Noise pollution is harming sea life, needs to be prioritised, scientists say

By SalM on February 22, 2021 in News Articles

Far beneath the ocean surface, a cacophony of industrial noise is disrupting marine animals’ ability to mate, feed and even evade predators, scientists warn.

With rumbling ships, hammering oil drills and booming seismic survey blasts, humans have drastically altered the underwater soundscape – in some cases deafening or disorienting whales, dolphins and other marine mammals that rely on sound to navigate, researchers report in a metastudy published online on Thursday (Feb 4) and in the Friday edition of the journal Science that examines more than 500 research papers.

Even the cracking of glaciers calving into polar oceans and the rattle of rain falling on the water’s surface can be heard deep under the sea, said lead author Carlos Duarte, a marine scientist at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia.

“It’s a chronic problem that certainly weakens the animals all the way from individuals to populations,” Duarte said in an interview.

“This is a growing problem, one that is global in scope.”

These noises and their impacts need more attention from scientists and policymakers, particularly the effects on sea turtles and other reptiles, seabirds, seals, walruses and plant-eating mammals such as manatees, the study says.

The international team of researchers called for a global regulatory framework for measuring and managing ocean noise.

Much of the human-caused noise should be easy to reduce, Duarte said. For example, measures such as building quieter ship propellers and hulls and using drilling techniques that do not cause bubbles and water vibrations could cut noise pollution in half, he said. Having the world use more renewable energy would lessen the need to drill for oil and gas.

The benefits to marine life could be dramatic, he said, noting a resurgence in marine activity during April 2020 when shipping noise, typically loudest near coastlines, died down as countries went into lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic.

But humans have not only added noise to the ocean, they have also eliminated natural sounds, the study found.

Whaling in the 1900s, for example, removed millions of whales from the world’s oceans – along with much of their whale song. And the chirp and chatter around coral reefs is growing quieter as more corals die from ocean warming, acidification and pollutio

Climate change has also changed the soundscape in parts of the ocean that are warming by altering the mix of animals living there, along with the noises they make.

Oceanographer Kate Stafford at the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory praised the timing of the metastudy, as the United Nations calls on governments to set aside 30 per cent of the world’s land and sea areas for conservation.

“The review makes it clear that, to actually reduce anthrophony (human noise) and aim for a well-managed future… we will need global cooperation among governments,” Stafford said.

IMO and WISTA launch Women in Maritime Survey

By SalM on February 19, 2021 in News Articles

To examine the proportion and distribution of women working in the maritime sector, from support roles to executive level positions, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and the Women’s International Shipping & Trading Association (WISTA International) have launched an inaugural Women in Maritime – IMO and WISTA International Survey 2021.

The survey is part of a series of activities aimed at laying the groundwork for further discussions on how to build a more diverse workforce in the maritime sector. The data obtained by the survey will help build a picture of diversity and gender equality in the industry.

The study launch follows the 2020 signing of an IMO-WISTA Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that MoU aims to set a framework for both IMO and WISTA to promote gender diversity and inclusion as vital factors in providing a sustainable future for the shipping industry worldwide.

IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim said: “Diversity in maritime matters. Empowering women fuels thriving economies across the world, spurs growth and development, and benefits everyone working in the global maritime community and beyond. We need solid data on female participation, as this will enable us to track and quantify our ambitions in what has traditionally been a male-dominated sector. I am pleased to invite all Member States and maritime stakeholders to take part in this important survey.”

Despina Panayiotou Theodosiou, president at WISTA International said: “Having comparable data is a key component when creating programs and proposing policies that will increase the participation of women in maritime. It is an essential step forward in creating a more diverse and inclusive environment in our sector. With our global reach we can amplify the strength of this survey to show real results and back our drive towards an inclusive maritime sector.”

Other initiatives under the IMO-WISTA MoU include developing a database of female experts in a wide range of maritime subjects who are available for speaking engagements. This will contribute towards more diverse panels.

Another key objective of the MoU is to strengthen cooperation and share best practices between the IMO-established regional Women in Maritime Associations (WIMAs) and WISTA International’s National WISTA Associations (NWAs).

