International Whaling Commission (IWC)

IWC 62,

DAY 1 report

Greetings from Agadir, Morocco,

IWC 62 opened this morning in Agadir, Morocco against a backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean and the local Moroccan dancers amongst confusion and/or anticipation over the future of the IWC.

The confusion and/or anticipation over

· will the IWC accept or reject the Chairs compromise proposal
(or more commonly known as the 10 year whaling free for all)

· Will Australia stay strong in their opposition to this compromise

· Will USA and NZ continue to sell out the whales by promoting this10 year whaling deal?

· Will Japan walk out of the IWC is the whaling deal is rejected

· Will Greenland /Denmark con the commission (and the EU) into an additional aboriginal quota of 10 Humpbacks?

· Will the IWC finally act on the vote buying corruption (following a series of exposes by the Sunday Times in the UK)

Well didn’t get much of a chance to find out

After the opening formalities the Acting Chair Anthony Liverpool (Antigua and Barbuda) “suspended” the meeting until Wednesday!!!

To allow for the Commissioners to meet behind closed doors (away from public scrutiny?!) to try and agree on the compromise proposal (whaling deal)

NZ and USA were continuing to lead the cause to try and find agreement on the whaling deal (how did it get to this ?)

So the meeting is now being held behind closed doors and a DEAL is being struck, will it succeed?

Well we have to be vigilant and make sure that enough countries vote against this shameful whaling package. Make no mistake this DEAL would spell the end of the Moratorium

And once we lose the moratorium it will take generations to stop commercial whaling again.

So hopefully at the end of tomorrow’s closed session we will know where the proposal stands.

And perhaps the meeting can resume in the public domain, with civil society participating.

Ciao

Mick

Mick McIntyre
Director, Whales Alive
Follow the Whales Alive BLOG
www.whalesalive.org.au

IWC live feed can be found at

http://www.e-kujira.or.jp/iwc/iwcmeeting.html

ECO daily publication

http://www.earthisland.org/marinemammal/index.php/eco