GLOBAL NOISE POLICY WORKSHOP

A fifth Global Noise Policy Workshop will be held during INTER-NOISE 2007 in Istanbul, Turkey, on Wednesday, August 29. The theme of this workshop is "Public Pressure-an Effective Force". The all-day workshop will feature sessions with presentations by informed parties from countries around the world, and each session will be followed by a question-and-answer discussion period.
Panelists will speak on the effectiveness of public pressure to influence legislators to enact noise control policy. The topics to be addressed during the three sessions will include the following: generating public involvement through education, support from NGO interest groups, and effective use of the media.
Many participants in earlier workshops have been engineers knowledgeable in the technical aspects of noise control, but now we seek to involve the public and those organizations that represent the public. Remember, it was public pressure that led to the movement in many countries to ban smoking in public buildings. Could public pressure also be effective in reducing noise in our communities?


BACKGROUND
This will be the fifth of a series of workshops that are an outgrowth of a special session on noise policy held during INTER-NOISE 1999 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. In a special technical session of that congress, the following question was addressed: "Is noise policy a global issue or is it a local issue?" The consensus was that noise is a global policy issue, although many noise problems can only be solved with the active participation of local authorities. The I-INCE General Assembly decided in 2000 that the development of global noise control policy is a high-priority task and established I-INCE Technical Study Group 5, Noise as a Global Policy Issue, to report on this policy issue.

The first workshop in 2004 August in Prague, Czech Republic, was devoted to a discussion of the draft report prepared by TSG 5, "A Global Approach to Noise Control Policy," which considers both general policy and specific policies related to occupational, community, and product noise. This workshop included detailed discussions of the findings of TSG 5 that were summarized in the 2004 December issue of NNI.

The second workshop held in 2005 August in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, addressed specific policy issues in South America, Europe, and the Far East.

The third workshop held in Tampere, Finland, during 2006 May focused primarily on European noise policy and its links to global noise policy.

The fourth workshop in Honolulu, Hawaii, was held in December, 2006, and focused on the development, implementation, and enforcement of noise policies worldwide.