The UK government has reiterated its long-standing opposition to commercial whaling at the 70th meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the body's establishment and 40 years since the global ban on commercial whaling.
At the meeting, UK representatives secured support for the protection of whales, dolphins, and porpoises by co-sponsoring a resolution. This resolution, adopted by strong consensus, recognises the importance of cetacean strandings response and research.
To support this initiative, the UK has contributed £150,000 towards a new Global Cetacean Strandings Database. This database aims to help countries collaborate and share information more effectively, ensuring strandings data is used to strengthen coordination, improve evidence, and enable faster responses when animals are in distress.
International Oceans Minister Stephen Morgan stated the UK's leading role in championing the moratorium and driving forward new work on strandings. Defra Chief Scientific Advisor Anjali Goswami highlighted that strandings data is a valuable scientific tool for understanding threats to these animals.
The UK also completed a two-year term chairing the IWC’s Conservation Committee and Scientific Committee. Under UK leadership, the Conservation Committee doubled the number of active Conservation Management Plans to ten and expanded practical action on bycatch.