In 2019, the IMO Assembly adopted Resolution A.1147(31) on Preserving the legacy of the World Maritime theme for 2019 and Achieving a Barrier-Free Working Environment for Women in the Maritime Sector (link) which urges firm action in coming years to advance gender equality throughout the maritime sector and help create an enabling work environment that embraces equality, diversity and reduces bias. The resolution was adopted following a year of action to promote diversity under the World Maritime theme, “Empowering women in the maritime community.”

WOMEN IN MARITIME SURVEY

The IMO and WISTA International survey is open to IMO Member States, IGOs, NGOs, public and private companies in the maritime sector and maritime training establishments. There are two separate surveys to be completed by Member States and industry.

To access the survey click here https://www.research.net/r/IndustryIMOWISTA

Developing research in maritime regions through innovation ecosystems

By SalM on February 17, 2021 in News Articles

The EMBRC-ERIC (European Marine Biological Resource Centre) explores the need to develop research activities by focusing on innovation ecosystems

As research develops with augmented knowledge and understandings, scientists are becoming increasingly specialised and the need for interconnectivity between a variety of diverse disciplines, such as biology, ecology, and structural and analytical chemistry, is more crucial than ever before. Communication and collaboration between scientific specialisations and companies at the regional level is essential to harness the industrial and innovation potential of Europe’s maritime regions.

To support the alliances that lead to discoveries and positive impacts on our environments and ourselves, research facilities, such as European Research Infrastructures (RI), have been developed. RIs are sector specific; they provide the resources and services necessary to support and advance research and foster innovation in their given field. The European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC-ERIC) is a distributed research infrastructure that supports research in the fields of marine biology and ecology. With a network of renowned marine biological stations and institutes across Europe, EMBRC is able to provide access to marine organisms, marine ecosystems, and the facilities necessary to study them.

Marine biological resources have become major targets for the biotechnology sector, with application in fields such as aquaculture, production of food, nutraceutics, pharmaceutics and cosmetics, agronomy, and environmental health assessment. Each marine station that makes up the EMBRC consortium has connections to its region and government at local level. Biotechnology is a growing sector in many peripheral maritime regions, composed mainly of start-ups, small and medium enterprises, and only a few larger companies. This sector is thus of growing importance economically, while also being a source of high-value jobs in regions that traditionally have been less developed from a technological perspective.

The resources that EMBRC brings to its users have the potential to enrich both industry and the regions where EMBRC facilities are located. To build up the socioeconomic potential of the maritime regions of Europe, EMBRC emphasises marine biodiversity as an important resource for industrial applications in the health, food, energy and environment remediation sectors. Companies recognise the potential of blue technologies and bio-economy, though they may lack the tools and resources for the research that needs to be developed in the marine field. EMBRC pools resources and skills, offering access to expertise, facilities, and equipment that many SMEs cannot afford, enabling them to innovate and bring new products to market. Furthermore, as a platform for public and private collaboration, companies receive access to research activities best performed by academia which complement private-sector research, accelerating the development of the blue bioeconomy.

In order to enable the regional innovation ecosystems, EMBRC is working to link researchers, companies, science parks, and company incubators around its platforms and facilities. These maritime regions which boast RIs and stimulate their use through local grants are thus beginning to act as catalysts to attract companies and investment. Such activity enables research that was not previously possible and results in higher visibility for the regions. The onsite expertise and resources offered by EMBRC are important for solving problematic bottlenecks and help develop the economy of the regions themselves. Integrating the RI at the local level increases the socio-economic impact of the RI by becoming a cornerstone of local economies.

Enabling local innovation ecosystems leads to the reduction of gaps in research that exist today. Maritime regions are given a boost in their activities and, in return, provide resources to companies and research infrastructure, which in turn, increases the local innovation potential. Furthermore, the international nature of the RIs gives the potential for the mobility of knowledge across disciplines. The transfer of technology developed in the region not only has the capability to increase but also has the potential to spread across multiple regions and countries, creating new synergies, co-operations, and markets, giving the regions potentially global reach.

Open access web app enables the detection of floating marine litter

By SalM on February 16, 2021 in News Articles

Floating marine plastic is a serious threat to the conservation of marine ecosystems. For instance, marine plastics can cause damage to marine animals through ingestion, suffocation, restraint and injury. Floating litter is found mostly in the great gyres – streams of circular currents which spin and capture litter – but also in coastal waters, waterways and semi-closed seas.

