Quick hit #2

And it's a whale of a good story. Perhaps not as good as it could be, but still good. The International Herald Tribune for July 24 reports that

[t]he International Whaling Commission has agreed to slow down progress toward its plan for the management of the whale population....

Contrary to what many people think, the IWC never imposed a "ban" on whaling, just a "moratorium." Recently, pro-whaling countries, particularly Japan and Iceland, have been pushing for adoption of a "management" plan to replace the moratorium, one that would regard whales as a "resource" to be "managed." Environmentalists as well as anti-whaling countries counter that such a plan is merely an excuse to resume large-scale commercial whaling.

Thus, when

[t]he final resolution [of the commission meeting] dropped any reference to a vote on the management plan at the commission's 2005 annual meeting, thereby delaying progress towards its implementation,

and set no deadlines for developing rules for whale management, it was greeted with relief and satisfaction by whaling opponents.

In more good news,

[a]nti-whalers scored another victory when Japan failed in a bid to abolish a sanctuary in the Antarctic. The move would have allowed Tokyo to kill almost 3,000 minke whales a year.

But the battle goes on.