Í dag, mánudaginn 28. nóvember, kl. 16:00, mun Sara Martin, núverandi meistaranemi í haf- og strandsvæðastjórnun, flytja óformlega kynningu á yfirstandandi meistaraprófsverkefni sínu. Markmið kynningarinnar er að veita innsýn í stöðu og frumniðurstöður verkefnis hennar. Einnig má líta svo á að kynningin sé liður í aukinni þekkingaryfirfærslu meistaranámsins.

Verkefni Söru fjallar um hvalaskoðun, einkum þá sem gerð er út frá Húsavík við Skjálfandaflóa. Markmið rannsóknarinnar var að kanna áhrif hvalaskoðunar á dýrin sjálf. Auk þess að skoða þróun þessarar atvinnugreinar hérlendis sem erlendis nýtir Sara gögn sem safnað var saman á þriggja ára tímabili og varpa ljósi á atferli dýrana í nálægð við skoðunarbáta.

Sara vonast til að rannsóknin leiði í ljós hvort þörf sé á frekari stjórnun. Ein útkoma rannsóknarinnar er að geta rökstutt notkun og mælt með tilteknum viðmiðunarreglum sem henta best til að styðja við sjálfbæra hvalaskoðunarferðamennsku.

Leiðbeinandi hennar er Brad Barr, stundakennari við haf- og strandsvæðastjórnunarnámið. Brad verður viðstaddur kynninguna.

Kynningin, sem verður í stofu 1, mun fara fram á ensku. Allir velkomnir.

Stutt samantekt á ensku:

The whale watching industry has experienced much growth and development throughout the world. The advantages of this wildlife-based tourism activity are numerous, as whale watching provides socioeconomic benefits and opportunities for education, conservation, and scientific research. There is concern, however, that the activity of whale watching is negatively impacting the animals and, as a result, this topic has been investigated intensely over the past 20 years. Guidelines and Codes of Conduct (CoCs) have been developed in many places worldwide to promote sustainable whale watching practices.

In Iceland, whale watching started in 1991 and is now the fastest growing industry in the country. However, it remains unregulated. To gain some insight into how the unmanaged whale watching activities of Iceland compared to those of other countries, the behaviour of whale watching vessels on Skjálfandi Bay, in Northeast Iceland, was monitored and analysed.

The study, aiming to assess whale watching activities in Skjálfandi Bay, was conducted between 2009 and 2011. Data was collected through land based observations in 2009 and 2010, while whale watching boats were utilized to collect data from sea in 2011. Three aspects of the whale watching activities were investigated: distance of approach; speed of vessel; and the number of vessels around a particular animal or group.

This assessment will help to achieve the overall goal of determining whether or not there is a need for management, and identifying what guidelines or codes of conduct would be most effective at making the whale watching activities in this region more sustainable.