Tokelau has declared the waters surrounding its atolls as a whale sanctuary. (Photo by Selwyn Manning.)

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Gladys Hartson.

An international panel of experts and members of the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium have one message to share, “No whaling in Sanctuaries – No way.”

As part of a week long conference Tokelau, a territory in the South Pacific, became the 11th country to announce its waters to be a whale sanctuary at a press conference held at the School of Biological Sciences at Auckland University.

Honorable Aliki Faipule Foua Toloa, from Tokelau, is pleased to be in New Zealand to make the announcement. Tokelau’s whale sanctuary will outlaw whaling throughout its 290,000 square kilometer Exclusive Economic Zone. Toloa said: “we should have done this in 2005… It is the beginning of a lot of work and a lot of information gathering,” he added.

Sue Miller Taei, member of SPWRC, was pleased Pacific nations were standing strong together on this issue. She said forming of Pacific sanctuaries was done in a very “Pacific way”, “they went ahead and created their own sanctuary.”

Convener and member of the South Pacific Whale Research Consortium Rawiri Paratene said this was a special event and celebration of 10 years of hard work by a small group of scientists.

The South Pacific Whale Research Consortium was created by independent scientists to investigate the status of humpback and other whale species in the region of Oceania.

Consortium scientists have studied the Oceania humpback whales for more than a decade and many of their findings have been used to support the growing number of Pacific whale sanctuaries and the creation of Pacific whale watching tourism, according to a joint press release.

Global Whale Programme Director Patrick Ramage said “whales face more threats today more than any time in history.”

More than 1,500 whales are hunted and killed each year for their meat, despite a global moratorium on commercial whaling since 1986 and the establishment of the Southern Ocean as an international whale sanctuary in 1994.

Guest speaker from Russia, Yuri Mikhalev, speaking through an interpreter, said he was happy to see progress with the development of sanctuaries but it was still not enough to protect the whales, “this work needs to be done all the way to the Antarctic.”

Gladys Hartson is a Graduate Diploma in Journalism student at AUT University and is working with Pacific Media Watch.