When the 59th annual International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting opens Monday in Anchorage, Alaska, representatives from around the world will consider whale conservation and management.
The bowhead quota for Alaska's Iňupiat and Yup'ik peoples will be one of its principal agenda items. With the three-quarters majority out of reach for either voting bloc (pro- or anti-whaling), the outcome of votes on several key issues are uncertain. They include the Alaskan bowhead quota, Greenland's bid for taking humpbacks and bowheads, Japan's proposal for coastal commercial whaling, and other issues. As the conference opens, sovereign interests, the politics of polarization, and backroom deal-making are likely to determine the fate of whales at the IWC, being held on U.S. soil for the first time in 26 years.
Anti-whaling nations gathered in Anchorage are expected to regain the simple majority, which the pro-whaling faction won by a vote of 33 to 32 last year at last year's IWC meeting in St. Kitts. However, the very future of the IWC is in question, as several nations have intimated that they might quit the body if they do not get their way on specific proposals.
Alaska's U.S. Senators Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski, and Alaska Congressman Don Young, are among the American officials planning to attend the event to press for approval of the Alaska bowhead quota, which was temporarily derailed five years ago at the insistence of a voting bloc controlled by Japan at IWC 54 in Shimonoseki, Japan.
Three officials from The Humane Society of the United States/Humane Society International with superior working knowledge of the IWC and its 2007 agenda are in Anchorage, where they are available to explain and comment upon any aspect of the proceedings and broader context of IWC 2007, and the state of worldwide opinion on the ethics of whaling.
HSUS/HSI STAFF EXPERTS:
Kitty Block, J.D., is Humane Society International's Director, Treaty Law, Oceans and Wildlife Protection department, and oversees its efforts in international treaties and agreements including the IWC and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). At the IWC, Ms. Block actively advises member countries on the relevant agreements, drafts proscriptive language (resolutions, convention amendments etc.), and provides policy analysis to a range of nations and non-governmental organizations.
Patricia Forkan is President, Humane Society International, and Senior Vice President, External Affairs, International, for The HSUS. An IWC delegate of over 30 years, as NGO representative and onetime member of the U.S. delegation, she was a key strategist in the international campaign that resulted in the IWC's 1982 moratorium on commercial whaling.
Naomi A. Rose, Ph.D., is the Marine Mammal Scientist for Humane Society International (HSI), the international arm of The HSUS. As HSI's scientific representative to the IWC Scientific Committee for the past eight years, she participates in its deliberations on all aspects of whaling, including environment and climate change, ship strikes, the impact of noise pollution on marine mammals, whale watching, and proposals for a Revised Management Procedure within the IWC.
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Humane Society International is the international arm of The Humane Society of the United States, the nation's largest animal protection organization – backed by 10 million Americans, or one of every 30. For more than a half-century, The HSUS has been fighting for the protection of all animals through advocacy, education, and hands-on programs. Celebrating animals and confronting cruelty -- On the web at humanesociety.org .
