Watching Our Water Ways

A mood of disappointment seemed to hang over delegates as the International Whaling Commission’s annual meeting came to an end in Portugal.

No real accomplishments were cited, and the debate between whaling and anti-whaling advocates will go on.

Perhaps the most positive comment I saw was by Patrick Ramage of the International Fund for Animal Welfare in a story by Association Press reporter Barry Hatton. Hatton made the point that the IWC was set up in 1949 to allocate the whale harvest and now discusses environment threats, such as pollution and climate change.

Said Ramage, “The tone and substance (of the talks) reflect a steady drift towards the IWC becoming a conservation forum and away from being a whalers’ club.”

Other reports worth noting:

OrcaLab
Agence France Presse:
The Christian Science Monitor
BBC News
Reuters
Radio Australia

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Tags: International Whaling Commission

This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 8:33 am and is filed under Fishing interests, Marine mammals, Oceans, Pollution and spills, Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.