Ocean reports

The 20th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP20) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) will take place from 23 November and 5 December in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. EIA will be actively engaging at CoP20 on a range of key issues relating to the protection of elephants, rhinos, Asian big cats, pangolins and vaquita porpoises, in addition to broader compliance and enforcement issues.

This new report calls on Yahoo! Japan and its parent company, the LY Corporation, to stop selling products containing whale and dolphin meat after our investigations found high levels of toxins in some of the nearly 1,000 cetacean food items available for purchase on the search engine and web portal.

EIA has identified 15 populations of cetaceans (the collective term for whales, dolphins and porpoises) that are threatened due to bycatch in European waters – especially among harbour porpoises, with an estimated 35,000 deaths each year, mainly in static fishing nets. The level of bycatch in European waters is so serious that several populations of cetaceans are endangered and face potential extinction despite binding legal requirements to adequately protect them.

An estimated 2.9 million whales were killed in commercial whaling operations during the 20th century, decimating global populations. Given significant illegal and unreported whaling, even higher levels of depletion are likely.

In September 2024, the 69th meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC69) will be held in Lima, Peru. Decisions taken at this meeting will have far-reaching consequences for the conservation of cetacean species, one quarter of which are already threatened with extinction.

Iceland’s last whaler has sought to justify the killing of endangered fin whales by claiming their slaughter will help Iceland achieve its climate goals. In this briefing, EIA’s Ocean experts debunk his spurious assertions and call on the Government of Iceland to finally institute a permanent ban on all commercial whaling.