Researchers from the University of Barcelona have developed an open-access web app – ‘MARLIT’ – which enables the detection and quantification of floating plastic with a reliability of 80 per cent. The app is based on an algorithm designed using deep learning techniques.

Historically, direct observations from boats or planes have been the basis for assessing the impact of floating marine litter. However, the sheer great ocean area makes it challenging for researchers to advance with monitoring studies.

“Automatic aerial photography techniques combined with analytical algorithms are more efficient protocols for the control and study of this kind of pollutant,” said Odei Garcia-Garin, PhD candidate and first author of the Environmental Pollution study. “However, automated remote sensing of these materials is at an early stage.

“There are several factors in the ocean [waves, wind, and clouds] that harden the detection of floating litter automatically with the aerial images of the marine surface. This is why there are only a few studies that made the effort to work on algorithms to apply to this new research context.”

The researchers designed a new algorithm to automate the quantification of floating plastic from aerial photography, using deep learning techniques and more than 38,000 aerial images of the Mediterranean coast in Catalonia. Deep learning is an approach to marine learning often used in computer vision applications.

The algorithm was tested using images of the marine surface collected by drones and planes and reached 80 per cent accuracy.

The algorithm has been incorporated into MARLIT, an open-access web app. MARLIT enables the analysis of individual images, as well as analysis of segments of images, identifying the presence of floating litter and estimating their density using image metadata. In future, it could be incorporated into a remote sensor such as a drone to fully automate the process.

Earlier this month, a research report demonstrated that underwater seagrass meadows may trap, extract and carry marine plastic debris to shore, thereby helping to remove plastic litter from the sea.

Source: eandt.theiet.org

Marine Institute Celebrates Women in Science

By SalM on February 15, 2021 in News Articles

The Marine Institute is celebrating the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on 11th February 2021, by highlighting the many brilliant women who play transformative and ambitious roles in understanding, exploring, protecting and sustainably managing the wealth of our oceans.

“The Marine Institute recognises our people as a critical enabler of success, and we are committed to supporting a diverse workforce and a culture of high performance driven by our people. Just as the ocean supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems, the Marine Institute values our diverse workforce,” said Patricia Orme, Director of Corporate Services at the Marine Institute.

The Marine Institute has a staff of 234 employees and supports a strong workforce of female employees at 51%. The organisation continues to recognise that its employees’ skills, experience, diversity and passion for the marine are central to the work that is undertaken for the government and other partners.

“Almost 70% of the women working at the Marine Institute work in roles that deliver key services centred around science, technical analysis and research including areas of oceanography & ocean climate, fisheries ecosystems and advisory roles, marine environment and food safety and the development of applications. We also have women working in policy, innovation and research, maritime development and corporate roles. We are extremely proud to note that 80% of our female employees hold bachelor, masters or doctorate level qualifications,” Patricia Orme added.

From the 8th – 12th February 2021, the Marine Institute will share photos, animations and profiles of female scientists, sharing their study and career paths, the work they do at the Marine Institute and the important contribution their work delivers. Follow #WomenInScience on the Marine Institute’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to meet some of our female scientists, learn about their work and their many successes.

The International Day of Women and Girls in Science Forum has been one of the flagship events of the United Nations, since its inception in 2016. It is a key event for women and girls in science, science experts, policy-makers and diplomats to share their vision, expertise and best practices to achieve internationally agreed development goals, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. According to data from the UN Scientific Education and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 30% of researchers worldwide are women and approximately 35% of all students in STEM-related fields in higher education are women.

Source: afloat.ie

Seymour Marine Discovery Center offers new marine science virtual expeditions

By SalM on February 11, 2021 in News Articles

The Seymour Marine Discovery Center at UCSC’s Long Marine Laboratory is launching a new “virtual expeditions” program for marine science enthusiasts. The program, called “Scientists Saving the Oceans,” is part of the Seymour Center’s efforts to provide distance learning activities for the public during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The first expedition, “Protecting Dolphins and Whales from Oceanic Noise,” will take participants behind the scenes with researchers in the Marine Mammal Physiology Project headed by Terrie Williams, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz and director of research initiatives at the Seymour Center.

