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Campaigners celebrate as whaling ban is upheld

30th June 2010

International Animal Rescue has joined other campaigners in celebrating the defeat of a proposal to legalise whale killing.

In a few short weeks, the biggest whale-saving petition in history was created, signed by an extraordinary 1.2 million of us worldwide, and delivered directly to key delegates at the International Whaling Commission meeting in Morocco. In the end, the 24 year old whaling ban was upheld.

The pro-whaling lobby tried to use political favours to win a so called ‘compromise’ that amounts to a quota for hunting whales, but as tension grew in the closed-door talks, the massive petition became a top story on the BBC’s world news, and campaigners worked with friendly negotiators and other allies to put pressure where it was most needed and draw greater global attention.

This is an important victory for whales and for global people power which has demonstrated that international decisions can be affected when people around the world are mobilised to speak out and defend what they believe in.

It is far from the end of the campaign to protect the world’s whales - Japan’s ‘scientific’ fleet is already on its way to hunt down and kill hundreds of whales - but it is a good start, and one that can be built on if we all continue to make the effort to stand up and be counted.