David @ Tokyo

The IWC Secretariat have updated their home page with some preliminary details of the Scientific Committee meeting to be held during 7th ~ 18th May in Anchorage, Alaska.

Here is the Draft Meeting Agenda.

Here are Documents available for download (none as of right now - it looks like document submissions are open until March 26).

This link may be useful for spotting the new documents as they are uploaded over the coming weeks.


Here's a few goodies from the Agenda which I presume a lot of observers will be watching with interest:

6. RMP ­ PREPARATIONS FOR IMPLEMENTATION
6.1. Western North Pacific Bryde's whales [N]
6.1.1. Complete Implementation of western North Pacific Bryde's whales
6.1.2. Recommended action
6.2. North Atlantic fin whales [N]
6.2.1. Plan for start of North Atlantic fin whale Implementation
6.2.2. Recommended action

As I understand it, the completed RMP Implementation of western North Pacific Bryde's whales will enable the IWC Scientific Committee to provide management advice for this particular stock of whales. As the IWC homepage notes, similar work has already been completed for some Northern Hemisphere common minke whale stocks, and once the wNP Bryde's whale work is complete they'll start the work for the North Atlantic fin whales. Iceland resumed commercial whaling last year, with this stock of fin whales being targeted in addition to common minkes.

However, while this work may put the Scientific Committee in a position to provide management advice, the IWC itself is still polarized and unlikely to alter it's current management decision of "no whaling".

Next:

10. WHALE STOCKS [N]
10.1. Southern Hemisphere minke whales (IA) [N]
10.1.1. Estimate abundance of Antarctic minke whales
10.1.2. Reveal reasons for differences between Antarctic minke abundance estimates from CPII and CPIII
10.1.3. Catch-at-age analyses of the Antarctic minke whales

The SC is expected to finally be able to agree on an Antarctic minke whale abundance estimate based on the third circumpolar set of surveys. More than the estimate itself, the reasons for the differences and discussion of the catch-at-age analyses will be more interesting here. It goes without saying that this part of the SC report is likely to be extremely selectively quoted by certain groups trying to push certain angles in the media.

Lastly:

17. SCIENTIFIC PERMITS (SP)
17.1. Review of results from JARPA [N]
17.1.1. Review report from the intersessional JARPA Review Workshop
17.1.2. Overview of JARPA results in the context of IWC resolutions and discussions

The review of the original JARPA programme is also certain to be a headline grabber one way or another. Given the divided views amongst the wider Scientific Committee on lethal research methods (and indeed in the wider political arena as well) there is going to be repetition of the same old stories that we have been hearing for years, but the report from the review meeting itself should make for enjoyable reading.

At the IWC plenary political talk-fest I think the sustainable use nations should stress that in the context of the convention, which is meant inter alia to provide for the optimum utilization of whale resources, the research can only be viewed in a favourable light (unless the review found that JARPA was terrible, which seems unlikely given the largely favourable report from the previous review meeting in 1997, amongst other factors).

A challenge ought be laid down to the Australians to make data from their non-lethal research programmes available through the IWC SC Data Availability protocol. As of the current time there still appears to be no data available from the Australians, where as there is data available from JARPA, and indeed foreign scientists have been using it in catch-at-age analyses mentioned in section 10.1.3 of the draft agenda. My guess is that the Australians have the following problems:
(1) They have no data
(2) They don't want to be seen to have no data (their non-lethal methods can't produce to the same degree as the methods employed in the JARPA programme)
(3) Even if they did have data, they wouldn't want to provide it because it may be used for management purposes (i.e., contributing towards the setting of catch limits for Antarctic whale stocks).

You never know though, one day they may just prove me wrong.

Labels: IWC 59 Scientific Committee Meeting