Ears Wide Open

Current Activities Highlights

It's been quite an eventful quarter for the Institute, centered on three diverse opportunities to direct AEI's unique focus on sound, the environment, and science into long-standing efforts of other organizations.

First, the Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy finally published the first of two special issues on ocean noise, edited by yours truly. This journal serves a global readership of agency staff, academic legal experts, and industry managers. The collection of papers that I pulled together includes in-depth reviews of current international regulation of ocean noise, a case study of Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary's approach to addressing noise, a round-table addressing a variety of perspectives on the Precautionary Principle, and other similarly deep-digging topics. You can read my introduction to the issue here: [DOWNLOAD 200k PDF]

Next up was the Alberta Energy Utilities Board biannual noise control conference, where I was invited to give the final plenary presentation. Here, oil and gas industry noise control contractors, agency staff, and students came together for three days of looking at the many issues surrounding noise related to natural gas wells, coalbed methane, oil sands, and all the associated infrastructure and traffic. A real treat was meeting a representative of a major English government initiative to investigate complaints about low-frequency noise; it seems that AEI's collection of resources and information have informed their far-away office! If you have a high-speed connection, you can download my Powerpoint show here; the text in the "Notes" field is the heart of that talk: [DOWNLOAD 29MB POWERPOINT]

Finally, this week I am completing the bulk of the work of co-editing the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology's annual journal, Soundscape, along with my American Society for Acoustic Ecology colleague Steven Miller. The theme of the issue is Art, Science, Environment, Activism; we are highlighting works of soundscape artists that contribute in substantive ways to science research, and that inspire or in fact engage in environmental activism. In both cases, we are trying to move beyond sound works that simply raise awareness, and seek out projects that really dig in and make a difference. One of the best examples of the science/sound art promise remains the work AEI is doing with David Dunn and Steve Feld; see more on this here: [WEB PAGE]

Meanwhile, all the normal projects are ongoing: the News Digest, lay summaries of new science, special reports (our new report on the International Whaling Commission meeting's science reports on sound spurred enthusiastic responses from large non-profits in the US and Europe, and members of the media).

Finally, we added a nifty little image to AEI's Home Page, that shows where in the world our visitors come from, and I've been thrilled to see that we do have a truly global reach: less than half our visitors are US-based, with the balance pretty much split between Europe and the rest of the world combined. Check out the AEI "Clustr-Map" here: [GO THERE]

If you find the resources being generated by AEI useful, or if you feel our commitment to providing accessible, in-depth information on the impacts of human noise on wild habitats is an important contribution in this time of ecological crisis, then I ask that you consider helping us to generate the support we need to continue this good work. You can help by renewing your membership, by making a larger contribution, or by pointing other possible benefactors our way.

The Institute is seeking funding to keep me on salary so all these balls can continue rolling.....in October and March, we received two donations, totalling $25,000, which has allowed me to stay on full-time salary. The Board of Directors is aiming to find 5-10 family foundations and individual benefactors who are sufficiently aligned with the Institute's mission and approach to offer annual pledges toward our modest annual budget of about $50,000.

We've set up a brokerage account that allows us to receive donations of publicly-held stocks; this option is especially useful for those who hold securities that carry large capital gains burdens, as the donation is credited at the full current value of the stock, with no capital gains tax imposed.

Thanks to AEI's collaborative relationships and role as a source of information and resources for other organizations, agencies, and researchers, support of our work pays dividends far beyond the concrete work done here. If you know someone who may like to support this work, we would be happy to send you a concise letter of introduction to pass on to them.