The 69th meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC69) will take place in Lima, Peru, this September. The gathering will include representatives from most of the 88 IWC member governments, as well as around 30 nongovernmental organizations from around the world, including AWI.
The IWC established a moratorium on commercial whaling that has been in effect for nearly four decades, and, despite its name, whaling is no longer the only issue occupying the organization. As threats—including bycatch, vessel strikes, pollution, and climate change—have increased, the IWC has evolved from its original exclusive focus on regulating commercial whaling of large whales to developing unrivaled expertise in the conservation of all cetaceans, including dolphins and porpoises.
AWI’s priority at IWC69 will be to defend the IWC’s threat mitigation agenda against potential budget cuts, promote governance reforms to ensure this venerable institution remains fit for purpose, and demand that the three nations (Norway, Iceland, and Japan) still conducting commercial whaling in defiance of the ban are held accountable. Our report on meeting outcomes will appear in the next issue of the AWI Quarterly.