‘To everyone’s great surprise, the South African commissioner didn’t show up for the IWC [International Whaling Commission] plenary meeting. I’ve been attending the IWC meetings for 38 years and can’t remember not having South Africa at a plenary meeting,” the former IWC alternate commissioner for Brazil and senior conservation officer of the Brazilian Nature Conservation Institute, José Palazzo, told Our Burning Planet.

South Africa wasn’t the only nation to skip the 68th meeting of the International Whaling Commission in mid-October in Slovenia, but as a long-time participant of the IWC and co-sponsor of the proposal of the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary (Saws), pro-conservation nations were shocked at SA’s failure to attend.

The IWC holds commission meetings biennially, which are attended by government delegates, observers from non-member governments, other intergovernmental organisations, non-government organisations and the media. The previous meeting took place four years ago, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

#IWC68 plenary starts tomorrow. First Commission meeting for 4 years has a challenging agenda inc. status of individual whale populations, work to tackle the threats they face, aboriginal subsistence whaling, key budgetary & governance issues. Follow at https://t.co/Idybt3u7yu pic.twitter.com/T6XHwSJRaE

— International Whaling Commission (@iwc_int) October 16, 2022

“I’m probably one of the oldest delegates of the commission,” said Palazzo, who before becoming an NGO observer served as the head of the scientific delegation.

“I feel really disappointed that South Africa wasn’t there, because it was highly regarded as an important player, not just because it was pro-conservation, but because it has this specific political weight in Africa, and it could help us move the commission forward. If countries of that importance just start shutting down and not appearing, I fear for the future of the commission.”

This year’s IWC plenary was particularly important, as it seemed likely that there would be a majority vote for the establishment of the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary for the first time since it was proposed more than 20 years ago.

Brazil proposed the sanctuary in 1998, and a few years later South Africa became a co-sponsor of the proposal alongside the governments of Argentina and Uruguay, with the support of IWC members.

“The primary goal of the Saws is to promote the biodiversity, conservation and non-lethal utilisation of whale resources in the South Atlantic Ocean,” states the proposal. 

“We see the sanctuary proposal much more as a cooperation framework, in which we could develop this international cooperation for research and conservation, and try to work together to address novel threats to whales like entanglement in fishing nets, ship strikes … [and] talk about ecosystem services provided by whales in the region and try to quantify that and figure that out in terms of fisheries productivity, and how much whales are helping us protect our fisheries resources,” explained Palazzo. 

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The proposal needs a 75% majority vote to pass and at the last IWC plenary four years ago, it fell short of that majority, with the vote supported by 39 countries and 25 opposing it. 

This year, the vote did not even take place, as IWC procedure dictates that a quorum of 45 out of the IWC’s 88 members must be in attendance for the vote to take place.

Palazzo said: “We were able to muster most of the votes at the last minute — we got a few of the countries that were missing, like Colombia and Slovakia and a few others to appear at the plenary.

“But then what happened was the pro-whaling countries, which are usually rallied by Japan … walked out of the meeting and removed the quorum for discussion of the proposal. So we weren’t even able to vote.”

Palazzo said that since Japan left the IWC in 2019 it had attended as a non-member observer, but continued to influence other member nations.

“We missed an opportunity to strengthen cooperation in the region and strengthen research and whale-watching programmes,” said Palazzo.

“It would be a great framework for us to promote funding for different international cooperation activities.

Read more on Daily Maverick: The harpoons are gone, but whales face more modern threats

“So we lost another two years,” said Palazzo, as the next vote for the sanctuary can only take place at the next plenary in 2024.

SA’s reason for non-attendance

When asked why SA did not send a delegate, Albi Modise, the spokesperson for the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment (DFFE), told Our Burning Planet that the department had attended the IWC’s annual scientific meeting, which was held virtually, but not the commission meeting, which had no virtual option.

“DFFE could not attend the commission meeting since we faced an unusual situation where our lead scientists in these matters were unable to travel due to unrelated bona fide personal reasons that were shared with the department at the time,” said Modise.

“We look forward to continuing physical participation in future. DFFE continues to participate in the IWC programmes  and will seek to resume its attendance at the physical meetings.”

On SA’s lack of attendance, Palazzo said: “This is too bad, especially as the sanctuary proposal highlights the importance of whale watching as an economic use of the whales in our shared ocean.

“Recent research has proved that Brazil and South Africa share not only a great interest in the development of whale watching but also many humpback whales visit both coasts; thus [it is] in our shared interest to establish an ocean basin-wide cooperation for their study, protection and sustainable use through ecotourism.” DM/OBP