It all started when I was digging through a sizable amount of field recordings I had made over the last few years, searching for sounds to weave into some of my current projects. Most of the recordings were made in vast, remote and uninhabited areas of wilderness in an attempt to capture non anthropocentric sounds, the sounds of the earth, wildlife, weather, the atmosphere of the untamed forest. As I was trawling through the recordings, some from different countries and continents an annoying and common sound started to appear in all the recordings, sometimes ruining the soundscape and thus the recording. The annoying sound, often a big crescendo of noise, giant ramps of sound completely ruining the exquisite soundscapes, what was this and where was it coming from?
After listening to a few of the rouge and quite annoying occurrences of the sound it suddenly dawned on me, I was hearing the sounds of aircraft flying overhead. Throughout many of the recordings my little field recorder would be silently capturing the delicate rhythms of nature, wind gently moving a branch, the sound of a distant animal call and then suddenly the obtrusive, harsh and grating sound of a jet screaming overhead drowning out and completely ruining the recording. This started to get me thinking as to how prevalent noise pollution is in wild areas and how it may affect non human species? I was certainly impeding my ability to capture lengthy recordings of natural spaces without human sonic disturbance.
We often imagine our ever shrinking wild spaces as somewhat untouched by the creeping sprawl of industrial society but the unwanted sonic interruption of air traffic proved otherwise. Aircraft often travel hundreds if not thousands of meters above the land surface one can possibly imagine somewhat minimal immediate interaction (aside from the toxic fumes and gasses spewing from the engine) aircraft have with our wild spaces. However the inherent nature of sound waves to propagate long distances within the air allows for deep and encompassing penetration of the anthropocentric noise to even the most remote valley of wilderness areas. This then begs the question, does this have an impact on biodiversity?
Yes, noise pollution has a devastating effect on biodiversity, disruption of breeding cycles, altering flight response and changing species composition of entire ecosystems just to name a few obvious examples. Some good work has been done on this topic and the literature is well worth interrogation for the curious mind. The source of noise pollution does not simply start and end with aircraft, but roads, boats, construction and a plethora of human activity is drowning out the sounds of nature.
With no current action to lessen or stop the deafening roar of human machines invading our wild spaces, those who seek the sounds of nature are forced deeper into the forest. Sound recording in wild spaces is immensely important in both ecological and artistic fields, the detectability of species often depends on ecological survey techniques like call playback or sound capture and field recording has cemented itself as an important form of sonic artistic expression as a stand alone art form or woven into the tapestry of musical production. Anthropocentric noise is slowly being recognised as an increasing problem but more can be done, talk more and share ideas about this problem and keep our wild spaces free from the unwanted growl of industrial society.
- Jack