9. A Global Moratorium on Commercial Whaling
(from "Chairman's Report of the Twenty-Fourth Meeting")
With the object of enabling the Commission to institute a global moratorium
on commercial whaling, the United States delegation moved and the United
Kingdom delegation seconded a motion that the Schedule for 1973 be amended in
every case where a numerical quota appears to substitute the numeral "0" for
all such numerical quotas.
The proposal for a moratorium was considered by the Technical Committee.
In introducing it to the Committee, the United States delegation said that
the state of knowledge of the whale stocks was so inadequate that it was only
common prudence to suspend whaling; this was necessary so that scientific
efforts could be redoubled and new research technique developed.
The technical Committee had before it the views of the Scientific Committee
as expressed in that Committee's report.
The Scientific Committee agreed that a blanket moratorium on whaling could
not be justified scientifically since prudent management required regulation
of the stocks individually.
It would also probably bring about a reduction in the amount of research
whereas there was a prime need for a substantial increase in research activity.
It recommended that instead of a moratorium, support should be sought for a
decade of intensified research on cetaceans and that this should proceed in
parallel with further development of the policy of bringing catch restrictions
into line with the best available knowledge of the stage of the stocks.
The Technical Committee rejected the proposal for a moratorium, four
delegations voting in favour and seven against; three delegations abstained.
In the course of discussion in the plenary session of the Commission it
was made clear that the proposed ban would apply only to the commercial
taking of whales.
The present exception granted in the Schedule to the small scale whaling
from Greenland and the Faroe Islands, where the whales are taken for
consumption by the local population, would not be affected.
Opposition to the motion was expressed on the grounds that there was no sound
scientific basis for a moratorium, that a cessation of whaling would result
in reducing the research effort, from loss of data and from the inability of
countries to provide increased funds for investigation into the whale stocks;
that with the reductions of the quotas of the individual species and operation
of the observer scheme in all areas greater progress was being made than ever
before, and the introduction of a moratorium could result in a complete
setting aside of all that was being achieved by the Commission and lead to
unregulated whaling in several parts of the world.
The United States delegation did not accept that the imposition of a
moratorium would bring to an end research and the collection of scientific data
on whales.
The motion was rejected by the Commission, four delegations voting in favour
of it and six against; four delegations abstained.
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