Facilitated live through Zoom, the expedition consists of six engaging 90-minute classes. Each class session includes live-streaming time with staff and resident animals at Long Marine Laboratory. The classes begin February 8 and are limited to 20 participants. Registration form and additional details are available online.

Participants in the virtual expedition will get to interact with Long Marine Lab’s expert animal trainers and researchers to learn how they care for dolphins and seals and train them to voluntarily participate in conservation science; observe researchers in action and learn how new technologies are developed to investigate animals in the wild; and understand how studies done at the lab underpin field research aimed at protecting narwhals and other marine mammal populations around the world.

“We want to show people how we work with the resident animals, what we learn from them, and how we are able to apply that information to understand the impacts that human disturbances are having on animals in the wild,” Williams said.

Since her appointment in September as the inaugural director of research initiatives for the Seymour Center, Williams has been working to create and develop public programs at the Seymour Center that highlight the work of researchers at UCSC’s Institute of Marine Sciences. She said faculty are excited about explaining their work to the public, and being forced online by the pandemic has created new opportunities.

“A lot of us who do field research have photos, videos, and other documentation of what we are seeing in the environment year after year, and it’s an amazing resource. We are the frontline workers for the environment and are witnessing what is happening to this planet. Our scientists have stories to tell about marine life and the marine environment—these are passionate people who are trying to save the oceans, and we want to bring their stories and their science to the public,” Williams said.

To develop the Scientists Saving the Oceans program, Williams worked closely with Beau Richter, head trainer for the Marine Mammal Physiology Project, and Kevin Keedy, youth programs manager at the Seymour Center. Keedy and Richter helped transform the center’s popular Ocean Explorers summer camp into an online virtual program last summer, and Seymour Center staff have been creating a variety of distance learning programs to support teachers and families with virtual visits to the Seymour Center.

The center is offering a variety of other programs in virtual formats while its physical site remains closed to the public due to the pandemic. These include the Science Sundays lecture series; ocean-themed celebrations such as the upcoming Elephant Seal Week (Feb. 21-27), featuring at-home activities, lectures, and interviews with scientists; the Labside Chats series of online conversations with scientists; and the members-only Aquaria Explorations.

The Seymour Marine Discovery Center is a community-supported marine science education center at the UC Santa Cruz Coastal Science Campus. The Seymour Center is dedicated to educating people about the role scientific research plays in the understanding and conservation of the world’s oceans.

Waverider Buoy Research Project to Measure How Extreme Storms Impact on the Coast of Ireland

By SalM on February 10, 2021 in News Articles

A research project led by coastal and ocean scientists in NUI Galway and the Marine Institute involves the deployment of a combination of smart buoys and time-lapse imaging to measure storm impacts and support the development of coastal flood and erosion defences.

The project, Brandon Bay on the Dingle Peninsula, Co Kerry, involves:

• A new waverider buoy provided by Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland to measure wave height, wave direction, wave period, surface currents, and water temperature as well as storm impact
• Data being made available to view or download on the Marine Institute supported website Digital Ocean, a web portal to view data collected in and around Ireland’s maritime zone.
• The installation of a shoreline monitoring system along Brandon Bay at three sites, which will capture images of the beach every 10 minutes during daylight hours over the next 12 months, to identify the time periods when wave run-up is high enough to reach the dune toe and potentially cause coastal erosion. This research is funded by Geological Survey Ireland.

Dr Eugene Farrell, Discipline of Geography and Ryan Institute’s Centre for Ocean Research and Exploration (COREx), NUI Galway, said: “We want to improve existing coastal change models by developing better insights into why does change occur and how much change will occur if we dial up climate projections for rising sea levels and storminess. To answer these questions we require process-response coastal models and these are only possible if nearshore observations from wave buoys such as the one in Brandon Bay are deployed over long time periods to capture all the seasons.

“We already know that changes along the coast from elevated storm surge and wave run-up result in changes in seabed and beach elevations. The data captured by the waverider will play an integral part in dismantling the important connections between different storm types such as size, direction, duration, clustering and coastal response that allows us to share real time ocean observations that can be used to address coastal erosion and coastal flood protection.

