Controversy swells around whaling commission meeting

Delegates at the International Whaling Commission meeting in Australia will help determine the fate of the world's whale population, including the sperm whale, from commercial trade

June 29, 2000
Web posted at: 12:14 p.m. EDT (1614 GMT)

By Environmental News Network staff

The destiny of the world's fragile whale populations will be on the line beginning Monday when the International Whaling Commission opens its 52nd annual meeting in Adelaide, Australia.

At a press conference hosted Wednesday by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, conservationists questioned how much power the commission has to protect whales from commercial trade.

"Signed in the 1940s, the Convention on Whaling is a gentleman's agreement without enforcement provisions," said Karen Steuer, director of commercial exploitation and trade of wild animals for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. "That would be fine if Japan knew how to act like a gentleman."

"Any major change to convention regulations requires a three-fourths vote," Steuer explained. "Japan has a quarter block over the minority on most issues. That creates an uphill hurdle when it comes to increasing or decreasing protection for whales."

An association of more than 200 members from 40 nations, the IWC was formed under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling on Dec. 2, 1946. In its role as the international authority for the conservation of whales and management of whaling, the commission banned commercial whaling in 1986.

Several environmental groups, including the IFAW and the Worldwide Fund for Nature, suggest that Japan has used foreign aid to encourage developing nations to join the IWC and vote in the country's favor.

"Japan tends to focus on small-island developing states with marine-focused economies and marine-focused cultures, " Steuer said. Recent inductees to the commission include St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Dominica. According to Steuer, all of the countries have sided with Japan on whaling issues.

Together, this group could block the passage of the South Pacific Sanctuary proposed by the governments of Australia and New Zealand.

The sanctuary would safeguard reproduction areas of whales already protected in their feeding grounds by the Southern Ocean Sanctuary, which was adopted by the IWC in 1994. Conservation groups say the sanctuary is necessary to complement and improve the effectiveness of the Southern Ocean Sanctuary in protecting migratory whale species.

One of the most contentious issues surrounding this year's meeting lies beyond the vote of the commission.

Using a clause in the whaling convention that allows states to grant special permits to themselves for whaling for "scientific purposes," Japan has skirted the international moratorium on commercial whaling. "When the clause was passed it was assumed that it would be used in good faith, " Steuer said. "Japan has stretched the rules."

Harpoon guns are used to hunt whales on the open sea

Since 1987, Japan has caught more than 4,000 minke whales. This year, in addition to its self-allocated annual kill of 540 minke whales, the country proposes to catch 50 Bryde's whales and 10 sperm whales for scientific research.

"This is commercialization under the guise of science," said Vassili Papastaurou, international whaling team coordinator for IFAW. "DNA studies show that there are various protected whale species on sale in Japanese markets."

One claim made by Japan to justify its research is that whales are in competition with humans for fish and thus have an adverse effect on commercial fisheries.

Conservation groups don't buy that argument. Sperm whales, for example, feed mostly on deepwater squid, a species that is not consumed by humans, Papastaurou pointed out. "If ever there was an animal not responsible for depleting food human food sources, it's the sperm whale."

Many members of the conservation community argue that much of the scientific research could be conducted without harming the animals.

"I said last year that a so-called scientific whaling program that had, by that time, killed nearly 3,000 whales ... was not acceptacle," said Jim McLay, commissioner for the New Zealand delegation at the IWC meeting in 1998. "Some 440 dead whales later I repeat that comment. There is no need to kill whales in order to research them. Adequate non-lethal means are available."

The IWC has passed several resolutions criticizing Japan's scientific whaling with no apparent effect, Steuer said.

Environmental groups claim the scientific research sets the stage for Japan to resume commercial hunting. "We could see (Japan) return to commercial whaling out of the IWC over the next two to three years," she warned.

Unless Japan chooses to withdraw its proposal to expand scientific research, the request is likely to pass. But conservation groups believe internal pressure within Japan could sway the government. A recent poll conducted by a British research center revealed that only 11 percent of the population in Japan supports commercial whaling.

"We need to inform people about what they may not have been aware of," Steuer said. "The IWC's greatest power is influencing public opinion. When 40 nations of the world speak, it is very influential over policy-makers."

Copyright 2000, Environmental News Network, All Rights Reserved

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International Whaling Commission
Stop whaling now
   •South Pacific Sanctuary
Worldwide Fund for Nature
   •whales in the wild
International Fund for Animal Welfare
The Japan Whaling Association

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