Whaling: Decline of Antarctic minke whale numbers - full text
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The Australian newspaper on April 3 reported details of the latest research by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), the intergovernmental body responsible for the conservation of whales and the management of whaling, into the global population of the Antarctic minke whale, the results of which had emerged ahead of the official presentation of the research at the IWC’s 60th annual meeting in June in Santiago (the capital of Chile). The population of the Antarctic minke whale species had been estimated by the IWC in the 1980s to be between 510,000 and 1.14 million. However, the latest research concluded that the earlier survey had overestimated the number of whales inhabiting areas of pack ice (areas of sea ice that were not landfast). The new IWC research suggested that the Antarctic minke whale population now stood between 200,000 and 680,000.
Immediate Context
The Antarctic minke whale was the main species of whale hunted by the Japanese, and the new findings intensified the debate between pro- and anti-whaling countries. The IWC had adopted a five-year moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986 but aboriginal and scientific whaling was still permitted by the commission.
Japan had shocked the anti-whaling community when it announced in November 2007 its annual season of scientific whaling would hunt up to 50 humpback whales in addition to its usual catch of 50 fin whales and 935 minke whales. The Japanese authorities recouped around 85 per cent of their US$60 million annual spend on whale research by selling meat obtained from hunting expeditions to Antarctica and the northern Pacific. However, on Dec. 21, 2007, Japan announced that it was suspending the inclusion of the humpback whales in its annual hunt "for one year or two" in response to pressure from the USA. The Australian authorities said that they would send a customs ship and a surveillance aircraft to monitor the Japanese hunt with a view to gathering evidence for possible use in a court case against Japan. In a submission to the IWC ahead of the organisation's annual meeting in June, the Japanese authorities criticised the Australian government over its support for the harvesting of dugongs--a large marine mammal that inhabited Australia's northern waters--by Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. The Australian reported on April 3 that Glenn Inwood, the New Zealand-based spokesman for Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, had accused the Australian authorities of hypocritical actions: "The Australian government rejects all lethal uses of whales and yet supports sustainable utilisation of its own national hunting of the Dugongs." Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett responded to Inwood's accusation by stating that there "was no analogy between Japanese whaling and the killing of dugongs" and that the Australian government was actively engaged in programs to protect the species.
Reaction and Outlook
On March 6-8 an inter-sessional meeting of the IWC was called in London to discuss the future of the IWC. William Hogarth, the commission’s chairman, released a statement ahead of the convention stating that the meeting had been called as the "IWC has in recent years shown increasing signs of polarisation and has reached something of an impasse". Three resolution experts addressed the members of the IWC, and the meeting produced a series of suggestions for rebuilding trust between the members, including measures to reduce the use of voting, the implementation of smaller discussion groups, and the employing of "cooling off" periods when difficulties arose.
However, the inter-sessional meeting was preceded by a one-day seminar by Japanese officials who invited representatives from 12 developing countries to discuss Japan's position on sustainable whaling. Some of the 12 countries attending the seminar were existing members of the IWC, but most were not, including Angola, Eritrea, and the Federated States of Micronesia. The seminar was widely perceived by the anti-whaling factions of the IWC as part of campaign by Japan to "buy" the votes it required to overturn the IWC’s moratorium on commercial whaling. Sir Geoffrey Palmer, New Zealand's whaling commissioner, accused the Japanese authorities of repeating "the same old pattern of recruiting new members to try and overturn the moratorium". Over the past decade, Japan had been successful in recruiting 21 counties to the IWC, but the Japanese authorities denied reports that they had assisted countries in paying IWC membership fees. However, Prime Minister Derek Sikua of the Solomon Islands claimed, at joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on March 8, that the Solomon Islands did not send a representative to the IWC inter-sessional meeting "because usually Japan pays for our attendance, but we refused their assistance and therefore we have not gone because we can't afford it". Hideki Moronuki, spokesman for the Japan Fisheries Agency, responded that "Japan sometimes holds small seminars on whaling and invites delegates from countries. I wonder if Mr Sikua mixed up such seminars and IWC meetings."
Historical Context
The development of modern whaling arose with the 19th century demand for whale oil, and in the 20th century with the demand for whale meat. In 1925 the League of Nations recognised that whale reserves were becoming over-exploited due to the greater efficiency of harvesting methods and that there was a need to regulate whaling activities. In 1930 the Bureau of International Whaling Statistics was formed to keep track of catches. This was followed in 1931 by the first international regulatory agreement, the Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, which was signed by 22 countries.
The IWC was formed under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling of Dec. 2, 1946. The commission was originally composed of fourteen member states, whose remit was to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and to ensure the orderly development of the whaling industry. The IWC met annually and adopted regulations on catch limits, whaling methods, and the designating of protected areas. All agreements are made on the basis of a three-quarters majority vote; any country could join the IWC, even if it were landlocked or had no tradition of whaling. As the IWC was not based on an international treaty, all member countries were free to leave the organisation and declare themselves not bound by IWC quotas.
At the 34th annual meeting of the IWC, held at Brighton, UK, on July 19-24, 1982, a decision was taken to ban commercial whaling by 1986. The proposal, based on a resolution from the Seychelles, was adopted on July 23 by 25 votes to seven with five abstentions. The seven voting against the proposal were Japan, the Soviet Union, Brazil, Norway, Iceland, Peru, and South Korea. The proposal read as follows: "Catch limits for the killing for commercial purposes of whales from all stocks for the 1986 coastal and 1985–86 pelagic seasons and thereafter shall be zero. This provision will be kept under review, based upon best scientific advice, and by 1990 at the latest the Commission will undertake a comprehensive assessment of the effects of this decision on whale stocks and consider modification of this provision and the establishment of other catch limits."
Subsequently IWC meetings were polarised between the pro-whaling countries led by Japan, Norway, and Iceland, and those countries that wished to maintain the moratorium, such as Australia, the USA, the UK, and several other European countries. The pro-whaling countries insisted that whale populations had recovered sufficiently to allow a limited return to commercial hunting.
In recent years the IWC had moved towards a broader conservation agenda, which included concerns related to global environmental change. At the IWC annual meeting in 2003, the Japanese authorities threatened to leave the organisation in protest at the adoption of a proposal to establish a conservation committee, believing that the IWC had developed into an organisation preventing whaling, contrary to its original purpose.