Alan Berry, Manager of Marine Research Infrastructures at the Marine Institute said, “The wave buoy at Brandon Bay will enable researchers to observe and understand how our ocean is changing and determine how to respond to current and future patterns of change. Open access to this data on Ireland’s Digital Ocean website is valuable to climate researchers in Ireland and across Europe.”

The Brandon Bay long-term waverider project is co-led by Dr Eugene Farrell, Discipline of Geography, Sheena Parsons, Earth and Ocean Sciences, and Dr Stephen Nash and Andi Egon, Civil Engineering in NUI Galway, and Alan Berry and Conall O’Malley from the Marine Institute with support from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland.

In September 2020, a Coastal Change Technical Working Group was established within the Irish government and tasked with overseeing the development of a scoping report on a national coastal change management strategy. They have envisaged that the scoping report will address issues related to ‘baseline and other data capture and research requirements to inform developing, implementing and monitoring a national coastal management strategy, to include potential damages assessment’.

Dr Eugene Farrell adds: “We feel it is our responsibility as coastal scientists to provide the requisite baseline information and recommendations to guide future research along the coast in order to fill knowledge gaps. This is an integral part of the Brandon Bay Waverider project and can be used as a demonstration project so that future investment in coastal infrastructure can be identified.

“Cumulatively, our approach requires a large team of experts to work together. The Maharees in Brandon Bay is already becoming a hub for coastal science thanks to the active community group in the area, the Maharees Conservation Association. There is an urgent need to increase our understanding of coastal change so that that we can better protect our coastal communities and design conservation plans for coastal ecosystems whose dynamic boundaries move in response to changing climate conditions.”

The Brandon Bay Waverider project is supported by the Marine Institute, NUI Galway and MaREI, the SFI Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine research and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland.

Wave data results from the Brandon Bay Waverider project can be viewed here

Photo: The wave buoy pictured after deployment in Brandon Bay on the 1, December 2020. Photo: Eugene Farrell, NUI Galway

About the Waverider Buoy

The data from the buoy is being used to validate a state-of-the-art high-resolution coastal erosion modelling system comprising of wave, tide and sediment transport models that is under co-development in Civil Engineering, Earth and Ocean Sciences and Geography disciplines at NUI Galway and the Marine Institute since early 2019. The key attraction of these specialised numerical ocean models is their predictive capability. The model predictions are first tested against real-time observations in the bay and then tested for different climate change scenarios such as rising water levels or increasing wave heights.

For example, once the model is validated using the wave buoy observations the project team can test outcomes using the OPW sea level rise scenarios: (1) conservative Mid-Range Future Scenario which uses a sea-level rise of 0.5m by the year 2100 and (2) a High-End Future Scenario, which uses the maximum projected sea-level rise of 1.05m for the year 2100.

Superimposed on these changing sea levels the group can investigate how extreme storms and wave heights will impact the coast and determine how these impacts will be manifested on the coast, such as rates of shoreline retreat or increasing vulnerability of coastal communities and infrastructure.

The yellow spherical wave rider is one metre in diameter, is equipped with an antenna and light and is anchored to the seabed by a mooring. The light will flash yellow for five seconds every 20 seconds in hours of darkness. An accelerometer mounted within the buoy registers the rate at which the buoy is rising or falling with the waves. This type of ‘heave, pitch, and roll buoy’ is the most commonly used buoy for measuring waves in deep water. It measures the surface height and slope in different orthogonal directions to yield the horizontal and vertical displacements of the buoy.

The Brandon Bay Waverider Acknowledgements

Marine Institute & Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland

The Marine Institute, supported by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, have been instrumental in the execution of this project. They have been very generous with their time (research-in-kind) and sharing their expertise and equipment. We would especially like to acknowledge the leadership of Alan Berry, Section Manager, Marine Research Infrastructures and Conall O’Malley, both from the Marine Institute.

The Marine Institute is a State agency responsible for marine research, technology development and innovation in Ireland whose remit is: “to undertake, to coordinate, to promote and to assist in marine research and development and to provide such services related to research and development, that in the opinion of the Institute, will promote economic development and create employment and protect the marine environment.” This project exemplifies how scientific progress can be made when academics link up with management agencies like the Marine Institute.

