Ireland's proposal to allow the resumption of commercial whaling in coastal waters in return for a worldwide sanctuary in the remainder of the oceans was put to the meeting by Mr Michael Canny, writes Andrew Bushe. Only the "headlines" of the Irish plan were put to the conference and, if acceptable, they will be adopted at the next IWC meeting in Oman next May.
Mr Canny (51) is no stranger to controversy. For the past seven years as Director of the National Parks and Wildlife Service he has been involved in a number of them. He backed the Government's proposals for interpretative centres in Mullaghmore, Co Clare, and Lugalla, Co Wicklow.
He has fought successfully on behalf of whales in the past and it was on his proposal that huge areas of the South Pacific and Atlantic Oceans were declared whale sanctuaries at the IWC meeting in Mexico in 1994.
The sanctuary has been breached by a loophole the Irish proposals would phase out: killing is allowed for "scientific research".
Prince Rainier of Monaco opened the five-day meeting with a strong speech in support of the Irish proposal. The prince urged delegates to seek solutions that would spare as many whales as possible. "The tense conflict between the whaling and anti-whaling factions seems more and more a no-win situation - alas - for the whales," he said.
Though there is no history of whaling in Ireland - apart from Norwegian whalers working from base stations on the west coast at the turn of the century - it joined the 43nation IWC in 1985.
"We joined to promote whale conservation after there was a lot of urging to do so from various groups, such as the Irish Wildlife Federation. We have consistently taken a very pro-conservationist line," Mr Canny said.
He has been vice-chairman of the IWC for three years and is expected to take over the three-year chairmanship at the end of this week's meeting.
Married, with two sons and two daughters, Mr Canny has spent his working life in the public service, apart from a two-year break when he worked with the Wang computer company.
A statistician, he has worked as an accountant with the Office of Public Works and as an economist in the Department of Finance.
His major achievement as Parks and Wildlife director has been the introduction of the Special Areas of Conservation scheme which now covers 7 per cent of the country.
"We have negotiated agreements with the main farming organisations and at the moment we are negotiating with farmers and other landowners around the country to get them to accept it," he said.