Dear friends,In one week, the International Whaling Commission will hold its final vote on a proposal to legalize commercial whale hunting for the first time in a generation.
The outcome rests on whose voices are heard most clearly in the final hours: the pro-whaling lobby -- or the world's people?
More than 650,000 of us have signed the petition to protect whales -- but it's time to reach 1 million! At the whale summit in Morocco, an Avaaz team is setting up billboards, front-page newspaper ads, and a giant, constantly-updating petition counter -- all to ensure that delegates, from the moment they step off the plane until they cast their votes, will see from our explosive numbers that the world will not accept legal whale slaughter.
Thanks to the worldwide outcry, many governments have already pledged to oppose the proposal. Each time the Avaaz whale petition added 100,000 signatures, it was sent again to the IWC and key governments -- and some, like New Zealand, thanked all of us who had signed on.
But pressure from the other side has been relentless -- and now other governments, especially in Europe and Latin America, may abstain... or even support the proposal. The vote could go either way.
Citizen pressure is our best hope. After all, it was an explosive worldwide social movement in the 1980s that led to the commercial whaling ban we're now trying to protect. As the International Whaling Commission meets in Morocco -- they on June 17, and vote less than a week later -- let's make sure the world's voices are there to greet them:
After the global ban was first implemented on commercial whaling, the number of whales killed each year plummeted from 38,000 per year to just a couple of thousand. It's a testament to the power of humanity to move forward. As we move to confront the other crises of the modern age, let's cherish this legacy of progress -- by joining together now to protect our majestic and intelligent neighbors on this fragile planet.
With hope,
Ben, Ben M, Maria Paz, Benjamin, David, Graziela, Iain, Luis, Ricken, and the whole Avaaz team
P.S.: Despite the ban, Japan, Norway, and Iceland have continued whaling -- and are now pushing to make the IWC proposal as lenient as possible. Expecting permission to catch more whales than ever, Japan is reportedly planning to buy its largest whaling ship yet.
Let's soar past a million. Please click the link below to sign the petition:
STOP A VOTE TO RESUME WHALING
