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Research Associate, Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
An Alaskan Native, Dr. Tillman participated in the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee between 1974-1995, chairing the Committee during 1983-1986. In 1983 he was seconded to IUCN, serving as the first professional director of the Conservation Monitoring Center (Cambridge, England). In 1988 he was appointed a Senior Executive in NOAA Fisheries, serving in Washington, DC, as the agency’s first Chief Scientist and then as its Deputy Director. In 1993 he became Director of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center (La Jolla, California) that undertook research programs providing the scientific basis for conservation and management of living marine resources in the NMFS Southwest Region; and also received the Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Executive for sustained excellence in supporting U.S. goals of protecting whales internationally and recovering protected species domestically. He helped lead successful efforts in 1994 to establish the IWC’s Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary and to adopt the Revised Management Procedure, and received the Animal Welfare Society’s prestigious Albert Schweitzer Medal for whale conservation efforts. During 1994-2004, the President appointed him the Deputy U.S. Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission. During 1994-1999, he also served in a Presidential appointment as U.S. Commissioner to the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. Dr. Tillman retired from federal service in 2004 and currently works as an independent consultant on marine conservation issues. He is also a Research Associate at the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego) and serves on the U.S. Delegation to the IWC. Professor and Director , the Fisheries Centre.
Dr. Pauly's scientific output, mainly dedicated to the management of fisheries, and to ecosystem modeling, comprises numerous contributions to peer-reviewed journals, authored and edited books, reports and popular articles and the concepts, methods and software he (co-) developed are in use throughout the world. This applies notably to the ecosystem modeling approach incorporated in the Ecopath software (see www.ecopath.org), to FishBase, the online encyclopedia of fishes (see www.fishbase.org), and the global mapping of fisheries trends (see www.seaaroundus.org). In 2001, he was awarded the Murray Newman Award for Excellence in Marine Conservation Research, sponsored by the Vancouver Aquarium, and the Oscar E. Sette Award of the Marine Fisheries Section, American fisheries Society. He was named a 'Honorarprofessor 'at Kiel University, Germany in late 2002. In 2003, he was named one of UBC's Distinguished University Scholars and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Science). In 2004, he received the Roger Revelle Medal from IOC/UNESCO, and the Award of Excellence of the American Fisheries Society. Profiles of D. Pauly were published in Science on April 19, 2002, Nature on Jan. 2, 2003, The New York Times on Jan. 21, 2003, and in other publications. In 2005, Dr. Pauly received the International Cosmos Prize, a prestigious award granted by the Expo¹90 Foundation of Japan, for research excellence with a global perspective. Senior Biologist, The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS).
Philippa is a marine biologist with specialist interest in bioethics, biological research methods, experimental design and animal welfare. She has been attending the annual meetings of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) since 2000 and has served as an invited expert on the New Zealand delegation to the IWC, where she provided technical information on whaling issues and the welfare of hunted cetaceans. Philippa was also the lead author of 'Troubled Waters', a comprehensive and ground breaking report launched in 2004 by an international coalition of over 140 NGOs, which examined the cruelty of modern whaling activities. More recently she has been working with colleagues at Bristol University (in the UK) and Massey University (in New Zealand) to investigate better criteria for determining the onset of permanent irreversible insensibility and death in cetaceans. Deputy Secretary of the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Heritage.
Conall manages the development and implementation of the Department’s policies and programmes for marine and terrestrial natural resource management and biodiversity conservation. He also coordinates the Department’s approach to indigenous issues and international environmental forums. Within the Department, Conall oversees the Approvals and Wildlife Division, the Land, Water and Coasts Division, the Marine Division, the Natural Resource Management Programmes Division, and Parks Australia Division. Conall is the Australian Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission and is a Deputy Commissioner on the Murray Darling Basin Commission. From 1991 until he joined the Department in 1997, Conall held various positions in the Department of the Prime Minster and Cabinet handling Australian Federal-State relations, primary industries and environment policy. Conall has a PhD and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons 1) from the Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Formerly a Judge of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, The Netherlands (2003-2006); and prior to that was Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Samoa to the United Nations in New York (1993-2003) and concurrently Ambassador to the United States of America and High Commissioner to Canada.
