Boletín Agrario Agricultura, Medio Ambiente y Mundo Rural

Proceedings of the 62nd Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission, held in Agadir at the kind invitation of the Government of Morocco, began yesterday with speeches of welcome by the Deputy Mayor of Agadir and the Secretary General of the Ministry of Marine Fisheries.

There are three new members to the Commission bringing the total to 88, of which 69 were present on the first day. The full list of member countries can be found HERE. The meeting was chaired by Ambassador Anthony Liverpool, Vice-Chair of the Commission in the absence of the Commission’s Chair Ambassador Cristian Maquieira who was unable to attend for reasons of ill health. The Commission sent its best wishes for a speedy recovery and looks forward to welcoming him back in the future. Ambassador Liverpool noted the importance of the meeting given the ongoing discussions on the future of the IWC on which he hoped that a consensus resolution could be found. He looked forward to the same level of co-operation and desire for consensus that had characterised recent meetings. After adopting the Agenda he described his proposals for how to progress the discussions on IWC’s future.

He noted that for almost a quarter of a century, the very different views on whales and whaling held by members have dominated IWC’s discussions to the detriment of its effectiveness and that to resolve these difficulties is not easy.

Since the Annual Meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, in 2007, he recalled the significant level of intersessional activity representing an enormous amount of time and resources by all members of the Commission and demonstrating a real commitment to trying to arrive at a consensus solution to the problems IWC faces so that the IWC can become as relevant, credible and effective a conservation and management body as possible.