South Pacific dolphin conservation agreement

A group of South Pacific nations are to sign an agreement to help protect and conserve whale and dolphin species, New Zealand Conservation Minister Chris Carter said today - September 14. The memorandum, developed under the international Convention on Migratory Species, is due to be adopted tomorrow at a ministerial meeting of the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme in the New Caledonian capital.

Up to 11 South Pacific nations are likely to sign the regional agreement, with a minimum of four signatories needed to bring it into force. South Pacific states likely to take part include Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu. Vanuatu was the latest to join several South Pacific states in declaring a whale sanctuary in its exclusive economic zone, stretching up to 200 miles from its shoreline.

The memorandum commits signatory states to a range of voluntarily initiatives to protect and preserve whales and dolphins, including unspecified threat reduction measures and habitat protection.

Some of the measures that each nation will be requested to do include conducting socially and economically important activities like fishing and tourism in an ecologically sustainable manner, implementing conservation measures where they do not already exist for vulnerable cetacean populations and implementing an action plan to reduce threats to the mammals, protect habitats and migratory ocean corridors and respond to strandings and entanglement of the mammals.

The agreement may not stop Japan whaling but will enhance the protection for some of these animals which aren't so migratory. The memorandum, under the Convention on Migratory Species, provides a new, more attractive and affordable alternative to the IWC for Pacific countries interested in pursuing whale conservation.

image copyright: L Bejder