Priority Goals at International Whaling Commission 63 in Jersey

NOTE: This is a guest post from Bernard Unti. Unti has served on Humane Society International’s IWC delegation since 2007. He is senior policy adviser and special assistant to the president/CEO of The Humane Society of the United States.

A diverting irony hangs over this year’s meeting of the International Whaling Commission’s 63rd annual meeting in Jersey (Channel Islands) on July 11-15, where delegates from some 85 nations and several dozen non-governmental organizations are meeting to deliberate on the state of the world’s whales. Like Jersey’s financial services industry, being pressed by governments throughout the world to comply with disclosure rules to prevent tax evasion by individuals, corporations, and banks, the IWC is under increasing pressure to take additional steps to ensure transparency in its own governance and operations. It is a timely geographic coincidence, with implications for the future of global whale populations.

On the agenda is a governance and transparency proposal by the United Kingdom, calling for the reform of overall processes for decision-making, observer group participation, improved integration of the IWC Scientific Committee’s work into IWC deliberations, timely publication of reports, and a straightforward funding plan to support the participation of developing countries.

In the wake of 2010′s spate of articles detailing vote buying, through foreign aid, subsidized travel, and perks for delegates, reform at the IWC is urgent.

Reform is certainly needed from the perspective of conservation, for mounting threats to the world’s cetacean populations will require the best efforts of the international community. IWC 63 will see the renewal of a longstanding proposal for the creation of a South Atlantic whale sanctuary.

The sanctuary proposal, sponsored by Brazil and Argentina, has gained strong support in the past, but failed to achieve the necessary three-quarter majority for passage, most recently in 2007. The proposed sanctuary would extend from South America’s East Coast to Africa’s West Coast, joining sanctuaries approved by the IWC in the Indian and Southern Oceans. Depending on the number of nations participating in IWC 2011, 50 to 60 countries would have to vote in favor for the sanctuary proposal to pass. Read HSI staff dispatches from IWC 63.

Whale watching is becoming ever more popular in the South Atlantic, with flourishing opportunities for ecotourism, benefits to communities, and marine research. A sanctuary in the region would go far toward the recovery and long-term viability of whale species in the southern hemisphere, where twentieth century whaling was so devastating to their populations.

In 2010, a tremendous battle ensued over a compromise package, advanced by the United States and other nations, which would have suspended the global moratorium on commercial whaling and granted legal commercial whaling quotas to Japan in its own coastal waters, in exchange for its voluntary reduction of ‘scientific’ whaling in Antarctica. That proposal came undone amidst claims that it would lead to worse outcomes for whales. In the aftermath of its rejection, the world needs to steer a better course.

This year, the focus is where it needs to be: On improved processes and procedural outcomes within the IWC itself, and on the conservation agenda for cetacean species. Whatever else happens in Jersey this year, the IWC should take these two practical steps to improve its operations and extend its conservation agenda.

Photo by Anzeletti

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Carole R.

10:31PM PDT on Sep 23, 2011

Thank you for the post although it is very sad. How can anyone want to kill these beautiful creatures?

send a green star

Janine H.

2:57AM PDT on Jul 23, 2011

This is a very sad story. Other animals has to go only because "we" humans do not want to share the world with other life forms, these life forms "we" would not eat (vegetarian food is not a bad idea, or eating with conscience as the so called primitive cultures did and still do, if they still exist. No meat/fish every day). "We" destroy averything around us and "we" forget, that everything is important to survive, too.

As little child i thought that rain is when God and the angels cry - because "we" humans have forgotten that we need this "intelligence", someone who could help... if "we" hadn't turned away for many centuries ago...

"Only when the last tree has been cut down; Only when the last river has been poisoned; Only when the last fish has been caught; Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten."
(Native American proverb)

"We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not yet learned the simple art of living together as brothers." (Martin Luther King)

Elaine W.

8:43AM PDT on Jul 14, 2011

Signed. May the people's votes win once & for all. Horrid business.

Renato G.

11:08PM PDT on Jul 13, 2011

Noted , signed , voted and so on .... Tks for noticing ....

Bob H.

9:05PM PDT on Jul 13, 2011

booo Japan ...

Karen and Ed O.

1:58PM PDT on Jul 13, 2011

"Pride goes before destruction,..."
------------Proverbs 16:18

The Japanese can not possible be getting anything out of this. According to what I have read the whale meat that is taken during their "research" is still sitting in freezers in Japan. The only answer, then, is pride. They have been challenged and their stupid die before being shamed culture is being adhered to at the expense of our wildlife heritage.
Please support Sea Shepherd. Paul Watson is not going to give up.

Raluca A.

12:20PM PDT on Jul 13, 2011

noted!

Gianna M.

11:17AM PDT on Jul 13, 2011

Ban all whalling and those countries that still do, should be really punished with economic penalties. Dolphins should also be protected and if the killing at the Pharao islands is not stop, they should be kicked out of the UN.

Lynne B.

11:09AM PDT on Jul 13, 2011

Ban all whaling. It's barbaric.

mike p.

10:27AM PDT on Jul 13, 2011

I am amazed that the whaling countries continue to flaunt the overwhelming views of the rest of the world. There is absolutely no justification for continuing this barbaric practice, and the sooner that Japan, Iceland and Norway realise what global pariahs they have become the better.
The sea has already taken due retribution on Japan, the others need to look out. Nature has a habit of getting its own back.