News coming from Morocco indicates that the moratorium on commercial whaling would eventually remain in force, but we will have to wait until Friday to celebrate.
This happens within the context of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) which is taking place in the coastal city of Agadir, Morocco, and after two days of intense closed-doors negotiations on a proposal which, in case of being accepted just as it was drafted, it would have adjourned the moratorium for at least 10 years.
At Today’s session, the decision to leave this document aside was taken after not reaching an agreement between the countries present there. Argentina was clear in its statement regarding this issue, arguing that it can not accept this proposal because it weakens the moratorium, legitimizes scientific whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary - sanctuary established by the IWC - and establishes that the costs of monitoring and control of the possible hunt to be approved be covered by all Member Countries of the IWC and not just by those countries that hunt whales. Argentina also added that it considers as positive, the aspects of conservation presented on the proposal and it reiterated that supports everything expressed in the statement presented in conjunction with the rest of the Buenos Aires Group’s members present in Agadir (Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Uruguay).
Vanesa Tossenberger, representative of Fundación Cethus at the meeting said: “Latin American countries once again showed their commitment to the conservation of whales”, and added “To know that the moratorium continues and to see that the process which was so imbalanced does not continue give us a great satisfaction”.
Meanwhile, the Commission is still in plenary meeting discussing the other items on its agenda. Then, we will have to wait until its ending, that will happen next Friday, to be able to say that the moratorium will actually remain in force, at least one more year.
For more information:
www.cethus.org
To read the Statement of GBA, click here
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