leagal aspects of the whale watching.pdf - International Fund for ...

SUMMARY
As the previous IFAW workshops have highlighted, whale watching activities, both land-based and sea-based, are
spreading rapidly around the world, in many cases in the absence of regulation or guidelines, despite the fact that
there may be potential risks or threats to whales posed by these activities which are also likely to be expanding.
Nonetheless, regulations and guidelines are now beginning to be developed and in some countries are already being
refined and updated.
Whale watching is an economically valuable activity and thus potentially of benefit to all countries, including
developing countries, but only if the activity is closely conditioned or regulated to ensure its sustainability on a longterm
basis. This will be possible only if the marine mammals which are its object are not unduly adversely affected by
the activity.
As part of IFAW’s series of workshops on whale watching it was, therefore, considered appropriate and timely that
the fourth workshop should be a legal one. Its objective would be to examine examples of existing guidelines,
regulations and other precedents with a view to making recommendations which would facilitate the development
of binding or non-binding measures, as appropriate, wherever such activity takes place.
In November 1997, seven legal and three scientific experts, including one senior administrator involved in drafting
the most recent regulations, as well as nine observers met in Punta Arenas, Chile, for four days to review and
critique relevant legal and related materials presented by the participants. The report contains an account of their
discussions which included analysis of the value, for the workshop’s purposes, of sanctuaries and other protected
marine areas and the application of the precautionary principle. They also considered existing methods of
enforcement, penalties and other sanctions included in examples of legislation put forward.
The ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of binding or non-binding guidelines or recommendations were considered. Each was found to
have its own value depending on the particular geographic, economic and social situations of the countries and
regions concerned. Similarly it was found that there was value in adopting measures at a variety of levels; local,
national, international and regional.
The report made recommendations concerning the general objectives and other considerations on which legislation
and other guidelines should be based and identified the processes by which these should be developed. It made
detailed recommendations concerning the subject matter of the measures required to avoid possible harassment
and disturbance of marine mammals by the many activities involved in the different forms of whale watching, the
methods of enforcing these and penalising violations through legal and administrative means.
These recommendations are aimed at assisting States, when considering the adoption of measures, to choose from
the available precedents the formulations most appropriate to their particular needs.
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