Progress report for
Reducing ship strikes to vulnerable whales
Achievement at a glance
Achievements in relation to addressing high ship strike risk areas and advancing the implementation of IWCs ship strike strategy include:Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand: monitoring and analyses of adherence to the voluntary ship speed protocol, in place to help protect a very vulnerable population of Brydes whales, has been undertaken by IFAW, demonstrating high levels of commitment by industry and highlighting areas for follow-up, including outreach to shipping sectors and specific companies, and awareness-raising. Only one whale is known to have died from ship strike since the protocl was introduced.
Hellenic Trench, Greece: IFAW facilitated meetings between Greek marine biologists and Greek Ministries to discuss next steps on a ship routeing proposal to IMO to reduce risks to endangered sperm whales. The Hellenic Trench was presented as a case study of at an IWC-IUCN-ACCOBAMS ship strike workshop in Messina, Greece. Recommendations from the workshop regarding the suggested re-routeing options were provided to the IWC Scientific Committee.
Dondra Head, Sri Lanka: IFAW and IWC attended a workshop on the National Stakeholder Consultation, Maritime Activities off the Coast of Sri Lanka: the case of the blue whale population near Dondra Head in Colombo organised jointly by the Sri Lankan MEPA and IMO. Presentations showed that the proportion of shipping traffic choosing to transit outside of the IMO Traffic Separation Scheme has increased due to both human safety concerns and awareness of the ship strike risks.
Scientific research: IFAW funded a scientific paper by Russell Leaper on The role of slower vessel speeds in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, underwater noise and collision risk to whales, which shows that an achievable 10-15% reduction in global ship speeds would likely reduce the number of whales killed by ship strikes or affected by shipping noise by half.
Challenges faced in implementation
Shipping company outreach: Progress in securing buy-in and commitments from international shipping companies to reduce ship strikes has been limited. This is an important part of the work as the support of major shipping interests will increase confidence by countries with high ship strike risk areas to take action, particularly at the IMO.Greece: there have been a number of positive meetings with the relevant Greek officials, but Greece is yet to submit a paper with re-routeing options to the IMO.
Sri Lanka: External factors such as the political crisis and terrorist attacks have prevented progress in following up on the IMO workshop in December 2018.
Beneficiaries
1. Cetaceans
2. Marine environment
3. Coastal communities
4. Whale watching industry
5. shipping industry (Maritime safety)