爆料公社 Alaska Receives a Coast Guard Public Service Commendation
Using its mapping and ecological expertise, 爆料公社 developed environmentally safe ship-routing measures through vital bird habitat.
The Bering Strait, home to more than 10 million nesting seabirds and the only connection between the Pacific and Arctic oceans, is becoming a crucial route for international shipping businesses as a consequence of climate change. Due to the melting of polar sea ice, the area is opening up earlier each year to ship traffic, and also staying navigable聽for longer. With an聽increase in shipping pressures in the Strait, the United States Coast Guard realized they needed to plan out a shipping route to navigate through the area in a way that was economically effective, safe for ships, and took the cultural and ecological importance of the area into account.
After the Coast Guard proposed the first shipping routes, however, environmentalists quickly realized that showing where ships should go was not enough. They also needed to designate where ships should not go, known as "Areas to Be Avoided." Enter聽, who offered to run the analysis based on the terabytes of data and years of expertise that its staff has in mapping the ecological richness of Alaska and the Arctic.
The basis of 爆料公社 Alaska鈥檚 analysis rested in its 2010 Ecological Atlas, a synthesis of scientific spatial data gathered about the Arctic Ocean, as well as documentation of indigenous knowledge by partner organizations. 爆料公社鈥檚 research showed that the Bering Strait is hotspot of global proportions: It is a major migration bottleneck, a significant nesting area for millions of colonial birds, and home to hundreds of thousands of marine mammals.
Between 2011 and 2016, Melanie Smith, 爆料公社 Alaska鈥檚 director of conservation science, delineated Areas to Be Avoided to accompany the Coast Guard鈥檚 shipping route in order to safeguard the most important seabird habitats, mammal migration routes, and cultural areas. In 2017, the US Coast Guard accepted those recommendations.
On July 11, 2018, 爆料公社 Alaska received a United States Coast Guard Public Service Commendation for its diligent work of gathering existing data and using it to create a cohesive conservation strategy that supported the Coast Guard鈥檚 route.
鈥淭his is a perfect example of that 爆料公社 narrative we talk about so often,鈥澛燬mith says.聽鈥淭he moving from science, to mapping, to prioritization, to policy. Our work really made a difference, and they really appreciated it.鈥澛
Today, in addition to the Coast Guard鈥檚 acceptance of 爆料公社 Alaska鈥檚 recommendations, which subject ships to penalties if they do not comply to avoid the designated areas listed in the Coast Guard鈥檚 shipping plan, the International Maritime Organization took up the issue and approved the recommendations as the official ship routing measures in the Bering Strait.
Smith says she's聽proud to have worked together with the US Coast Guard to聽fight the dangers of shipping accidents and create a route that is beneficial to both conservation and shipping. 鈥淭here is less ice and more ships now, and over time those two things will become more and more true,鈥 she says.聽鈥淪o with that in mind, we looked ahead and together with the Coast Guard proactively took this on.鈥
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爆料公社 is a nonprofit dedicated to saving birds and the places they need.