Case Study - Network for Business Sustainability

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Engaging the Community: A Knowledge Project Industry Self-Regulation By the early 1970s researchers suspected that noise from vessels was negatively affecting killer whales. Therefore, they developed an unofficial code of conduct while working around whales. Subsequently, growing public interest in killer whales led to an increasing concern by the developing whale watching industry, NGO environmental groups, and the scientific community, especially given a lack of sufficient regulations by American and Canadian governments. In 1988 The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, WA initiated a community-based adaptive management process for generating voluntary best practices for wildlife viewing that supported and enhanced the federal guidelines in each country. These guidelines set out specific vessel distances, vessel speeds, and the orientation of vessels relative to whales for viewing and approach practices for commercial operators. They also included matters that were not addressed by the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Canadian Fisheries Act regulations which merely prohibited the harassment of whales. Since the development of the guidelines, the international WWOANW, to which most operators in southern British Columbia belong, has been one of the most important ways for the industry to provide information about whale watching to the public and to regulate themselves in the absence of government legislation. The Best Practices Guidelines are seen as “the most comprehensive and detailed whale watching guidelines in the world” (Malcolm, 2003, p. 94). See Appendix for the 2006 WWOANW Best Practices Guidelines. Each year WWOANW holds membership meetings to discuss current issues and to adopt a new set of working guidelines to meet changing cetacean and human use conditions. The WWOANW consults with community groups such as the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, WA, commercial tour operators, local residents, and regional scientists. At annual meetings the members are updated on guideline changes, new scientific findings on potential whale impacts, and other information. Recommendations from these sources often result in adjustments to the Best Practices Guidelines. The Association also holds international driver trainings each spring to keep drivers updated on guideline changes, and in the case of new drivers to educate them on the Best Practices Guidelines. In 1993, due to the lack of government enforcement, The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, WA began operating the Soundwatch Boater Education Program (“Soundwatch”) in the boundary waters of the southern Vancouver Island and the San Juan Islands of Washington State. This area is the busiest killer whale watching region in the world. Soundwatch began distributing whale watching information and viewing guidelines to recreational boaters from patrol vessels operating in the area. Soundwatch has also provided Feedback Reports to WWOANW members concerning individual vessels that are piloted in ways that are contrary to the guidelines. The Feedback Reports are intended to help drivers improve their behaviour and to provide a basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the current guidelines. This program has operated mainly on the basis of private grants with some additional funding given inconsistently by WWOANW and the 2002 Canadian Marine Mammal Monitoring Project (M3). M3 is presently managed by the Veins of Life Watershed Society, a non-profit organization from Victoria, BC 8
Engaging the Community: A Knowledge Project with principal funding from the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans. M3 was modeled after and partnered with Soundwatch. M3 and Soundwatch function as trans-boundary counterparts, working together to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of both on-the-water-education and monitoring efforts. In 2001, a cooperative effort by Soundwatch, M3, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and the WWOANW resulted in the development of a set of voluntary guidelines for private boaters known as the Be Whale Wise Guidelines. These guidelines were revised and endorsed by the DFO and NMFS in 2002. WWOANW is generally willing to adopt precautionary principles. An example of this occurred in relation to the practice of “leapfrogging.” This is a manoeuvre that involves a whale watching vessel moving in a direction parallel to the movement of a whale pod but at a greater rate of speed. The leapfrogging vessel then turns and places itself across the anticipated path of the whales. Some researchers have suggested that creating a significant noise source directly in front of whales creates a risk of masking echolocation and reducing the whales’ foraging efficiency. While the full impact of leapfrogging remains uncertain, WWOANW chose to amend its guidelines and its members have changed their practices accordingly. However, like many other improvements in commercial whale watching, this change needs to be adopted by non-commercial whale watchers to be fully effective. There are considerably more private whale watchers than commercial ones and the evidence suggests that few of them are aware of the code of ethics developed by WWOANW. To effectively manage whale watching only through self- imposed guidelines, every vessel, whether commercial or recreational, must comply with the same rules. Even though the guidelines have been readily accepted by most commercial whale watching operators and drivers, they do not appear to bring about compliance among non-commercial boaters. Creating a uniform pattern of compliance among all users of the whale watching resource continues to be a challenge for both the industry and government. While further regulation, monitoring and enforcement may bring this about, education of the public is also likely to be effective. An important landmark in the acceptance of WWOANW Best Practice Guidelines occurred in Canada in 2004 when two tour operators were prosecuted for behavior contrary to the voluntary guidelines intended to prevent whale harassment. The Fossum and Maya cases (see Table 1) set a Canadian precedent for tour operators to strictly observe voluntary guidelines and ensure that they are in compliance with MMR. Since the prosecutions in the Fossum and Maya cases in Canada, both Canadian (DFO) and US (NMFS) enforcement officers have undergone Guideline Training Workshops and have met with WWOANW to make sure there is a general acceptance and understanding of them. The increased participation by government was demonstrated by the joint endorsement of the newest version of the voluntary guidelines by both NMFS and DFO. Operators’ Perspectives on the Industry and Regulation The peer pressure provided by Soundwatch and to some extent M3 helps to ensure compliance with the guidelines. Soundwatch and M3 are seen as excellent voluntary policing resources to ensure compliance 9
Page 1 and 2: Engaging the Community: Teaching Ca
Page 3 and 4: Engaging the Community: A Knowledge
Page 7: Engaging the Community: A Knowledge
Page 17: Engaging the Community: A Knowledge

Case Study - Network for Business Sustainability

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?