In September 2002 seventeen whales were stranded off the coast of the Canary Islands at a time when NATO was testing its active sonar system designed to detect silent enemy submarines. The suggestion has been made that the use of sonar caused these whales to strand. In fact, sonar is just one of a variety of anthropogenic undersea sounds, which, scientific research increasingly, suggests, impacts negatively on marine biodiversity. Pollution of an acoustic nature is currently omitted from traditional works on the protection of the marine environment and is as yet the subject of very little jurisprudential discussion. However the topic, which has received scientific attention for over 30 years, has recently been identified as a cause for concern and consequently, for action, within the parameters of a number of global and regional environmental instruments.
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