Arabic version: لجنة صيد الحيتان تحتفل بمرور 80 عاماً بنتائج متباينة

According to ABC News, the International Whaling Commission’s 70th meeting in Hobart produced its first consensus “single voice” declaration while again failing to establish a South Atlantic whale sanctuary.

The commission, created 80 years ago to regulate whaling, marked four decades since the start of a commercial whaling moratorium. Norway, Iceland and Japan continue to whale despite the ban. The Hobart Declaration recognised the recovery of some whale populations and identified ship strikes, noise pollution and net entanglement as non-whaling threats.

Brazil’s proposed sanctuary would have covered 21 million square kilometres from the equator to Antarctica, spanning feeding, breeding and migratory areas between South America and Africa. It received 39 votes in favour, 18 against and three abstentions, short of the three-quarters majority required for such a change to the whaling convention.

Brazil said it would submit the proposal at every IWC plenary session until it was approved. Representatives of Antigua and Barbuda disputed whether the proposal should continue, saying it should be withdrawn until issues in paragraph 10e of the convention could be assessed. That provision details the 1986 global moratorium on commercial whaling.

The meeting also endorsed steps on emerging risks, including stronger action on ship strikes, collision monitoring and reporting, safer routes in high-risk areas, lower vessel speeds, and collaboration between shipping companies and maritime agencies. Delegates additionally supported a resolution targeting the international fish maw trade, linked to whale and dolphin bycatch.