South Africa’s support at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) this week for the controversial “Berlin Initiative” helped tip the vote in favour of protecting whales, dolphins and porpoises.
For the first time in its 57-year history, the IWC now has a committee dedicated to the conservation of these sea creatures. This committee will have decision-making powers and will be funded by an environmental research fund.
South Africa’s commissioner at the yearly IWC meeting in Berlin, director of Marine and Coastal Management Horst Kleinschmidt, played an active role in gathering support for the initiative. It was passed by 25 votes to 20.
“The South African vote was important because of the narrow margin,” says Jason Bell-Leask, local director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, one of the NGOs that lobbied for the motion.
The Berlin Initiative was opposed by pro-whaling countries like Japan, Norway and Iceland, who argued that the IWC was set up to manage whaling stocks, not protect whales. Japan launched a partial boycott of the IWC in protest and said it would consider withdrawing permanently from the commission.
The South African coastline is part of the Southern Ocean sanctuary set up by the IWC in 1994 where whaling is forbidden. The decision to set up this sanctuary is due for review next year.
Kleinschmidt supported proposals to establish two other whale sanctuaries — in the South Atlantic and South Pacific — but they were unsuccessful. Both proposals were supported by a simple majority of countries, but failed to raise the three- quarters majority required.