The Gambia, Senegal, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Ghana and Guinea-Bissau faced backlash after co-sponsoring an effort to end the four-decade-old moratorium on commercial whaling at the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) most recent meeting in Peru.
The seven West African nations argued that it would help fight food insecurity. The move, unexpected from nations with no whaling tradition, was met with dismay from conservation groups.
The resolution was ultimately withdrawn due to lack of support, along with a separate motion to declare whaling a source of global food security.
However, its proponents are working to refine their case ahead of the next IWC meeting in Australia in 2026.
“This proposal was never about food security,” said Madison Miketa, a wildlife scientist at Humane Society International. “The nations that put it forward have no history or cultural traditions of eating whale meat.” He added that genuine food security was too important to be used as a political football.
More than 100 scientists and experts from the region publicly agreed there was neither a tradition nor a need for whaling in west and central Africa.
