IWC

No endangered fin whales will be hunted in Iceland this year.

This is great news. Word today from colleagues in Iceland, and now reports in both Icelandic and English-language media confirm that the planned hunt for fin whales will not happen this summer. The man behind that whaling is claiming that he’s stopping because of ‘hindrances’ in exporting the meat. That’s great news for whales, and everyone who has been opposing this needless, senseless hunt.

Science doesn’t always get a lot of breaks, it’s constantly twisted and misrepresented in the media, and sometimes the best intentions end up being used in ways the scientists themselves would never want them to be or condone. Who’d have thought, for example, that UK universities could be used to defend commercial whaling? Yet, that's exactlly what's happening right now.

The contentious thing at this year’s International Whaling Committee (IWC) annual meeting wasn’t whaling, but bizarrely it was the issue of ‘consensus’.

In a warehouse-like hall, with demoralisingly black walls, in a hotel on the Channel Island of Jersey, several hundred people have gathered this week for the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission.

Yesterday, a resolution was passed in the European Parliament welcoming Iceland's application to join the EU. Iceland's application raises some interesting questions, especially in the light of recent divisions within the EU on environmental issues.

On fishing, for example, Iceland famously has control over its own waters, would it be prepared to let other EU vessels have free access? It's gone to (cod) war over the issue before… and then there are whales. In the EU all cetacean species (that's whales, dolphins and porpoises) are protected species under the Habitats Directive. So it's a no brainer that whaling is 'not allowed' in the EU. Moreover, the EU member states take a common position and vote as a bloc when it comes to international bodies like the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and CITES.

Karli Thomas, Greenpeace oceans campaigner, writes from the IWC meeting in Morocco.

The town of Sidi R'bat on Morocco's Atlantic coast is where the biblical Jonah is said to have been vomited up by a whale. Less than 100km from that spot, something has been going on this week that is again enough to make a whale sick to the stomach.

The International Whaling Commission has been meeting this year beneath a dark cloud of scandal. As delegates descended on the city of Agadir, media headlines exposed Japan 'buying' countries to vote with them - including the accusation that airfares and accommodation for this meeting's acting chairman were paid by Japan. Hardly an auspicious start to a crucial international meeting, nor a good omen for the whales.

As the International Whaling Commission (IWC)'s annual meeting begins in Morocco, there has been a flurry of media coverage over a possible 'deal' or 'compromise'. Often the details, and sometimes the central points, can get lost as things are translated, edited, reworked and re-edited for the media, so I wanted to take the opportunity here to spell out just what Greenpeace's position is.

This meeting is causing a stir because there is the possibility of some sort of deal to address the future of the IWC. Reform has been a long time coming, and everyone agrees that the IWC needs an overhaul. The current deadlock means that the Commission is effectively stymied from taking on the serious conservation work that is so desperately needed. And, of course, we have the deplorable situation of a global ban on commercial whaling being flouted by Japan, Norway and Iceland.

Next week, our governments will get together in Agadir, Morocco, to talk whales. It’s the International Whaling Commission’s annual meeting. And this year, the main topic of conversation will be the IWC itself.

In reality, this is a testing time for the whales, and in many ways we need to make sure we save them all over again. Way back in the 80s when a moratorium, or ban, on commercial whaling was agreed, many countries had already stopped whaling. As the official catch figures show, by the time the ban came into force in 1987 commercial whaling was reduced to practically zero.