To Colleagues Interested in Whale Conservation

From: Monica Medina (Director) & Rémi Parmentier (Senior Policy Advisor), The Pew Whale Conservation Project.
whales@pewtrusts.org

21st May 2007

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

67 people from 29 different nationalities took part in the Symposium on the State of Whale Conservation sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and held at UN Headquarters on 12-13 April, 2007.

Participants represented a mix of legal, policy and science academics, policy- and opinion-makers, national and international civil servants, NGO and Think-Tank representatives. Asked to move beyond existing ‘fault lines’ so that new ideas and solutions can be discussed and debated, the symposium was comprised not only of people from within the margins of the IWC community (government representatives, NGOs, scientists), but also those with wider expertise in conservation, law, and other relevant fields.

Click here to see the List of Participants and the Agenda of the Symposium.

The Symposium was opened by Welcome addresses by the J. Charles Fox from the Pew Charitable Trusts, and Juanita Castaño, Director of the New York Office of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and by a keynote speech by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, former Prime Minister of New Zealand who chaired the Symposium.

Click here to see the Welcome addresses and keynote speech.

In order to encourage open debate, all participants were asked to respect the Chatham House Rule, whereby no statement may be attributed to individual participants unless this is cleared in advance with them. For each of the four sessions, three panel presenters speaking respectively from a perspective from within the IWC, a perspective from outside the IWC, and an NGO perspective made presentations to kick off the discussions in which all participants were encouraged to take part.

Click here to see the panel presentations.

A “curtain raiser”, daily reports and a final summary were produced independently, in English and French, by a team of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, also under the Chatham House Rule.

Click here to see the Earth Negotiations Bulletin reports of the Symposium.

A draft of the Chair's Summary of the Symposium was circulated to all participants, and once finalised it was posted on this website on 26 April. On 2nd May, the Chair's Summary was also sent by the IWC Secretariat to all IWC Commissioners and posted on the IWC website for consideration under Agenda Item 7 "The Future of the IWC" at the 59th Annual Meeting of the IWC in Anchorage, May 28-31.

Click here to see the Chair’s Summary.

As we had previously announced, we shall organize a side-event in Anchorage in the margins of the 59th annual meeting of the IWC. It will take place on Sunday 27 May in the morning.

Click here to view the invitation to the side event, information on the location, timing and program, as well as details on how to confirm your attendance.

We trust that ideas arising from the Symposium will be useful to IWC members in connection with the discussions that will take place in Anchorage on “The IWC in the Future” (Item 7 of the Provisional Agenda of the 59th Annual Meeting of the IWC).

Click here to see the Provisional Agenda of the 59th Annual Meeting of the IWC and other related documents.

Please feel free to contact us for further details at whales@pewtrusts.org.

Symposium Photos

Chair's Summary Now Available!

Click here to download the Chair's Summary of the Symposium

Click here to view Pew's Whale Conservation Project press releases.

Bulletin

Click here for ENB online reporting of the Whale Symposium.

You can now also download the Opening Speeches and Speaker Presentations.

Chairman

The R.H. Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Former Prime Minister of New Zealand, President of the New Zealand Law Commission and Commissioner to the IWC.

Secretariat:

Rémi Parmentier, Director of the Varda Group.
Kelly Rigg, Director of the Varda Group.
Charles J. Fox, Senior Officer, Pew Charitable Trusts Environment Program.

In the News

- BBC Online "Moving the whaling debate forward" (25 May 07)
- BBC Online "Temples of the whale" (23 May 07)
- San Francisco Chronicle "Save the whales at sea, too" (21 May 07)
- BBC Online "Did Greens help kill the whales" (16 May 07)
- BBC Online "Beyond the harpoon - whale saving begins at home" (11 May 07)
- Japón al Día (Peru) "Ballenas: observalas en vez de cazarlas"
- El Comercio (Quito) "Ecuador se suma a conservación de ballenas" (4 May 07)
- The Canberra Times "Plight of the stinky whale" (4 May 07)
- Brisbane Times "US official moots end to whaling moratorium" (16 April 07)
- Reuters "FEATURE - Iceland undecided on commercial whale hunts" (15 April 07)
- The Sydney Morning Herald "Japanese case for whaling dismissed" (14 April 07)
- Scoop Independent News "Whale Symposium in New York"

- The Guardian "Antarctica to Costa Rica: mapping the humpback whale's amazing journey" (4 April 07)

- The New York Times (Editorial) "Japan's Whaling Obsession" (1 April 07)

More...