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Whales Working Group

Acting Chair: Mark Simmonds, WDCS
Acting Vice Chair: Vacant
Secretary: Joanna Butler

The Whales Working Group works to ensure better protection of cetaceans including through the reform of International Whaling Commission - the international body responsible for regulating the hunting of whales - into a conservation body. The group also addresses other issues relating to cetacean conservation and welfare, such as ocean noise.

QUARTERLY UPDATE: October to December 2009

At the beginning of the quarter the UK Government, along with 25 other nations, sent a diplomatic protest (“demarche”) to Icelandregarding their escalation of commercial whaling. The demarche expressed disappointment in the Icelandic Government’s decision to authorise the hunting of fin and minke whales over the next five years and called upon Icelandto respect the IWC’s global moratorium and end its commercial whaling. Following the demarche, Link wrote to the UK Ambassador to Iceland, thanking him and his colleagues for the sterling efforts getting the demarche delivered.

 

This quarter also saw the Environment Minister, Huw Irranca-Davies MP write to the Japanese Ambassador to the UK, to address the UK’s concerns with continued whaling in Japanand to raise the issue of the hunting of small cetaceans in Japanese waters. Link also wrote to the Minister asking for a similar letter of protest to be sent to Norway regarding its increase in self-allocation of minke whales.

 

At the end of October it was announced that the IWC’s Small Working Group (SWG) meeting to discuss the future of the IWC and the intersessional meeting to discuss Greenland’s request for a humpback quota have both been delayed until March 2010.

 

The Whales Working Group held a meeting in November to discuss the future of the group in light of Link’s Strategy for 2010 to 2012 and the changing focus of members of this group. It was agreed that the group will continue to work on stopping all forms of commercial whaling including maintaining the global moratorium and also to broaden the group’s mandate to include work to improve the protection of cetaceans in UK waters.