Mr. Lapointe, President of IWMC World Conservation Trust, said that the IWC needs to quickly take three steps if it is to survive as an international body.

First it needs to manage its meetings in a more desirable manner. The frustration between the Chairman, delegates, the Scientific Committee and other officials is obvious and a more constructive structure would help all those involved to reach reasonable decisions more quickly. The IWC has to have rules and procedures it can follow.

Second, delegations should reaffirm the principle of sustainable use and the key role of science as their guides for decision-making. This will mean that conservative quotas can be managed for commercial whaling, with the IWC operating as an oversight body rather than as a political institution.

Third, delegates should spend more time considering the human consequences of their decisions. The whaling communities need to be much more widely understood before votes are taken that impact the well-being of ordinary people in different countries.

Mr. Lapointe said: "The IWC has become weak and ineffective for whaling countries and a political football for non-whalers. If it does not reform, it will ultimately have to be subsumed by another international body or reconstituted. The only other possibility is that it will break up into two separate entities, one a whaling body like the original IWC with around twenty members, and the other an organization opposed to whaling but with no say in their actual management."