International Environmental Lawyer.
US Whaling Commissioner 1995-2005.
During his career he served 4 presidents with Presidential appointments as the: US Tuna Commissioner, US Atlantic Salmon Commissioner, and served 10 years as the US International Whaling Commissioner. Among his many awards and recognitions include: Presidential Merit Award, Trout Unlimited Washington Sportsman of the Year, Presidential award for outstanding achievement of a Vietnam veteran, and the Department of Transportation (USCG) Commandant’s Award for Meritorious Public Service. In 2005, Mr. Schmitten retired and moved back to Sockeye Point Lodge in Washington State where he continues to work on marine and fresh water resource issues. Associate Professor, Center for Northeast Asian Studies, Tohoku University, Japan.
Professor Ishii's areas of work include environmental issues of North Korea; the merging International Relations studies and Science, Technology and Society studies; Japanese domestic policies and international negotiations of Climate Change; international negotiations of transboundary air pollution in Europe, North America and Asia; the effectiveness of scientific assessments in the international environmental regimes; technology Assessment of Carbon Sequestration technologies; and policy-interlinkage among international environmental regimes. Professor Ishii has published a number of peer reviewed articles on these topics. Recently, together with Ayako Okubo, another Japanese scholar who will also participate in the New York Symposium, he has undertaken a review of Japan's whaling diplomacy. He is also member of the EANET Taskforce, the Society for Social Studies of Sciences, the International Studies Association, the Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, and the Japanese Society for Science and Technology Studies. Director, Treaty Law, Oceans and Wildlife Protection Humane Society International/Humane Society of the United States.
Ms. Block provides legal analysis and drafts position papers on domestic and international laws involving animals. Ms. Block serves on the International Review Panel of the IATTC and co-chairs the Species Survival Network’s working group on whales. Alternate IWC Commissioner for Brazil.
Palazzo has been directly involved since then in the campaign to end all whaling in Brazil, which was achieved in 1987, and later in the development of national public policy for marine mammal conservation. One of the longest-serving IWC national delegates, Palazzo has attended Annual Meetings from 1984 onwards, served as Head of the Brazilian Scientific Delegation to the IWC from 2000 to 2005, and as Alternate Commissioner since 1997, having coordinated the studies leading to the proposal for a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary by Argentina, Brazil and South Africa. He has also co-founded the Brazilian Right Whale Project in 1982 and since that year worked continuously both in field research and the development of conservation measures for this endangered species in Brazil and other Latin American countries, and served as General Coordinator for the National Secretariat of the Environment at the Presidential Cabinet of Brazil (precursor to the Ministry of the Environment) in 1991/92. Among his other achievements in marine conservation are the establishment of several national parks and sanctuaries, some on critical marine mammal habitat in Brazilian waters, and the declaration of Fernando de Noronha Archipelago as a World Heritage Site. He currently also serves as member of the Marine & Coastal Network of Latin American social and environmental leaders sponsored by the Avina Foundation.
Yolanda Kakabadse is the Chair of the Science and Technology Advisory Panel of the GEF (STAP / GEF). Was Executive President of Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (1994-2006), Ecuador and is now the Chair of its Advisory Board. Member of the Board of Directors of the Ford Foundation, and former Minister of Environment for Ecuador. She was President of IUCN-The World Conservation Union from 1996 to 2004 and was the Executive Director of Fundación Natura-Ecuador from 1979 to 1990. Coordinated civil society participation in the Earth Summit (1992). Oceans Policy Advisor , Greenpeace International.
