(from "Chairman's Report of the Fortieth Annual Meeting")

The Canberra meeting, although it had small participation, had a fruitful exchange of views and made the eight recommendations given below.

(1)

The IWC Scientific Committee should be requested to bring together and assess relevant information about cetaceans since the establishment of the Indian Ocean Sanctuary. In particular, the Committee should as far as possible compare information from within and outside the Sanctuary as a means of evaluating the recovery of whale stocks with the more general suspension of commercial whaling.

(2)

The Scientific Committee should be requested to make suitable arrangements through the Secretariat to contact IWC and non-IWC Indian Ocean States to obtain the information.

(3)

The Scientific Committee should be requested to give higher priority to the Sanctuary and particularly to seek to encourage a more co-ordinated approach so as to make research and monitoring more effective.

(4)

The IWC Secretariat, prior to the 41st Annual Meeting, should be requested to contact Indian Ocean States to obtain copies of existing legislation concerning cetaceans and cetacean research and to provide the information to Commissioners with a summary statement in time for consideration at that meeting.

(5)

The Secretariat should be requested to prepare a paper, to accompany the request for legislation, which would provide background information about the Sanctuary to Indian Ocean States. The Committee also felt it would be helpful if Commissioners encouraged interest in the Sanctuary in their countries, e.g. by the preparation of informative leaflets and posters.

(6)

A small Committee of Commissioners should be appointed to check the paper by the Secretariat proposed in (5) before submission to other nations.

(7)

At this stage the Sanctuary should be considered as a whole but the Committee recognised that in some circumstances it would be beneficial to encourage regional co-operation for greater efficiency of operations.

(8)

Different views were expressed on the future of the Sanctuary. It was agreed that in order for the IWC to make a decision on this issue, detailed documentation should be prepared. This would include the documentation identified above but also could include other documents such as the views of Contracting Governments. This documentation needs to be distributed in adequate time to enable Commissioners to have an informed discussion when considering the future of the Sanctuary.

Japan stated that it had been opposed to the Indian Ocean Sanctuary and had doubts on its necessity given the general pause in commercial whaling. Although Japan had contributed to the research in the Indian Ocean it believed that the status of the sanctuary should be reviewed in the broader context of research activity throughout the world.

The USA asked if the Scientific Committee could meet the requests contained in the recommendations, and the Chairman of the Scientific Committee indicated that, although this specific topic had not been discussed, the Scientific Committee had identified that its highest priority for 1989 related to the Comprehensive Assessment. It had hoped that the Commission would reduce requests for other work to a minimum.

Australia pointed out that the Indian Ocean Sanctuary was a major initiative of the Commission and that the Commission must carry out its responsibilities under the Schedule in time for the review at next year's meeting. This matter therefore had some priority.

The USSR spoke of the necessity for a broadening of the scientific function of the Commission and believed that questions relating to sanctuaries should be considered within a general context of reviewing the Convention.

10.3 General review of prohibition on commercial whaling in the Indian Ocean Sanctuary
It was noted that the work identified at the Canberra meeting will provide material needed in preparation for the review of the Sanctuary which will be addressed at the 1989 Annual Meeting.

10.4 Action arising
The Technical Committee agreed that the small group of scientists who attended the Seychelles meeting should arrange for the collation of the relevant information required under Recommendation (1) for presentation to the Scientific Committee. It was agreed that much of the work requested could be carried out by correspondence before the Annual Meeting, and the Technical Committee endorsed all the recommendations above which were adopted by the Commission.

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