October 2004, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for a halt to the development of high intensity active naval sonar. In November 2004, 16 of the
world's nations approved an international resolution calling for a curb on the use of military sonar and other underwater noise technology. In February 2005, a coalition of international organizations
petitioned NATO to protect marine life from needless harm during sonar exercises.
Today, international measures need to be put forth to stop the militarization of the world's oceans, as well as protect the sanctity, environment and well-being of the planet's marine (mammal) life.
The US military's deadly assault and attack on whales and dolphins, in particular, must be immediately terminated.
Finially, there is an overwhelming need to establish a global environmental authority with international criminal court jurisdiction to arrest, prosecute and incarcerate the military commanders and strategists who are
carrying out this wanton slaughter of what is, perhaps, the grandest and most defenseless species of life on Earth.
Steve Jones
Kapaa, Kauai
State of Hawaii
Hawaiian Islands
USA
12. Low Frequency Active Sonar
c/o Love Earth Network
5683 Midnight Pass Rd, #106
Siesta Key, Florida 34242 USA
Website: http://www.lfas.org
13. Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
Brookfield House
38 St Paul Street
Chippenham, Wiltshire, United Kingdom
SNL5 1LJ
European Union
Website: http://www.wdcs.org
