A hard working day, with a few definitions and several announcements for the Southern Hemisphere

June 24th, 2009.- Funchal

The day began with another controversial point within the negotiations on the Future of the IWC: Sanctuaries.

The sanctuaries are considered within the ICRW (International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling -treaty that originated the IWC) and within the IWC. Since its inception, the IWC has approved the creation of sanctuaries, such as the Southern Ocean Sanctuary in Antarctica which was stated in 1994 (although Japan continues to hunt minke whales there, as part of its program of scientific whaling) and the Indian Ocean which was created in 1979. Since 2001, on several occasions at IWC meetings, Brazil and Argentina have submitted the proposal to create a Whale Sanctuary in the South Atlantic, in some cases with the support of South Africa. However, this proposal has failed to obtain the majority of 3/4 for its approval. At present time the creation of this Sanctuary is included in the package of measures to deal in the process of the Future of the IWC, which will continue until 2010 as it was decided yesterday.

Today, during the meeting, it was reported that there were no requests for sanctuaries, while a number of countries made interventions, particularly those involved with the proposal of the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary, who expressed support to such proposals, but appealed that decisions are taken by consensus and to continue the negotiations of the current process. In this sense Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa and Australia made their interventions and finally the issue was differ to the Scientific Committee’s and the Conservation Committee’s agendas to be considered later.

The work of the day continued with Statements by the NGOs. Since last year, the IWC has implented again a space for the NGOs observers of the meeting to express. Among the issues raised in their statements, in general the NGOs expressed their doubts about the process on the Future of the IWC, and about what will be done with it during this new stage that it was decided to be extended until 2010.

Unlike other international fora, where civil society has a voice (and sometimes even vote), unfortunately the IWC had been characterized in recent decades to maintain a very old stance which was not aligned with modern international fora, since it did not allow Observers neither intervention nor expression during their meetings. This is the beginning of a change, since 2008, that we hope will continue, which is increasingly shared by member countries and on this occasion had the support of the Chairman of the IWC, William Hogarth.

After this, the next item on Environmental and Health Issues, where the findings and recommendations of the Scientific Committee on this issue where presented, which were approved. Also discussed various issues related to Scientific Committee such as Climate Change and results of workshops held in Costa Rica and Italy were presented, and another one in September was proposed. Reports of other workshops within the context of the Scientific Committee (CCAMLR-IWC POLLUTION 2000+, SOCCER environmental reporting, etc.). Then the report on whale watching was introduced, after which several statements supporting this activity and the non-lethal use of cetaceans were made, and even some voices were heard with concerns that, if another whaling quota were to be approved, the industry might suffer. In this sense a series of discussions were generated during which views for and against the profitable activity of the small coastal activities were interchanged, and the argument that whaling and whale watching activities are mutually exclusive.
The Delegation from Argentina reiterated that for Argentina, and in particular for coastal communities in Patagonia Argentina, this is an activity that has great importance from the socio-economic point of view and for protection of cetacean’s populations and their habitats in this region.
Finally Australia presented the proposal to organize a workshop on whale watching for 2010 and Argentina offered to host it.

For the next point related to Scientific Permits, the Chair of the Scientific Committee red the report reporting, among other things, that the Committee was unable to make any recommendation regarding the evaluation of scientific whaling programs, because the data generated much uncertainty, so this issue will remain on the agenda for the future work of the Committee. This is another of the items included in the package of negotiations on the Future of the IWC that is currently under discussion, and is a subject of continuing debate within the IWC, which seems, at least for now, to be far from a short term solution.

Vanesa Tossenberger with Fundación Cethus commented: "Having listened positions in favor and against, we think that the obtained data do not justify in any way to continue using lethal methods to conduct research studies, they are clearly not necessary".

At the end of the working session another of the relevant topics for the meeting was the presentation of the SORP (Southern Ocean Research Partnership) which was officially launched by the Australian Government in March 2009. This 5-year initiative integrates and brings togheter researchers who develop non-lethal research on cetaceans whose goal is the whales’ conservation in the Southern Seas, although migratory corridors and breeding areas will also be included.

A Steering Committee of the SORP will be coordinated by the Australian Marine Mammal Center and it will have a broad representation (representatives of participating governments, members of the IWC and of international multidisciplinary programs) in the Southern Hemisphere.

Argentina plays an active role within the SORP and, along with other countries, it hopes to develop various research proposals under this multinational program. One of the proposals that will have more relevance is related to the Southern Right Whales, one of the species that currently Fundación Cethus makes researches, so also for us it turn to be very important.




Southern Right Whales in the waters of Santa Cruz Province.
Southern Right Whale Project of Fundación Cethus.

For more information:
www.cethus.org
www.iwcoffice.org