Marine mammals struggling to feed their young are abandoning key habitats as underwater noise from human activity grows louder – a threat that's now been recognised by dozens of countries in an international push for quieter oceans.
At the UN Ocean Conference in Nice this week, 37 countries led by Canada and Panama signed the first global declaration devoted solely to reducing human-caused ocean noise.
The effort targets the growing din from ships and industrial activity that is disturbing marine life around the world.
“We’re aware of about 130 different marine animals that are negatively impacted by underwater noise,” Mollie Anderson, senior campaign strategist at Canadian NGO Oceans North, told RFI in Nice.
“In some instances, they’re leaving areas altogether where noise is sustained and consistent.”
Sound travels more than four times faster in saltwater than in air, reaching vast distances and interfering with how marine animals communicate, hunt and navigate.
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Arctic under pressure
The problem is especially acute in the Arctic, where melting sea ice is opening new shipping lanes in waters that were once among the quietest in the world.
“In the Northwest Passage alone, there’s been a 30 percent increase in ship traffic since 2016,” Anderson explained. “That is having a significant impact on the marine ecosystem in the Arctic.”
Species like belugas and narwhals, which rely on sound to survive, are already changing their behaviour.
“These specied are having a hard time communicating with each other, performing bottom dives and other essential functions to feed themselves and to take care of their babies,” she said.
The disruption is not only ecological – it’s also affecting people. As noise drives marine mammals away from their usual habitats, indigenous communities are finding it harder to hunt the animals they have long depended on.
“Many of our Indigenous people, particularly Inuit in the Canadian Arctic, are reliant on marine mammals for food security and cultural continuity,” Anderson said.
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Simple steps, urgent need
The new declaration – known as the High Ambition Coalition for a Quiet Ocean – is voluntary, but calls for quieter ship design, noise limits in marine protected areas and shared access to sound-monitoring technology.
It also aims to help countries with fewer resources to monitor and manage ocean noise.
Some of the most effective changes are also the simplest, Anderson said. “Even a reduction in speed of a few knots can make a big decibel difference.”
Other measures include re-routing ships away from sensitive zones, using more efficient propellers and switching to electric or hybrid engines.
In a recent pilot project, Oceans North measured the sound of an electric vessel using hydrophones – underwater microphones – and found it was significantly quieter than a conventional ship.
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While some ports have introduced voluntary guidelines, regulation is needed. “There’s lots of voluntary measures that procurement and ports can adopt, but there’s no real regulation right now,” Anderson said.
“We regulate the roads that we drive on. I don’t see why it should be different for ships in certain areas. They should go faster or slower ... That just seems like practical and good public policy to me.”
Panama Environment Minister Juan Carlos Navarro said the issue has been “sidelined in global environmental discourse” for too long.
The coalition, he said, signals a commitment to “act decisively" to protect marine biodiversity from what he called an "invisible yet powerful threat".
