IWC 55: The Conservation Evolution

By Kate O'Connell

Thanks to all CSI members who contributed to our IWC fundraising appeal. You made it possible for CSI to maintain our presence at this year's IWC meeting, with Kate O'Connell as our NGO representative.

Twenty years ago, a tiny, not-for-profit conservation organization known as the Connecticut Cetacean Society decided to try and shed new light on the real value of whales, and tackle the huge, for-profit whaling industry. Under the guidance of Dr. Robbins Barstow, CCS took the idea of "Whales Alive" to the international arena, and urged the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to expand the definition given in the Commission's charter (ICRW) of "the optimum utilization" of whales and whale products to include whale watch tourism.

Now spin forward to the latest meeting of the IWC, its 55th, held in Berlin, Germany from the 16th through the 20th of June 2003. Both the IWC [now at 51 member countries as compared to roughly 30 in the early 80s] and CCS [now known as Cetacean Society International] have grown, whale watching is the largest generator of income from whales globally, and the IWC has evolved into a body that no longer solely looks at kill quotas for whales, but rather takes on conservation issues related to whales and their environment. The 2003 Annual Meeting of the whaling commission saw a significant change in the attitude of the Commission. Despite the whaling nations' attempts to stall the "conservation evolution" of the IWC by bringing in new countries in exchange for fisheries aid packages, the Commission adopted the "Berlin Initiative" by a vote of 25 in favor, 20 against with 1 abstention.

The initiative establishes a Conservation Committee within the IWC, to be made up of all members of the commission. In essence, the initiative commits the IWC to making whale conservation (not just whale killing) a priority. That such a Conservation Committee is needed cannot be denied; the IWC itself on its web site recognises that "[d]espite a long period of protection, several populations of great whales remain highly endangered and number 500 or less. These include all bowhead whale stocks apart from the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort Seas stock that numbers over 10,000; gray whales in the western Pacific (those in the eastern Pacific, by contrast, number over 17,000); all stocks of northern right whales; and various stocks of blue whales. Some of these small Arctic bowhead populations are subjected to direct catches outside IWC regulations (a bowhead was taken in 2002 by Canadian Eskimos), or are killed by ship strikes or are bycaught in fishing gear." It is anticipated that the committee will look at such concerns as marine pollution, climate change, and over-fishing. Additionally, the Committee could look at whale watching, and its impacts.

Predictably, the pro-whaling faction of the IWC not only threatened not to cooperate with the committee, but to walk out of the IWC altogether. Japan went so far as to say that it might withold its dues to the IWC, and some 17 pro-whaling countries signed a statement against the creation of the Conservation Committee, stating, among other things that "[t]he `Berlin Initiative', together with the lack of progress in completing the Revised Management Scheme (RMS) for the resumption of sustainable whaling, has provoked an increased interest in examination of alternatives that would provide for the sustainable use of abundant whale resources." On the 25th of June, the Japanese IWC Commissioner, Mr. Minoru Morimoto, requested that this statement, suggesting that countries might look to venues other than the IWC, be circulated to Commissioners and Contracting Governments.

Fortunately, on July 2nd, Reuters reported that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said that Japan - one of the world's biggest consumers of whale meat - should not leave the International Whaling Commission (IWC). It is to be hoped that all nations that signed the anti-Berlin Intitiative Statement and threatened to look at "alternatives" will come to the same conclusion, that such a decision would undermine international law. If not, it could well set up a return to the "whalers' club" of the 50s that led to the near-complete destruction of many of the stocks of great whales.

In 1986, the IWC moratorium on whaling came into force, in an attempt to rectify this decimation of the world's great whales. Yet not a single year has passed without whale killing; more than 25,000 animals have been hunted down using loopholes in IWC rules. Norway has set itself a commercial quota of minke whales of 711 for the year 2003, and two scientific whaling permits proposed by Japan during the 55th Annual Meeting were considered. One is an extension of its ongoing program in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary (some 400 minke whales from the Antarctic). The second is for a research kill to take 150 minke whales, 50 Bryde's whales, 50 sei whales and 10 sperm whales in the western North Pacific. This year, the IWC also considered a proposed permit by Iceland, primarily for feeding ecology studies which would entail killing 100 minke whales, 100 fin whales and 50 sei whales over the course of two years.

In the same positive vein as the Berlin Initiative, the Commission passed a stongly worded resolution urging countries to end or not to commence scientific permit catches (24 in favor, 21 against and 1 abstention). It also passed a Resolution asking Japan not to continue its special permit catches of Antarctic minke whales (24 in favor, 21 against, 1 abstention). In addition, the Commission did not adopt a proposal by Japan for catch limits of 150 minke whales (19 votes for, 26 against and 1 abstention) and 150 Bryde's whales (17 for, 27 against, 1 abstention) to be taken by whalers in its coastal waters.

