While WWF endorses the view that people should be allowed to make use of wild animal species, provided this use is conducted on a sustainable basis, it does not necessarily follow that all animal species should automatically be exploited.

Even if the IWC were to adopt a Revised Management Procedure (RMP), which could guarantee that whaling was only carried out on a truly sustainable basis, WWF would remain opposed to the resumption of commercial whaling.

The following factors have contributed to WWF's decision to take such a position:

• Whales are highly migratory mammals: whale conservation is therefore a matter for international concern.

• The whaling industries of many nations have an appalling history of mismanagement and have over-exploited most whale species.

• All whales are now increasingly subject to many new threats other than whaling. These include marine pollution, entanglement in fishing nets, and habitat degradation.

• The seas around Antarctica are feeding grounds for minke whale. These might well become the targets of commercial whalers if an RMP were adopted. The Antarctic seas should therefore be declared a whale sanctuary, which would reinforce the provisions of the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, and would help to conserve and rehabilitate the Antarctic whale feeding grounds.

• All the methods currently used to hunt whales are inhumane.

• Economic benefits can be derived from live whales in their natural environment through non-consumptive activities such as whale-watching.