Transparency, Sanctuary Should Be Top Priorities at International Whaling Commission Meeting

Bernard Unti, who has served on Humane Society International's IWC delegation since 2007, is senior policy adviser and special assistant to the president/CEO of The Humane Society of the United States.

Delegates to the International Whaling Commission’s 63^rd annual meeting on July 11-15 in Jersey (Channel Islands) can and should support proposals favoring transparency in governance and operations and the creation of a South Atlantic whale sanctuary. Doing so would help to set the IWC on a better course after 2010’s international battle royale over a compromise to lift the global moratorium on commercial whaling. That proposal, supported even by the United States, would have granted Japan legal commercial whaling quotas in its own coastal waters in exchange for a voluntary reduction in its "scientific" whaling in Antarctica.

It’s been ten years since the last formal transparency proposal surfaced at IWC, and in the continuing stream of details concerning vote buying, subsidized travel, and other perks for delegates, a serious attempt at reform is overdue. The Jersey proposal, sponsored by the United Kingdom, seeks to enhance overall processes for decision-making, observer group participation, integrating the findings of the IWC Scientific Committee into IWC deliberations, timely publication of reports, and funding the participation of developing countries, among other concerns.

The sanctuary proposal, sponsored by Brazil and Argentina, is a longstanding initiative that has gained strong support but failed to pass with a necessary three-quarter majority in the past, most recently in 2007. The sanctuary would extend from South America’s East Coast to Africa’s west coast, and join sanctuaries approved by the IWC in the Indian and Southern Oceans. If all 89 member countries participate in IWC 2011, 67 countries would have to vote in favor of a sanctuary.

Whale watching is flourishing in the South Atlantic, and there are tremendous opportunities for tourism income, benefits to human communities, and cetacean research. A sanctuary is critical to advancing the recovery and long-term viability of whale species in the southern hemisphere, where twentieth century whaling activities decimated their populations.  Apart from whaling, a host of other threats make the creation of such a sanctuary all the more urgent.

This year, with no proposals that would upend or modify the commercial whaling moratorium expected to be adopted, there is space and good reason for the IWC to take these two practical steps to improve its operations and extend its conservation agenda.

Photo credit: NOAA