The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland is Ireland’s national energy agency aiming to create a cleaner energy future by making Ireland’s energy sustainable, secure, affordable and clean. SEAI supports the Irish offshore renewable energy sector by advising the government on policy, offering grant support schemes, developing test site infrastructure, and providing information through the Ocean Energy Ireland portal. The Brandon Bay wave rider provided by SEAI will be part of the wave monitoring network of coastal buoys operated on behalf of SEAI by the Marine Institute.

The Marine Institute work with P&O Maritime Logistics who co-led the technical parts of the deployment including the installation of the base station and also the actual deployment.

NUI Galway

The NUI Galway Research Office provided funding support. This office is part of the Office for the Vice President for Research and works closely with the Innovation Office, the Researcher Development Centre and other professional services supporting the NUI Galway research community. We would especially like to acknowledge the support of Aengus Parsons, Director of the Research Office and Professor Lokesh Joshi, Vice President for Research for their support.

MaREI

MaREI is the SFI Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine research and innovation co-ordinated by the Environmental Research Institute (ERI) at University College Cork and also based in NUI Galway. We would especially like to acknowledge the support of Dr Stephen Nash in Civil Engineering in NUI Galway. The data from the wave buoy are an integral part of an ongoing MaREI funded PhD programme in NUI Galway.

Maharees Conservation Association and partners

The ongoing coastal and ocean research is not possible without the support of the Maharees community. We are very excited to contribute to our scientific understanding of coastal and ocean dynamics in the bay area with the hope that the results will support ongoing efforts by the community to build their resilience to pressures from storms and people. We would especially like to acknowledge Mr Paddy Buckley and his family for allowing us to install the base station in their home in the Maharees. The NUI Galway team would also like to thank Kerry County Council, National Parks and Wildlife Service and OPW for supporting coastal research in the area.

Source: afloat.ie

We need a global movement to transform ocean science for a better world

By SalM on February 9, 2021 in News Articles

The ocean is our planet’s largest life-support system. It stabilizes climate; stores carbon; produces oxygen; nurtures biodiversity; directly supports human well-being through food, mineral, and energy resources; and provides cultural and recreational services. The value of the ocean economy speaks to its importance: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that by 2030, $3 trillion USD will be generated annually from ocean sectors such as transportation, fishing, tourism, and energy (1). Unsustainable resource extraction, pollution, climate change, and habitat destruction are on the rise and affecting many parts of the world’s oceans (2). The ocean is rapidly changing, and yet the ways in which these changes will play out are not yet clear.

Although improved management and conservation have helped to reduce threats and restore some key ecosystems, the basic benefits that people receive from a healthy ocean are in overall decline (3). If left unchecked, a growing and resource-hungry human population will add additional pressures on the ocean. Scientific research, experimentation, data collection, monitoring, and modeling provide the knowledge, frameworks, and evidence needed to model and explore the environmental consequences of policy and development proposals and thus to chart a sustainable future ocean.

The current scale, pace, and practice of ocean scientific discovery and observation are not keeping up with the changes in ocean and human conditions. We need fundamental changes in the way that researchers work with decision makers to co-create knowledge that will address pressing development problems. Researchers need to share their data more freely and sooner so that their work can inform decisions in near real time. Academia, government, and industry need to find new and better ways to collaborate and innovate. Huge gaps in scientific capacity and capability around the world will require that we fundamentally change the way we train and employ researchers from developing countries. Above all, we need to dramatically expand the breadth of disciplines that are directly involved in new transdisciplinary ocean research.

Marine mammalogy must battle against unpaid work, argues petition

By SalM on February 8, 2021 in News Articles

Hundreds of scientists worldwide have petitioned an international marine-mammalogy society to take a stand against unpaid positions such as internships and work experience placements, arguing that uncompensated work presents barriers to diversity and inclusion within the discipline.

The petition, which was signed by 727 marine-mammal researchers and others, was sent to the Society for Marine Mammalogy (SMM) in July requesting that the society change its code of ethics “to reflect that all workers in the field of marine mammal science should be compensated for their labor” and to bar any advertising on its website for unpaid internships. The petition had circulated for about a month on Twitter and on a public listserv for marine-mammal science, called MARMAM.

