WHALEWATCHING
A major new development is the IWC's involvement
in whalewatching as a sustainable use of cetacean resources.
In 1993, the IWC invited Contracting Governments to
undertake a preliminary assessment of the extent, and
economic and scientific value, of whalewatching activities.
These reports on the value and potential of whalewatching
were consolidated by the Secretariat and considered
by a Working Group at the 1994 meeting. As a result
the IWC has reaffirmed its interest in the subject,
encouraged some scientific work and adopted a series
of objectives and principles for managing whalewatching
proposed by the Scientific Committee. In 1996 it adopted
a Resolution that underlined the IWC's future role in
monitoring and advising on the subject. The Scientific
Committee has agreed the following
general guidelines
for whalewatching and produced a compilation of
whalewatching
regulations from around the world
The first Scientific Committee whalewatching
Working Group met in 1996 to consider the future
work of the Committee in this regard. The Group
determined that the overall objective in developing
guidelines for the management of whalewatching was
to ensure that the development of whalewatching is
ecologically sustainable and meets, to the extent
possible, the requirements of the industry and
expectations of the wider community. The following
objectives were adopted by the Commission as the
basis for further consideration of issues relating
to the management of whalewatching:
- ensuring that whalewatching does not
significantly increase the risk to the survival
or ecological functioning of local populations
or species or their environment; and therefore,
in the short-term, that whalewatching does not
result in significant adverse change in
population dynamics such as birth or mortality
rates, or impede normal patterns of habitat use
or activity, including feeding, resting and
reproduction;
- the development and maintenance of viable
and responsible whalewatching activities.
The following priority topics were identified for
future work:
- A more detailed review of the approach
distances, effort and activity limitations in
place in existing operations for a range of
species and information on the basis for such
controls.
- An assessment of current studies of the
effects of different approach distances and
platforms.
- A review of the qualitative methods used to
assess the short-term reactions of cetaceans and
the basis of judgements of adverse effects.
- Comparative studies on different
approaches/distances and other controls which
may be required on areas important for feeding,
resting and reproduction.
In addition to these priority topics, the
Scientific Committee has also considered the
assessment of long-term effects, dolphin feeding
programmes, whale and dolphin ‘swim-with’
programmes, noise from whalewatching vessels and
aircraft, critical response parameters and
development of a data recording system (DRS) for
data collection from whalewatching platforms of
opportunity.
5 YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN
The Five Year Strategic Plan for Whalewatching is a
living document that will be regularly monitored,
evaluated and reviewed (as set out in Section 5.1 of
the Plan). The Strategic Plan was endorsed by the
International Whaling Commission at its 63rd annual
meeting, pending a review by the Scientific
Committee of the Plan’s scientific and assessment
objectives, prior to the next meeting of the
Commission in 2012. As actions under the other
objectives in the Strategic Plan can start to be
addressed immediately, the Commission has requested
the Standing Working Group on Whale Watching begin
working on those issues.
WORLDWIDE REGULATIONS
To download the latest version of the compilation
of whalewatching regulations from around the world,
click on the filename with your right mouse button and
choose option 'Save target as..'
WHALEWATCHING WORKSHOPS A Workshop on the Science for Sustainable Whalewatching, endorsed by the IWC, was held in Cape Town from 6-9 March 2004. It reviewed available scientific and management tools for regulating whalewatching operations, and developed a concept for managing whalewatching in accordance with the precautionary approach outlined as Principle 15 of the UNCED 1992 Declaration, and the FAO Code of Conduct. This concept included the need for a clear definition of management objectives with Target and Limit Reference Points and a Precautionary Approach Reference Point. In order to evaluate status in relation to predefined reference points, the Workshop discussed a set of critical response parameters to link whalewatching operations to impacts on cetaceans, as well as appropriate techniques to monitor these parameters. The concept developed by the Workshop will have to be adapted and adopted on a case-by-case basis, taking into account domestic legislation, policy, guidelines and socio-economic considerations. However, the benefits of a common management concept include the possibility of adopting comparative objectives and applying similar monitoring techniques. New techniques and studies for quantitative assessment of the impacts of whalewatching operations were discussed. The Full Report of the Workshop can be downloaded below. Click on the filename with your right mouse button and choose option 'Save target as..'
| Title | Filename | Size | | Workshop on the Science for Sustainable Whalewatching | WW_Workshop.pdf | 192Kb |
LaWE: LARGE-SCALE WHALEWATCHING
EXPERIMENT INITIATIVE
In 2006, the Scientific Committee agreed that there is new
compelling evidence that the fitness of individual odontocetes repeatedly
exposed to whalewatching vessel traffic can be compromised and that this can
lead to population level effects. The Committee recommended that similar
studies looking at individual fitness of cetaceans be carried out where ever
possible. However, in the absence of these data it should be assumed that
such effects are possible until indicated otherwise. The Committee strongly
encouraged the development of similar studies on large whales, in particular
research to determine sustainable levels of whalewatching. For this purpose,
the whalewatching sub-committee agreed that it was now necessary to
concentrate research effort on understanding the interactions between
whalewatching impacts on cetaceans and both other anthropogenic disturbances
and ecological factors. To do so, the sub-committee recommended that a
dedicated workshop to develop a large-scale research design that considers
multiple study areas and species in a comparable fashion would be very
helpful to this process.
The intersessional workshop to plan a large-scale
whalewatching experiment was held in Bunbury, Australia in March/April 2008.
Click
HERE to see the Report of the workshop.
A
proposal emerged from this workshop which highlights its aims and
objectives.
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