Time for A Compromise at the IWC

(from "The Japan Times", 21/Apr/1997)

Milton M.R. Freeman


The International Whaling Commission stands at a crossroads as it approaches its 50th annual meeting. Recent meetings give little cause for optimism that it has the will or ability to fulfill its international role as set down in its founding convention. With more than 95 percent of the world's whaling taking place outside of the IWC or against the wishes of the majority of its members, both the relevance and the credibility of the organization today can be seriously questioned. Unable to fulfill its mandate, due to the domestic political agendas of the majority of the 30 or so voting members, the organization is stalemated.

On one side are a small number of whaling nations, and against them a larger number of antiwhaling nations committed to saving whales by all means. The main issues being discussed during IWC meetings no longer involve conservation, but rather "green" politics and suppression of the cultural and legal rights of minority peoples.

Few would deny that an earlier times the international regulation of whaling was ineffective, with resulting overexploitation of many whale stocks. The most severely depleted stocks had already been reduced to this condition by about 1960 and were then afforded protection from further commercial whaling. Since the introduction of a [temporary] ban on commercial whaling in 1985, however, the IWC Scientific Committee has developed a rigorous method of calculating sustainable quotas for individual whale stocks. This method will allow whale stocks (if depleted) to recover, and will provide stable and sustainable harvest levels to be set, while ensuring the stock will have no chance of being overexploited - even in the face of any future environmental deterioration.

The IWC scientists also concluded that at least one nonendangered and widespread species, the minke whale, can be taken in the North Atlantic, the northwest Pacific and the southern oceans. It is this conclusion that has set the IWC afire, for Norway, Iceland and Japan wish to continue including these whales as part of their national fisheries (as they have long done), whereas countries for whom whale products have no economic value oppose the taking of whales, even it abundant and nonendangered. What the antiwhaling majority at the IWC is saying in effect is: Never mind the generally adopted principle of sustainably using the renewable resources of the world for human benefit, never mind your communities' cultural, socioeconomic and dietary needs, we have decided it is wrong to kill whales, and we have the voting strength in IWC to see that you don't - so the matter is nonnegotiable.

For the whaling countries, there is an important matter of principle involved, for unlike other developed nations, their national economies and diets remain, in significant degree, based on marine fisheries. Japan has an additional concern, and it is principally cultural: In certain regions of western and northern Japan all parts of the whale are regarded as everyday food staples, as well as being required as ceremonial food in various household and community ritual and religious celebrations.

National governments have a duty to promote the quality of life of all their citizens (and to uphold their right to remain different from citizens of other nations if that is their wish), and if this means taking steps to ensure security of food supply, then that is a legitimate and praiseworthy policy. Even at the IWC, an exemption to the ban on whaling and selling whale products is allowed for various aboriginal whaling nations, whose cultural distinctiveness has been recognized. The inconsistency at IWC is perhaps best illustrated by this exemption, for why is this basic human right not also considered legitimate for those native to other countries, who for countless generations have also culturally valued utilizing locally available foods?

Would a resumption of commercial whaling result, as some claim, in uncontrolled overexploitation? The large factory ships of earlier times fed a worldwide trade in oil, with other whale parts mere byproducts (used for animal food and a host of other less important purposes). Today, there is no world demand for whale oil as an industrial raw material; indeed, trade in whale products is banned in most countries. The only demand for whale products today is as food for people in a very few whaling countries. The large-scale industry and the global market demand for oil that fueled past excesses are both dead, and neither the Japanese nor anyone else could revive it, for cheaper substitutes are now available in greater abundance. As for the limited whale meat market, any "flood" of supplies into these few markets would so depress prices as to render operations nonprofitable in a very short time.

The necessity of reaching some sane, humane and equitable resolution of the whaling debate seems apparent, for whether the IWC majority likes it or not, whaling will continue in many parts of the world. This continuation will occur because whales still remain essential commodities for some people who have no intention of stopping whaling under national and international laws. Indeed, such whale fisheries remain the essential means of sustaining the socioeconomic and cultural viability of many small and often remote coastal communities in, for example, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Russia and the United States, as well as in several small island nations throughout the world.

Those who oppose whaling for strictly personal reasons need to show respect and understanding for the fact that not everyone chooses, or is able, to move to a city and work in an office or factory - even if such jobs were available. Though many people consider whales special, this is a cultural belief, held by whalers as well as by nonwhaling peoples.

Where animal species are of interest to several countries, as is the case with whales (as well as with geese and ducks, salmon, halibut, and many other migratory or widely distributed species), international management agreements are entered into, and this is so in the case of those whale species managed by the IWC. However, if any party to such an international agreement chooses not to harvest a resource, that certainly gives it no legal or moral right to prevent other parties to the treaty from making use of the resources in responsible ways. Such actions by the antiwhaling nations at the IWC, justified by no other than narrowly domestic political pressures at home, only engender international ill-will and, in the case of the IWC, a very real likelihood that fewer and fewer responsible governments will want to play in that politically motivated and morally questionable arena.

The whaling nations are trying to demonstrate that sustainable development can work in a contentious arena. The lessons to be learned from a successful (i.e., sustainable and equitable) outcome, will be increasingly valuable as in the future people's needs make ever greater demands upon the Earth's strained resource base. It is surely time for objecting politicians and seriously concerned environmental campaigners to wake up and look beyond their narrow and dangerously self-interested agendas.


Milton Freeman, an ecologist with research interests in maritime societies and resource use, has served as adviser to aboriginal peoples' groups, conservation organizations and governments. He is currently Henry Marshall Tory Professor of Anthropology, University of Alberta and senior research scholar at the Canadian Circumpolar Institute.

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