The petition has ignited heated discussion on the listserv and elsewhere about the value of unpaid work and of diversity in science. Charles Littnan, the society’s president, says that its board of directors will wait until the issue cools down before considering whether to add guidance about pay and diversity to the society’s code of ethics. “We have taken the petition seriously,” says Littnan. He says that the membership is discussing it this month.

Some unpaid positions in marine mammalogy have requirements specific to field-based research; among these are full-time internships that last for months in remote locations. But the issues that the petition addresses, including how unpaid positions limit the diversity of junior researchers in any field, are widespread. Data are not available on the number of unpaid positions across all scientific disciplines worldwide, but anecdotally, they are thought to be numerous. The petition authors note that large US marine-science and conservation organizations — including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the wildlife charity WWF — employ unpaid workers.

A 2014 report by the Royal Society in London, found that scientists and researchers who had economically advantaged backgrounds were more likely to enter the scientific workforce and to succeed professionally¹.

The SMM petition was co-organized by Eiren Jacobson, an ecologist at the University of St Andrews, UK; Margaret Siple, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara; and Chloe Malinka, a zoophysiologist at Aarhus University in Denmark. They say that the idea for the petition grew out of this year’s #ShutDownSTEM and #Shut Down Academia initiatives that developed from the Black Lives Matter movement. Scientists and academic researchers worldwide ceased work for a day on 10 June to protest against anti-Black racism. White scientists and academics were asked to quietly reflect on what they could do to address systemic racism. The three petition organizers say that the petition is their response to that question.

Junior scientists in marine mammalogy are expected to have at least one or two unpaid research experiences to qualify for a graduate programme, Siple says. Students who must pay for their studies, or who have families to support, are pushed out of the discipline because they cannot afford to work in unpaid positions, the organizers say.

All three of the petition’s organizers have worked as unpaid interns. Malinka’s food and lodging were provided when she did a three-month internship in 2011 in a European nation, and the non-monetary support was the only reason that she could afford to work without compensation, she says. But not everyone can afford to do so: “If you have a family depending on you, you wouldn’t be able to do that,” Siple says (see ‘Find a work placement that works’).

The organizers wanted their SMM petition to reach beyond scientists who had successfully navigated unpaid positions. “We explicitly invited people to sign the petition who were considering careers in marine mammal science and couldn’t participate because of this requirement,” Jacobson says.

Those in other scientific disciplines have also picked up on the petition, says Eric Archer, a marine-mammal geneticist at the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California, who co-chairs SMM’s diversity and inclusivity committee. “I’ve received e-mails from people outside of marine mammalogy who are re-evaluating their positions. It has gotten people thinking about where this particular issue sits in the pipeline.”

The petition prompted discussion and disagreement on the MARMAM listserv, which has many SMM members. Phillip Clapham, a zoologist who recently retired from the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, Washington, says that an unpaid eight- or nine-month stint at a small non-profit research institution after his undergraduate programme was crucial to his career success. He started his post entering whale observation data, and several months later he helped to collect those data. Eventually, he joined the research team.

“We would all like to have ample funding so you could offer at least some level of pay to bright young people,” Clapham says. But he adds that small non-profit groups typically cannot afford to pay workers. If pay is mandatory, he says, opportunities such as the one that changed him — from a young man travelling the world on savings from restaurant jobs and a small inheritance into a dedicated scientist — will disappear.

Auriel Fournier, a wetland bird ecologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says that the scientific community does not hear much about those who are unsuccessful in science. “The people who miss out on these ‘opportunities’ are unrepresented in the discussion” about unpaid work, says Fournier, who has been writing about the issue for years and who co-authored a 2019 study on unpaid work and access to scientific professions². Successful scientists talk about how they benefited from unpaid work, she says, but we hear little from the people who are forced to drop out of science in part because they can’t afford to work without pay, she adds.

Fournier lasted a month in an unpaid internship that she had during her undergraduate years. She had to quit that position when she could no longer pay for her tuition, rent and other necessities. After that, she accepted only paid internships.

Today, she says, early-career scientists reach out to her to ask what they should do to curb unpaid work, when they don’t have the power to make changes that they would like to see. “I think as we move up the career ladder, we can play a larger role in making sure the way we do our science matches our values,” Fournier says. “A lot of folks have internalized the idea that science is a meritocracy and their success is due only to their hard work. It is hard to realize that your success may be related to your gender, to your race or to the unpaid job that you had the money to take.”

