An ongoing challenge for the IWC Scientific Committee is communicating its highly technical work in concise and easily digestible formats. The Committee took major steps forward at IWC69, presenting a new booklet summarising activities during the intersessional period, creating an in-person science information hub, and delivering a more visual and interactive presentation of its work during the Commission plenary.

Robust scientific advice is fundamental to the Commission’s decision-making and the efforts undertaken by the Committee to summarise this advice were warmly welcomed at IWC69.   

The Scientific Committee Report remains the definitive record of the Committee’s discussions and recommendations, and is necessarily detailed and technical. The new Summary of Activities booklet is a supporting publication that enables a much wider audience to access the work of the Committee. 

The booklet contains 20 pages of information supported by graphics and photographs. It is divided into nine themes, ranging from population assessments and conservation management to human impacts, habitats and ecosystems.

English Edition	French Edition	Spanish Edition

The booklet, hub and presentation were all specifically tailored to the Commission audience, the majority of whom are policy specialists rather than scientists, and it is hoped that this communications effort, particularly the booklet, will also be of interest to students, members of the public and the media.

The Scientific Committee also reported to IWC69 on two other new initiatives aiming to promote cetacean science to wider audiences.

A new Status of Whales section of the IWC website has been developed. Simple rainbow graphics convey relatively complex information about population status in a format that is easy to understand. The new pages also provide an entry point for those seeking more detailed status information on individual species, including maps, basic assessment results and population trajectory plots.  Additional pages explain the methodology used to make the assessments and all the information will be publicly accessible for the first time.  The Scientific Committee’s work on Status of Whales was endorsed by the Commission and will go live on the IWC website shortly.

 
The Scientific Committee also reported on Extinction Alerts, a mechanism developed in partnership with the Conservation Committee and endorsed at the previous Commission meeting. Extinction Alerts enable the IWC to express urgent and public concern about cetacean population declines, sadly an increasingly common phenomenon.  The first Alert was issued for the vaquita in 2023. It generated widespread media attention and was considered a useful tool for raising awareness and urging action.

Recognising the efforts of the Scientific Committee, the importance of two-way communication, and the ad hoc, unconsolidated way that feedback to the Scientific Committee has previously been delivered, the Commission established a new Science Liaison Group. This group is formed of science-minded Commissioners or their representatives, who will provide the Scientific Committee with clear feedback and instructions from the Commission in order to prioritise its work programme. The group was formed during IWC69 and will meet at six-monthly intervals during the intersessional period.

At a time when both conservation concerns and budgetary pressures are increasing, it has never been more important to share and explain the signficance of scientific information. At IWC69, the Scientific Committee successfully tested some new ways of doing this.