"The best science is done by observing live whales in the marine environment, not figuring out how many you can sustainably kill," says Ramage.

"We hope it will elicit other countries to participate," says Ramage. He added that encouragingly, the US and Norway had put forward a unanimously adopted resolution for countries to be more sensitive to the effects of climate change on whale and dolphin species.

Ramage said that the IWC is undergoing a difficult transition, and hoped that Japan's proposal to be allowed to resume whaling in its own coastal waters would ultimately be rejected. "It would violate the ongoing moratorium, introduced in 1986," said Ramage.

Discussions will continue over the coming year about the fate of the IWC, the subject of a review by the "small working group" – a panel of IWC representatives.