On the negative side, however, is the fact that neither side in the ongoing IWC battles can muster the needed 3/4 majority to make binding changes in the Schedule for the ICRW, International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. Because of this, proposals to create whale sanctuaries in the South Pacific (24 votes for, 17 against and 4 abstentions) and the South Atlantic (24 votes for, 19 against and 3 abstentions) failed to be adopted. A Japanese-led proposal to weaken the provisions for the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, however, was not adopted (17 votes for, 26 against and 2 abstentions).

Prior to the main session of the Commission, a workshop was convened to examine the humane killing aspects involved in whale hunting. This workshop is held pursuant to a 1998 resolution that called on member governments to supply data on times-to-death in all whale hunts, as well as to provide technical support to help reduce time to unconsciousness and death in the aboriginal fisheries approved by the IWC. Whaling is inherently inhumane; for example during the 2000 East Greenland hunt for minke whales, one whale took two hours to die, while the average time to death was 40 minutes. In the 2001 Norwegian commercial hunt, only 79.7 percent of the minke whales died instantaneously, while Japan's 2001/2002 Antarctic hunt for minke whales achieved instant death in only a third of the whales shot. If you are interested in reading further on the subject, you can access the Working Group's report at: http://www.iwcoffice.org/Resolutions2003/ChiarHK.htm.

As the International Whaling Commission moves ahead with its new pro-conservation agenda, it is clear that there will be many challenges. Whales are now so contaminated that even pro-whaling governments such as Norway and Japan have had to issue health warnings against the consumption of whale products. As a result, the whalers are having an ever more difficult time in selling their products. On May 12th, a Norwegian government agency charged with food safety (akin to the US FDA) published a warning stating that whale meat should not be consumed by pregnant and nursing women, following on from an earlier advisory against ingesting whale blubber. Japan has also so far refused to allow imports of Norwegian whale blubber, and the Norwegian press reports that the infamous "blubber mountain" in Norway has been sold off for pet food.

In recent years, studies such as those by Tetsuya Endo of the University of Health Sciences in Hokkaido, Japan have noted the high rate of contaminants in whale meat, and the Japanese government has issued warnings against consumption of sperm whale products in response to concerns on the high levels of mercury. During the IWC meeting, a press conference organized by the Environmental Investigation Agency, the Humane Society of the United States, and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society reported on a DNA analysis of Japanese pet foods that had been carried out by Frank Cipriano, a professor at San Francisco State University, on samples of pet food purchased by the EIA in February from supermarkets in Shizuoka and Otsuchi, near Tokyo. The samples showed the presence of both whale and dolphin meat. Given that whale products in both Norway and Japan are literally "going to the dogs", it would seem to undermine those governments' claims about the necessity of whaling.

Whale meat sales are slow, according to the northern Norwegian newspaper, Lofotposten, and by the 27th of June, only 464 minke whales of the government-approved quota of 711 had been taken. The paper stated that only 290 out of 345 have been taken in the Lofoten and Barentshaven area; 13 out of 37 in Jan Mayen; 144 out of 150 in Nordsjoen and 53 out of 179 animals allocated to the Svalbard area. The paper referred to the fact that several of the 33 boats licensed to whale had not even bothered taking their quota.

The 55th Annual Meeting of the International Whaling Commission is certainly to be considered a "high water mark" for whale conservation. The coming years, under the leadership of the new Chair and Vice-Chair, Henrik Fischer (Denmark) and Carlos Dominguez Diaz (Spain) will not be easy ones, as the commission struggles to define itself in a way relevant to the new realities of whale management and conservation. However, for the first time in many years, the IWC has set itself a series of positive challenges, under the rubric of the Berlin Initiative. Conservation should be an issue all can agree on, and it is hoped that by the time of the 56th meeting in Sorrento, Italy, all member countries - even those engaged in whaling - can rise above the political squabbling of recent years and recognize that over-fishing, habitat degradation and marine pollution affect the whales, citizens and resources of all.

If you would like further information on the meeting, including copies of the texts of the resolutions that were passed, you can access the IWC web site at: http://www.iwcoffice.org/

The Cetacean Society International would like to take this opportunity to recognise with gratitude the work of Mr. Martin Harvey, the Executive Officer of the International Whaling Commission. Mr. Harvey's retirement was announced at the end of the Berlin meeting, and CSI received this news with great sadness. In his 27 years at the Commission, Martin has been an inspiration to us all. His sense of fairness, his unfailing courtesy and sense of humor earned him the respect of all attending the IWC meetings. We wish him well, as he moves on to a new chapter in his life; he will be greatly missed.