These days, on which all Argentinians are expectantly and hopefully staring at Africa, due to  the performance of Argentina in the World Cup; in Fundación Cethus we also avert our eyes further north, to Morocco, looking at what may happen during the next week at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

This will not be just another meeting. It will be a key meeting for the future of whales, potentially being at risk the moratorium on commercial whaling.

Fundación Cethus will be present in Agadir, working for the conservation of cetaceans. We will keep you informed of the advances of the meeting trhough our site.

For those of you who are not aware of what the IWC is and what will happen during the next few days, here is a brief summary:

The International Whaling Commission is an organization that is responsible for regulating large whale species. Currently, it has 88 Member Countries, which meet annually to vote and decide on possible management measures for different populations of cetaceans. It was created in 1946 as part of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW). After the creation of the IWC, and hundreds of years of over-exploitation, and in view of the situation that many species of large whales were facing, in 1986 an international moratorium on commercial whaling was implemented which remains in force after 24 years.
Currently, only some countries continue hunting whales under certain aspects considered within the IWC treaty: scientific whaling programmes (Japan and Iceland), commercial whaling under "objection" (Norway), commercial whaling under "reservation" (Iceland), and aboriginal subsistence whaling (USA, Greenland, Russian Federation, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines).

IWC and the Latin American region:
At present, the Latin bloc has gained prominence within the IWC due to its joint work in favour of the conservation. Since 2005, this group, which is made of countries of the region including Argentina and is known as the Buenos Aires Group, has issued a series of statements in favour of the conservation and non-lethal use of whales, and the commitment of its members with the moratorium.

The Future of the IWC
At the 60th IWC, Member States agreed to began an internal process called the Future of IWC for which a small group of countries was appointed. This group generated a proposal of work for being discussed in plenary meeting. The Future of IWC tries to carry out a process that reachs agreement on issues which have been key since the beginning of the IWC and that have led to a strong internal division

The 62nd IWC
The next meeting of the IWC, its 62nd annual meeting, will be held between June 21st and 25th, 2010. Agadir, Morocco, will be the host city and currently is being the venue for several meetings and working groups prior to the IWC plenary meeting. In these meetings and working groupsvarious issues are being discussed that, hopefully, they will have some definition from the 21st.
In view of the lack of results, and of a consensus proposal regarding the future of IWC, in late April 2010 the Chair and Vice Chair of the IWC submitted a reviewed proposal about the Future of the IWC that is expected to be vote during next week.
To date, this controversial proposal is strongly resisted by the majority of the conservationist sectors. Among the main reasons for its rejection, it is argued that it considers the lift of the moratorium for 10 years, legitimizes the hunting of Norway, Iceland and Japan (and it even allows it to occur in waters of a Sanctuary of Whales defined by IWC). On the other hand, it ignores the principles that have guided the procedures agreed by the IWC itself to determine capture limits, and it pretends that the costs of the resumption of commercial whaling be faced by all members of IWC, whalers or not whalers.

For all this, today more than ever, our eyes will be on Africa...
During the course of the days, we will try to keep you up to date with what is happening in Agadir.

For more information:

FUNDACIÓN CETHUS

IWC - International Whaling Commission