As noted above, significant progress has been made in 

 the past several years to develop and implement international 

 agreements which will assure the conservation and protection 

 of marine mammals and other components of the Southern Ocean 

 ecosystem. The efforts have been successful, in part, 

 because of the unique nature of the Antarctic Treaty and the 

 history of international cooperation in the Antarctic. 

 The Commission will continue to work with the National 

 Science Foundation, the Department of State, the National 

 Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other appropriate 

 organizations and agencies towards the successful implementation 

 of the provisions of the Convention on the Conservation of 

 Antarctic Marine Living Resources and towards the development 

 of an ecologically sound regime to govern exploration for and 

 exploitation of mineral resources. 



International Whaling Commission (IWC) 



Representatives of the Marine Mammal Commission consulted 

 with the U.S. Commissioner to the International Whaling 

 Commission and others in preparation for the Special Meeting 

 and the Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting of the IWC in Brighton, 

 England, and attended the meetings of the IWC and its 

 Scientific Committee during 1982. The Commission's 

 activities in 1982 regarding the bowhead whale issue as they 

 relate to the IWC are discussed in Chapter VI of this 

 Report. A summary of the Commission's activities relating to 

 other aspects of IWC action in 1982 is set forth below. 



Special Meeting, March 1982 



As discussed in the Commission's previous Annual Report, 

 the IWC set quotas of zero at its meeting in 1981 for all 

 stocks of sperm whales throughout the world except the 

 western division North Pacific stock which was harvested by 

 Japanese coastal whalers under a quota of 890 for 1981. 

 Instead, the IWC agreed to refrain from inserting an 

 explicit zero in the Schedule for this stock and to specify 

 by a footnote in the Schedule that, beginning in the fall 

 of 1982 and thereafter, no whales could be killed from this 

 stock unless and until the IWC established catch limits for 

 it. The IWC also agreed to convene a special meeting of 

 the Scientific Committee in Cambridge, England, from 

 27 February until 5 March, and a special meeting of the 

 Commission in Brighton, England, 24-25 March 1982 to consider 

 any additional data and analyses that might become available 



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