The meeting also expressed the views that the European Community should take initiatives to reduce cetacean by-catch in the ASCOBANS area and that the Agreement area should be extended southwards and westwards to include the waters of Spain, Portugal and the Republic of Ireland.

One of the most important objectives of the Agreement is the reduction of the number of small cetaceans incidentally caught by fisheries. While whales and dolphins are no longer deliberately hunted in the Agreement area, several thousand are killed each year by accidental entanglement in fishing gear. By-catch is therefore considered the most important threat to cetaceans in European waters. In order to allow depleted stocks to recover, by-catch must be significantly reduced. The Meeting therefore set clear minimum limits for levels of incidental take of harbour porpoises.

Marine pollution also poses a severe threat requiring international co-operation. Hazardous substances, such as heavy metals and organic pollutants, accumulate on their way through the food chain and reach highest levels in the body tissues of marine mammals, affecting their health status. Acoustic disturbance is a further growing cause for concern.

ASCOBANS was concluded in 1991 under the auspices of the Bonn Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (UNEP/CMS) to co-ordinate and implement conservation measures for dolphins, porpoises and other toothed whales (Odontoceti) in the Baltic and North Seas. Currently eight European countries - Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom - are Parties to the Agreement. The accession of further Range States is expected in the near future.