Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-11-Speech-4-170"
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"en.20040311.8.4-170"2
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"Mr President, I wish to say how pleased I am that the debate on the low-frequency active sonar radar system continues in the European Parliament, although it makes slow progress. In January last year my oral question to the Commission on the environmental impact of the LFAS radar system was discussed. Commissioner Solbes Mira, you promised then that the Commission would send all the Member States a communication on the matter. Thank you for saying that the possible adverse effects on the environment of radar equipment contravene the Habitats Directive on the protection of nature. The Commission stated that action must be taken to look into the effects of LFAS. It is good that the matter is making progress.
Last October, as part of a delegation from Parliament, we handed in a petition on this issue signed by 85 000 people and 68 environmental organisations at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels. In the wake of this initiative, more scientific evidence on the matter was also obtained. Recently, Nature magazine published an article on the subject which made a reference to 14 whales that beached in the Canary Islands last year in September, all of which died. At the same time naval exercises were being undertaken in the area, and four hours after they had begun the whales started to beach themselves. They were found to have suffered from serious haematomas, damage to the liver and internal organs. and they showed signs of divers’ disease, as it is known.
I therefore continue to appeal to the NATO member states that they should restrict the use of radar systems until their environmental effects and connection with the recent whale deaths have been fully investigated. Low-frequency radar systems developed by the United States of America and the NATO countries might be causing whales to stray onto beaches and doing damage to their internal organs leading to death. The high-decibel and low-frequency sound of the radar can travel thousands of kilometres in the sea. The United States has been developing the LFAS system since the 1980s to watch submarines that use new technology, which are hard to see using the former passive radar systems. The monitoring of territorial waters is a legitimate objective, but the harmful effects of the LFAS system does not seem justified. Alternative technologies should therefore be developed.
Whale deaths have occurred in areas where the United States has tested the system. In March 2000, in the Bahamas, 17 whales were beached and eight of them died at the same time as the navy’s radar system was being tested at sea. Post mortems conducted on the dead whales revealed haematomas in their brains and inner ears produced by extremely loud noise. The US navy stated in its report on the Bahamas case that the radar system had been the most likely cause of death. Loud noise drove the whales onto the beach, where they died of heatstroke and finally, also, of internal haematomas."@en1
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