The long-sought decision made by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1982 to ban all commercial whaling after 1985 does not mean that conservationists can relax, confident of a safe future for the whales. The IWC was a source of anger or despair for conservationists for the first three decades of its existence according to Dr Sidney Holt who here describes its successes and failures, its reforms and near break-ups. It could, even now, if the 1982 decision is not upheld, preside over the near extinction of Bryde's and minke whales as it did of the blue and humpback whales. Dr Holt is hopeful for the future but insists that we must take the current threats to whales and seals seriously: pollution of several kinds; the unsound basis of scientific advice; commercial fisheries that regard some cetaceans as pests; and the utilitarianism that governs so many of our dealings with the natural world. He makes a plea for the preservation of these animals, not for their direct use to us as a source of food or foreign exchange, but because ‘they can gently and profoundly please us and help us know ourselves’. The following is a shortened version of the author's address to the Society at its AGM in October 1982; Dr Holt is Vice-Chairman for marine matters of IUCN's SSC, Marine Consultant to the ffPS and scientific adviser to the Seychelles delegations to IWC and CITES.