International Whaling Commission relaxation - IFAW Press Release

[Guest guest]

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

Please find attached a news release on the latest

development at the International Whaling Commmission regarding commercial

killing of whales by whaling nations.The release is from our partner

organization IFAW, for more information please contact our IFAW colleagues:

Patrick Ramage on +1 (508) 776 0027 or Vassili Papastavrou on +44 (0)7801

613514.

Alternatively, for more information on IFAW, please visit www.ifaw.org

Regards,

 

Programmes Officer of Communications

Wildlife Trust of India

B-13, Sector-6

2nd Floor,

NOIDA-201 301

UTTAR PRADESH

INDIA

 

 

INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR ANIMAL WELFARE

 

 

 

Press release, for immediate release

 

 

Whaling Commission harpoons science in favour of political compromise

 

(Rome - 11 March, 2009) – At the conclusion of a three-day meeting, the

International Whaling Commission (IWC) today signalled what conservationists

see as a dangerous change of course which jeopardises the future of whales.

 

For several years, the 84-nation intergovernmental Commission has elaborated

a detailed scientific procedure (Revised Management Procedure) to ensure all

catch limits for any future commercial whaling would be within sustainable

limits calculated using tested scientific procedures.

 

After an intersessional meeting in Rome, the IWC agreed to shortcut the

scientific process and authorise a Small Working Group of member countries

to continue developing a package deal of proposals for a resumption of

commercial whaling, relying instead on ad-hoc catch limits set for five

years at a time, without regard to long-term sustainability.

 

The aim is that this deal would be approved by the full IWC at its annual

meeting on the Portuguese island of Madeira this June.

 

Speaking from Rome, Patrick Ramage, IFAW’s Global Whale Programme Director,

said: “Science has been thrown to the whalers like Christians to the lions

in ancient Rome.”

 

Currently, whaling for commercial purposes is conducted by IWC members

outside IWC control through the exploitation of various loopholes and

exemptions. The Japanese fleet catches whales ostensibly for so-called

“scientific” purposes, using self-issued permits.

 

Conservation-minded IWC members hope that by offering Japan interim, ad hoc,

catch allowances for coastal whaling, that will encourage Japan, in turn, to

exercise self-restraint in its “scientific whaling” operations. However,

conservationists are extremely sceptical that this olive branch will elicit

the hoped for response.

 

In the past five years, the Japanese fleet has harpooned nearly 5,000 fin,

sei, sperm, minke and Bryde’s whales in the Antarctic and the North Pacific

for supposedly scientific purposes. The Commission’s own Scientific

Committee, in a review of the Japanese programme, concluded in 2007 that the

scientific questions that the Japanese programme ostensibly set out to

answer, such as the natural mortality rate of whales, remain as open as

before, despite the killing of thousands of whales.

 

Mr Ramage added: “The message from the Commission today was forget science,

forget sustainability, compromise full steam ahead! The Commission is

ignoring ongoing whaling by Iceland and Norway and also their recent

resumption of the international trade in whale meat.

 

“The IWC and its member governments sit fiddling while the scientific and

legal regimes designed to conserve whales for future generations go up in

flames.”

 

For more information or interviews with IFAW staff in Rome please contact

Patrick Ramage on +1 (508) 776 0027 or Vassili Papastavrou on +44 (0)7801

613514.