Every year 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die from environmental threats like entanglement in fishing nets, noise pollution, toxic contamination and ship strikes, as well as commercial hunting.
This week, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has a chance to return to its conservation agenda - and stop whales from being stranded at the mercy of whalers.
The 55th annual meeting of the IWC is taking place in Berlin from June 16th to 19th. The most important issue on the IWC's agenda is the Berlin Initiative, a joint proposal to strengthen the conservation agenda of the IWC.
The IWC will also discuss whale watching, sanctuaries and so-called 'scientific' whaling.
Since it was established in 1946, the IWC has become an increasingly polarised organisation with conservation-minded nations on one side and whaling nations and their supporters on the other.
Its original mandate was to "provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks" and "thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry." At the time, the whaling industry had already severely depleted many of the world's great whale populations. Gray, Bowhead and Right whales were already considered commercially extinct.
In 1982 members of the IWC voted to adopt a moratorium on commercial whaling that would take effect in 1986. Since then, the most strongly pro-whaling voice, the government of Japan, has used foreign aid packages to recruit supporters. Over the past three years countries such as Benin, Mongolia, Morocco and Panama have joined the IWC and voted in a bloc with Japan.
Greenpeace will be at this year's meeting. We are calling for the IWC to adopt the Berlin Initiative. Already more than 40 worldwide conservation groups have signed on to support this initiative to protect whales, dolphins and porpoises.
On 15th June, the day before the IWC began, Greenpeace climbers scaled Berlin's 365m Television Tower, the Fernsehturm in Alexanderplatz. They hung a banner that read, 'IWC: Act now' and, to make sure delegates get the message, they suspended a large inflatable whale from the point of the tower.