Source:nature.com

Maritime UK welcomes Associated British Ports to the Diversity in Maritime Charter programme

By SalM on February 5, 2021 in News Articles

Maritime UK, the umbrella body for the maritime sector, has welcomed Associated British Ports (ABP) as the latest business to join the Diversity in Maritime Charter programme.

ABP has commenced its Diversity in Maritime Charter journey with two of its regions, Southampton and East Anglia, which have been particularly successful in implementing initiatives to attract a more diverse workforce. Twenty volunteers from across the business also helped create a grassroots-led action plan for further improvement, which the company is hoping to roll out across all of its locations.

In July 2019, ABP was the first UK port operator to provide female personal protective equipment (PPE). The move represented a great step in ABP’s efforts to support the role of women in maritime, whilst also further improving safety standards and choice for its workforce. In line with its commitment to increase the number of female hires, in 2020, women represented 57% of ABP’s graduate intake and the company appointed four women into senior management roles.

The Charter journey is a major undertaking as it holds organisations accountable for closing the diversity and inclusion gap. To become a Charter organisation, there is a requirement for businesses to share baseline data including the total proportion of women in their workforce and in areas including middle and senior management and to set target data for either five or ten years. The targets form a large part of individual company action plans, which also include a commitment to implement specific projects and initiatives. Through the life of the programme, Maritime UK regularly engages with charter organisations to assess progress and identify areas for new programmes and activity whilst providing a platform to share best practice and challenges with others.

he Charter is a pivotal initiative in the Diversity in Maritime programme. Eleven organisations are now Charter organisations: Bruntons Propellers, Shoreham Port, Fleetwood Nautical Campus, MFB Solicitors, Royal Fleet Auxiliary, Hutchison Ports – Port of Felixstowe, IHS Markit, PNTL, Forth Ports and ABP’s Southampton and East Anglia regions.

Charter companies are supported by Maritime UK’s Diversity in Maritime programme and supported by a wealth of resources, toolkits, networks and initiatives including:

• Diversity in Maritime networks: Four networks, Women, Mental Health, Pride and Ethnicity, were established and expanded on as part of the Diversity in Maritime programme. The networks bring together individuals from protected characteristics, and allies, from across the maritime sector in a safe-space environment to share good practice and discuss barriers faced. The networks are supported by four working groups who create solutions to combat barriers.
•Online toolkit: a continuously updated online toolkit with best practice guides and policies
• Interview Pool: which loans maritime women to companies that may lack diversity on interview panels. Research by the Women in Maritime Network identified all that more diverse interview panels or panels with HR professionals with diversity are more likely to recruit a diverse workforce. However, several smaller companies highlighted that they do not have access to such recruiters within their staff. The interview pool provides a facility for these companies to access relevant skills and expertise
• Speaker Bank:  provides a database of diverse speakers for panels and conferences with specific industry expertise

The first step to becoming a Charter Company is to sign the Pledge. Over 120 companies have now been signed the statement of intent to demonstrate commitment to making progress on diversity.

Alison Rumsey, ABP Chief Human Resources Officer and Maritime Skills Commissioner, said:

“At ABP, we are committed to building a more inclusive, diverse and open working community, so that colleagues can be themselves at work every day. I am incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made so far and look forward to continuing to build on these strong foundations in future.”

Sue Terpilowski, Co-Chair of the Diversity in Maritime Taskforce said:

“I am proud to celebrate ABP becoming the latest company to join the Charter family and shining a spotlight on two of their regions, Southampton and East Anglia. Women’s equality cannot wait, and we believe achieving a balanced workforce at all levels in the maritime sector will undoubtedly improve culture, behaviour, outcomes, profitability and productivity. We look forward to welcoming other companies into the programme.”

Ben Murray, Director of Maritime UK said:

“We are very pleased to see ABP take this important step on their journey to creating a more inclusive working environment. As a major employer in the sector, their progress will really help move the sector forward. We’re all thinking about how we can Build Back Better, and that must include a workforce that reflects the society in which we live – so that everyone can find a place in our sector, and so that our businesses reap the economic benefits that a diverse workforce is proven to unlock.”
Source: Maritime UK