2026-10-05
The recent meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was a missed opportunity for courageous action.
Although a resolution to create guidelines for “sustainable” whaling, which would have undermined the global moratorium on commercial whaling, was withdrawn the meeting failed to result in a ban.
Whale populations have recovered since the moratorium came into effect in 1986, but pressures including climate change, boat strikes, entanglement in gillnets, and krill harvesting remain.
The IWC also failed to establish a new sanctuary area in the South Atlantic, which would have resulted in whales being spared from being hunted across most of the Southern Hemisphere.
Lines attributable to Australian Greens spokesperson for Healthy Oceans, Senator Vanessa Bleyer:
“Whaling is a barbaric practice that leaves beautiful marine mammals to suffer. Commercial and ‘scientific’ whaling must be banned outright.
“The decision to withdraw this resolution on so-called sustainable whaling is a welcome reprieve and leaves the moratorium intact, it still leaves the door open to the matter being revisited at future meetings.
“Whales are being cooked alive by warming oceans, starved by trawlers ravaging the krill fisheries they feed on, drowned in gillnets and being chopped up by boat propellers.
“The IWC’s recognition that these are threats to whales is commendable, but whales need more than recognition.
“Our ocean environments and the species that inhabit them are under threat from all sides. We need courageous action, not business as usual.”