Conservation groups are calling on the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda to step back from its long-standing campaign to overturn the global ban on commercial whaling, after a new survey found that most of its citizens oppose the practice and that they had no idea their government was championing it.

The findings landed days before this week’s deadline for governments to submit initiatives ahead of the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) next meeting, set for Hobart, Australia, in late September. Antigua and Barbuda has used recent IWC gatherings to push for the moratorium on commercial whaling – in place since 1986 – to be lifted, and its representative pledged in 2024 to bring the initiative back to the table this year.

But according to the poll, commissioned by the Antigua and Barbuda Ocean Trust and carried out by CoreConsult Inc., the government’s position sits uneasily with the people it represents.

Of the 508 residents interviewed by phone in late May and early June, 64% said they oppose commercial whaling outright, and 60% rejected the idea of their country tabling a resolution that could pave the way for its return. Perhaps more strikingly, 68% said they were unaware their government had been advocating for whaling at the IWC at all.

Concerns extended beyond the ethics of the issue and into reputation and revenue. Some 62% of respondents felt the stance could tarnish Antigua and Barbuda’s standing on the world stage, while 56% opposed the country’s continued resistance to a proposed South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary – a project more than half of those surveyed said could hurt tourism if blocked.

The timing is pointed. Antigua and Barbuda is due to host the Caribbean Blue Economy Summit in October and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in November, placing its whaling diplomacy under an international spotlight just as delegations, business leaders and global media arrive on its shores.

In response to the poll, 22 international conservation organisations – including OceanCare – have written to Prime Minister Gaston Browne, urging the government to withdraw support for any initiative aimed at reviving commercial whaling and to instead back the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary.

The nation’s advocacy at the IWC has never translated into whaling of its own, but it has for years been counted among the practice’s most vocal defenders internationally – a position widely tied to its relationship with Japan, the leading force behind efforts to reopen commercial whaling worldwide.

When asked in 2024 whether the arrangement amounted to a quid pro quo, the country’s IWC Commissioner, Daven Joseph, pointed to more than $200 million in Japanese assistance received over two decades and asked: “Is that wrong?”

For campaigners, the survey confirms what they have long suspected.

“Antigua and Barbuda has been acting as an extended arm of Japan’s whaling interests at the International Whaling Commission – largely unnoticed, it seems, by its own people. The survey leaves no doubt: the country’s population clearly rejects commercial whaling,” said Nicolas Entrup, Director of International Relations at OceanCare.

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