Whales and their international trade

Between March 13th and 25th, the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) took place in Doha, Qatar. Although Fundación Cethus, unlike other meetings, could not participate in a direct way, Vanesa Tossenberger, one of our members, was present as an advisor of the Argentinean Delegation.

Although whales were not the "stars" of the meeting, they had their moment in the spotlight. To understand a little more about this topic, let's sum up the situation which was already mentioned in the article published on our website.

At the last meeting of CITES, in 2007, a Decision supporting that whales would not enter to the periodic review process as long as the moratorium on commercial whaling adopted in 1982 by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) were still into force. To take one species into the periodic review means to evaluate whether or not it fulfills the necessary criteria to stay in the Appendix in which it is included. In the case of cetaceans, large whales are listed in Appendix I, which means that their international trade is prohibited. Because of this, any process of reviewing their status could set precedents that would allow moving them to an Appendix of lower protection than the currently provided by Appendix I (“downlisting”), which would be contrary to the aforesaid Decision.

CITES Secretariat proposed the elimination of this Decision, which led to an interesting discussion at the meeting in Doha. There, Latin American countries such as Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Mexico, as well as U.S.A and Israel presented strong arguments stressing the need for the permanence of the Decision taken in 2007, while Norway, Iceland and China were opposed to these arguments and spoke in support to the Secretariat’s proposal. Following the discussion, a vote resulted in the failure of the proposal which needed a 2/3 of the votes to pass and therefore, the Decision of not to include whale species into a periodic review was kept.

In parallel to these events taking place in Qatar, WDCS and IFAW, two international NGOs, reported two cases of illegal exports from Iceland. Consequently, in one case, the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture of Iceland reported that there had been a mistake in the exports statements, by which the shipment in question had been mistakenly consigned as whale meat instead of fish.

The other reported incident refers to the shipment of Minke whale’s meat to Latvia by an Icelandic company, meat that was seized upon arrival at Latvia. Although Iceland has presented a Reservation to the listing of Minke whale on Appendix I (which allows its trade under certain conditions), the irregularity arises from the fact that Latvia, a member of the European Union, does not present a similar Reservation and therefore the authorization of the entry of the cargo by Latvia’s authorities, would turn illegal this commercialization.

While the explanations for these situations makes reference to many legal details, it is important to stress the behaviour of the complainants NGOs that allowed to bring these situations to light and to take action on the matter. No less important is the fact that Latvia is part of the European Union, which claims to have a clear position in favor of the conservation of cetaceans

More information at:

CITES

IWC

CETHUS