Karen has also served as the NGO representative on South African Government delegations to the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, and on the delegation that helped draft the International Agreement on Albatrosses and Petrels. Before working with Greenpeace, she was the Southern Africa Coordinator of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, and then the Global Fisheries Coordinator for the Coalition where her work focussed particularly on the environmental and social impacts of illegal fishing. Karen has a Masters Degree in International Political Economy from the American University in Washington D.C., and also received a Masters in the Philosophy of International Environmental Law from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. |
State of the world’s whale stocks: Implications for policy-makers. Whaling Diplomacy: Why has it been so difficult to find an acceptable solution? Developments in Oceans Law from 1946 – 2006: Is the ICRW outdated? The Way(s) Forward. |
Dr. Michael F. Tillman received a Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1972 and joined NOAA Fisheries, publishing during his career over 40 papers and articles on the status of fisheries resource, marine mammals and other protected species. 
Dr Pauly became a Professor at University of British Colombia's (UBC) Fisheries Centre in 1994, after many years at the International Centre for Living Aquatic Resource Management (ICLARM), then in Manila, Philippines. 
Philippa Brakes is a Senior Biologist with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) - an NGO that aims to reduce, and ultimately, eliminate the continuing threats to cetaceans and their habitats and to raise awareness about threats to individual cetaceans and cetacean populations, by educating the public about their welfare and survival. She works as part of a broad team of legal, scientific and political experts at WDCS that addresses a range of cetacean issues. 
Dr. O'Connell's responsibilities in the Department include overseeing the implementation of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, including the protection of matters of national environmental significance and nationally important wildlife. He also oversees the Australian Government’s flagship environmental programme, the Natural Heritage Trust. 
During his time in New York, Judge Slade was closely involved with a range of United Nations work on oceans and the environment and on sustainable developmental issues; and for several years was Chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States (
Duncan Currie is a practising international and environmental lawyer. He holds an LL.B. (Hons.) from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and LL.M. from the University of Toronto in Canada. He has practised international law and environmental law for over twenty years, and over that time has advised NGOs, corporations and governments on a wide range of environmental issues including the law of the sea, whaling, fisheries, Antarctica, nuclear, liability, biosafety, toxic and chemical, climate change,forestry, mining, and waste issues. His paper, Whales, Sustainability and International Environmental Governance, is being published by the Review of European Community and International Environmental Law.
Rolland A. (Rollie) Schmitten has been a natural resources manager for the past 38 years; focusing on marine fish and mammals for the last 25 years. He has served as the Washington State Director of Fisheries. The federal (National Marine Fisheries Service) West Coast Regional Director of 6 states; the National Director of Marine Fisheries; the US Department of Commerce Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs (NOAA), and the National Director of Marine Habitat Conservation. 
Atsushi Ishii is a Japanese scholar with a Master in Economics, specialised in environmental and ocean policy. From 2001 to 2004 he was Assistant Fellow at Japan's National Institute for Environmental Studies. Since October 2004 he is Associate Professor at the Center for Northeast Asian Studies/Faculty of Liberal Arts of Tohoku University. 
Kitty Block oversees the efforts of the Humane Society in international treaties and agreements including the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the International Whaling Commission (IWC), the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), the Cartagena Convention/Protocol to the Specially Protected Areas and Wildlife (SPAW), and the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS). 
José Truda Palazzo, Jr. has started his conservation work back in 1978 with the late José Lutzemberger, an accalimed pioneer activist for environmental causes in Brazil. 
Former President of the IUCN-The World Conservation Union, Former Environment Minister of Ecuador, Chair of the Science and Technology Advisory Panel of the GEF (STAP / GEF).
Karen Sack is the Oceans Policy Advisor to Greenpeace International. Karen, a South African national, focuses on the development of policy on international oceans issues. In 2004, Karen was the first person from a non-governmental organization to speak at a regular session of the United Nations General Assembly, where she represented the concerns of over 50 environmental and scientific organizations members of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (
Banner image and other photographs used on this page are courtesy of Dr. Roger Payne and the Whale Conservation Institute / Ocean Alliance.