Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary
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The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is a protected area of 50 million square km. surrounding the continent of Antarctica where the International Whaling Commission has banned all types of commercial whaling. The IWC has to date designated two such sanctuaries, the other being the Indian Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
[edit] History
The Whale Sanctuaries were put in place by the IWC to give whale species a chance to recover from the past century of over-exploitation, during which most whale populations had collapsed and many species were dangerously near to extinction.
Establishment of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was agreed upon by the IWC in 1994, by a vote of 23 countries for and only 1 (Japan) against.
The status of the Southern Ocean Sanctuary can be reviewed by the IWC every 10 years, and during the 2004 meeting a proposal was made by Japan to remove the sanctuary but it failed to reach the 75% majority required (it received 25 votes in favour and 30 votes against with two abstentions).
The Indian Ocean Whale Sanctuary was established by the IWC in 1979, and has since been reviewed twice. Repeated proposals at the IWC to add a South Atlantic Sanctuary and a South Pacific Sanctuary have never reached the 75% majority needed to pass.
Japan has continued to hunt whales inside the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary until today, as scientific whaling is not prohibited by the IWC rules. The catch of 2005 inside the sanctuary numbered around one thousand whales, including a smaller number of the endangered Fin whale.
[edit] Area
The northern boundary of the Sanctuary follows the 40°S parallel of latitude except in the Indian Ocean sector where it joins the southern boundary of the Indian Ocean Whale Sanctuary at 55°S, and around South America and into the South Pacific where the boundary is at 60°S.
[edit] External links
- IWC page on the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary
- Successes and Failures of the IWC (WWF)
- I was there: how the Southern Ocean Sanctuary came to be (Greenpeace)
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