Green Vegans IWC64 Update from Panama

The day was a roller coaster of emotions, expectations, and hope. However, the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary was defeated by the whalers for the fifth straight year. This was especially important to the Latin American NGOs.  Some took heart in that at least the sanctuary came to a vote, further in the process than ever before.  The whales in the sanctuary lost by nine votes.

There are some 50 NGOs here. It took the efforts of many of us to stop the US attempt to get early consensus to avoid a vote on the “bundled” and corrupt whaling proposal from Russia/US/SVG.  Read our earlier website posts for more background. So, the victory of the day is that the US juggernaut that sought to accelerate the process was delayed before we had a chance to talk to the countries whose commissioners will vote to protect thousands of whales. Tomorrow will likely be the most difficult.  We will report from the meeting then.