In April 2022, a Conservation Committee workshop on socio-economic values of the contribution of cetaceans to ecosystem function was hosted by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The workshop aimed to identify methods to assess the socio-economic value of the ecosystem services provided by whales to human well-being by, for example, combating climate change and increasing fishery production, to ultimately lead to strengthened efforts to conserve and recover cetaceans stocks and populations.
The workshop was endorsed during a previous workshop held in 2021, jointly hosted by the International Whaling Commission and the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) on cetaceans and ecosystem functioning, which reviewed the current state of knowledge and identified research gaps and priority for research.
The 2021 workshop provided the basis for the Conservation Committee workshop in April 2022 with its aims representing the first step in identifying contributions that could be addressed from a socio-economic perspective whilst reviewing existing techniques for the estimating socio-economic value of the role of cetaceans in ecosystems.
The workshop was attended by over 65 participants and was held online. The full workshop report can be accessed here, with the live recordings available to view here.
More resources and guidance on socio-economic monitoring can be found in the socio-economic monitoring factsheet of the Marine Mammals Management Toolkit.
