10. Proposed International Decade of Cetacean Research (1972)

10. Proposed International Decade of Cetacean Research

(from "Chairman's Report of the Twenty-Fourth Meeting")

The United States delegation referred to the Scientific Committee's recommendation that instead of the proposal for a global moratorium on the killing of whales support should be sought for a decade of intensified research on cetaceans, particularly as regards problems relevant to their conservation, and moved that the Commission accepts the Scientific Committee's recommendation. Such a programme should be known as the International Decade of Cetacean Research. It was also moved that the Chairman of the Commission be asked to establish an ad hoc Committee to determine ways in which such a programme can be implemented; and that this Committee be instructed to contact all other appropriate national and international groups and organisations and in particular FAO to determine their interest in sponsoring such an international programme; and that the Committee report its recommendations at the next meeting of the Commission. The motion was seconded by the delegations of Panama and the USSR and approved by the Commission.