USA Set to Massacre Marine Mammals
Rich Winkel
Defence bill erodes marine protection
Congress set to loosen restrictions on offshore research.
12 November 2003
REX DALTON
The new law changes the definition of injury and harassment.
Scientific projects may be able to evade an environmental law
designed to protect marine mammals, under legislation nearing passage
in Congress.
Environmental groups have criticized the weakening of protection
for whales, dolphins and sea lions. They fear the species may be
damaged by the use of sonar and explosives used in offshore research1.
But some oceanographers welcome the loosening of restrictions on
the sound-generating devices with which they conduct undersea
geological studies.
The legislative provision to alter the 30-year-old Marine Mammal
Protection Act (MMPA) was included in the Department of Defense
$400-billion funding bill for 2004, approved on 7 November by the
House of Representatives. The measure now goes to the Senate, where
it is expected to win approval quickly to be signed into law by
President George Bush.
An official at environmental group the Natural Resources Defense
Council (NRDC) called the legislative change "the greatest single
rollback of marine mammal protections in the last 30 years". The
NRDC has previously used the act to file lawsuits restricting
military sonar testing.
The NRDC and other environmentalists argue that the department is
exploiting political sympathies following the terrorist attacks on
the United States, and continued military campaigns overseas, to
erode the legislation. "They are asking us to sacrifice our natural
heritage under the guise of national security," says the NRDC's
legislative director Karen Wayland.
Department of Defense officials were unavailable for comment. But
in a statement, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced that
the move "will provide greater flexibility to train our fighting
forces in a realistic manner and allow us to carefully test and
deploy critical technologies".
Military manoeuvres
The Department of Defense bill gives federally funded scientists
and military researchers much broader latitude to conduct studies.
It changes the definition of injury or harassment to species, as
now provided for in the MMPA.
The bill also allows the defence secretary to exempt a military
activity from the act. And it loosens the way in which provisions
of the Endangered Species Act, regarding critical habitat, are
applied to any military activity, research or otherwise.
"It is called a legislative fix," says John Hildebrand, a marine
biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla,
California. He says that there is mounting evidence for the deleterious
effects of noise-generating research on species.
Rex Dalton is the West Coast correspondent for the journal Nature.
Additional reporting by Tom Clarke References
1. Jepson, P. D. et al. Was sonar responsible for a spate of whale
deaths after an Atlantic military exercise? Nature, 425, 575 - 576,
doi:10.1038/425575a (2003).|Article|
Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2003