By Levi Novey •
October 16, 2008
This article is part of EcoWorldly’s week-long spotlight on Politicians You Can Believe In. To read more, subscribe to our RSS feed, or view our posts about politics.
Having initially proposed to make Chile’s offshore waters a whale sanctuary earlier this year, on Wednesday President Michelle Bachelet officially signed the whaling ban into law.
On the previous day, she helped designate a new national park and also announced that six additional protected areas will be created in Chile next year.
She’s setting an excellent example for other world leaders on the conservation front.
By Levi Novey •
June 24, 2008
Starting things off with a bang, Chile declared a permanent ban on whaling on the opening day of the International Whaling Commission’s annual meeting. The Pacific Ocean-bordering country is playing host to the conference, where tensions are running high. One goal of the conference is to get enough countries to vote affirmatively to create a new whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic Ocean. But this plan might be stymied by the meeting’s own chair person.
In an effort to build consensus, the chair person of the conference urged for there to be little debate and no voting at the meeting this year. The goal is to “pay it forward,” and use any additional good will that is created this year at next year’s meeting with the hope that more can be accomplished. Many environmentalists find the chairman’s plan to be intolerable, as they claim that Japan is using “scientific research” as an excuse to hunt approximately 1,000 whales each year. But Japan isn’t the only country ignoring a 1986 ban on commercial whaling that was agreed upon by the commission.
