ACCOBAMS Survey Initiative
In summer 2018, the ASI campaign survey teams conducted the first ever large-scale Mediterranean Sea survey of marine megafauna, marine litter and underwater noise. For this effort, 20 countries and 30 partner organisations were involved, 8 planes and 6 boats were mobilised, over 100 scientists relayed to collect observation data, 55000 km were surveyed from the air and 22000 km were surveyed by the vessel Song of the Whale alone. This effort was completed in summer 2019 with the boat surveys over Syrian and Egyptian waters.In summer 2019, the ASI survey campaign continued in the Black Sea with ACCOBAMS support and funding from the European Commission through the CeNoBs project which aims to assess the environmental status of the Black Sea as part of the EU-MSFD implementation.More than 7,000 km were surveyed by 8 scientists in 2 planes over the waters of Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Turkey and Georgia. Furthermore, a collaboration was developed by the Permanent Secretariat with Russian Institutes and with the support of the UNDP -EMBLAS+ project, to undertake a complementary aerial survey over Russian waters, to complete the Black Sea picture.
