+ sanctuaries
    southern ocean sanctuary
    indian ocean sanctuary
    south pacific
    south atlantic
 -  whale watching

During the IWC meeting in 1998, Australia and New Zealand put forward plans for creating a South Pacific Whale Sanctuary.

Sperm whales. © Quinta/Innerspace Visions

The sanctuary is designed to extend the existing Southern Ocean Sanctuary, which covers the Antarctic and three quarters of the great whales feeding. This new sanctuary would ensure that the warmer areas where the whales give birth and raise their young are also protected. All 16 Pacific island countries and territories in the proposed sanctuary's waters, represented under the South Pacific Forum, support its creation: Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Nuie, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Samoa.

The South Pacific Whale Sanctuary would provide important benefits to both whales and local communities. The protected species would include Blue, Fin, Sei, Southern Right, Humpback, Bryde's, and Sperm whales, species whose populations were significantly depleted by commercial whaling in the southern hemisphere. Furthermore, the island nations could reap great economic benefits through enhanced eco-tourism and the pro-conservation image a whale sanctuary helps foster.

If the South Pacific Whale Sanctuary were combined with the proposed South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary and the existing Southern Ocean and Indian Ocean sanctuaries, whales would be protected from commercial whaling in almost the entire southern hemisphere.