Ms Attracta U? Bhroin:

I welcome the fact we will be going back to data and will hold my fire on that particular point.

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea's definition of "pollution" basically encompasses energy, and noise is energy. No more than species do not respect boundaries, noise certainly does not either. We are designating the MPAs on a line-on-a-map basis of specific points and co-ordinates but noise will go through that, and sonar and seismic can travel vast distances. Noise and acoustic monitoring are really important, especially when it comes to highly mobile species that need to potentially migrate from the other end of the planet to come up to our waters. We need to know their pathways, what is happening in those pathways and how they may be deterred from enjoying the benefits of our MPA networks or getting to and from them. I am very much expressing a personal opinion based on my understanding, but noise and acoustic monitoring may have a particular significance in the context of specific MPAs designated for particular noise-sensitive species. Furthermore, within the context of our legal obligation to provide for an ecologically-coherent network, we need to understand what is happening in the noise surrounding that.

Noise can have incredibly damaging effects, as I alluded to in respect of seismic killing krill. If we are looking at restoring a site and are expecting something to happen and it is not, even though we are doing all the right things, what is going wrong might be the noise. Noise is a particularly special case in terms of a wider and specific obligation around the collation of data and going to Mr. Lyne's point around capturing some of the unknowns, we really need to take a precautionary approach. There are huge gaps, as we alluded to in our opening statement, in what we know about the species we have. If we apply a precautionary approach to the designation we may in time, given we will know more, be able to say based on that we can allow more and we can allow more flexibility and adapt the network to allow more uses and activities on a very controlled basis.

If I could touch on the issue of noise and data collection, which I think is head 25, everybody has welcomed the notion of access to data and that being really important but I was alarmed having read those sections. I refer especially to the ability to charge for high-value data sets. It would be helpful for the committee to go back to the Department on this. It is quite a complex and controversial issue even at EU level in respect of the accessibility of environmental information and its being reasonably accessible. That could be quite a significant issue in head 25 and some questions on it to the Department would be especially helpful.