The natural world in sound: Sounding Nature

Sounding Nature is the biggest ever global exploration of the beautiful sounds of nature, covering 55 countries with almost 500 sounds. The sounds have been reimagined by 250 artists to reflect upon the damage being done to our natural world by human-generated sounds.

Why Sounding Nature?

Sounding Nature collects and reimagines the sounds of nature from 55 countries to highlight how the sounds we produce every day impact on our natural world.

The impact of human-generated noise on nature is under examined, but can cause devastating harm to our natural environment:

• Human noise can act as an “obstacle”, blocking or altering the natural movements of animals.
• Birds are having to change their calls and behaviour in response to traffic noise.
• Human-made noise can even affect animals’ use of scent, putting them at greater risk of attack from predators.
• Marine and shipping noise can damage or even kill marine life such as whales, crabs or squid.
• Dolphins are being forced to simplify their calls due to undersea shipping and drilling noise.
• Noise is also proven to dramatically increase stress levels among animals.

Our aim in this project is to use sound as a tool to highlight not just the beauty of the sonic natural world that surrounds us, but the harm we are causing it.

Thanks to the British Library

We’re also delighted that the British Library have contributed some of their wildlife and environmental field recordings as source material for the project.

Sound player and map technology built by Tim Waterfield.