Posted on 18-6-2003

Whaling Commission Goes Conservation

BERLIN, Germany, June 16, 2003 (ENS) - Conservation of the world's whales will be the future guiding principle of the International Whaling Commission after a vote today that creates a Conservation Committee to protect these marine mammals from the many threats that assail them. Environmentalists were jubilant at the outcome, but whaling nations reserved the right not to participate in, nor fund, the new initiative.

The so-called Berlin Initiative to steer the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in the direction of conservation was proposed by Mexico and supported by 18 other governments - Australia, Austria, Brazil, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The vote, taken during the opening day of the organization's 55th annual meeting, carried with 25 countries voting in favor, and 20 against, with one abstention. Australian Environment Minister Dr. David Kemp said after the vote, "The Initiative recognizes that the primary objective of the IWC is to conserve whale populations for the benefit of all humankind and for future generations." "What was once a whalers' club has become a force for conservation," said Dr. Chris Tuite, director of wildlife and habitat with the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

This is a historic day for cetacean conservation,said Dr. Susan Lieberman, head of WWFs delegation at the IWC. The Berlin Initiative is designed to tackle the variety of threats to cetaceans beyond commercial whaling. These include by-catch, drowning in nets, the biggest threat of all, causing the death of 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises annually.

Other threats include toxic contamination and climate change. The initiative will also allow the IWC to address economic and cultural activities like whale watching.

Stefan Asmundsson, Icelands Commissioner, said, We have witnessed the concept of conservation being hijacked by protectionists. Conservation is a means to enable sustainable whaling. This proposal was not about conservation but protectionism and animal rights." In the first 30 years of the International Whaling Commission's existence, large scale catches of whales were authorized, and debates focused on what conservation measures were necessary. Some whale species, such as the giant blue whales, were hunted nearly to extinction until the IWC imposed a global moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. The moratorium is still in force, broken only by countries such as Norway and Iceland, each of which have taken a reservation to the whaling ban. In addition, Japan hunts whales in accordance with the scientific research provisions of the IWC treaty, taking hundreds of minke whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, and hunting hundreds of minke whales, and dozens of sei, sperm, and Bryde's whales in the North Pacific. (see below) "The non-compliance with the Commissions policy on scientific whaling is now a greater conservation problem than official commercial whaling," the proposing countries said in their draft resolution for the Berlin Initiative. Dr. Kemp said, "I call on the IWC also to ensure that the Conservation Committee is supported by - and promotes - good science, such as the non-lethal techniques for studying whales that Australian scientists use."
"As the Commission gradually moved to a more conservation oriented and precautionary approach to management, and has steadily extended the scope of its conservation measures, the importance of ensuring that the Commissions conservation measures are actually complied with, has gathered in importance relative to the adoption of new measures," the proposing countries' wrote.

Last week Japan threatened to walk out of the IWC meeting if the conservation resolution was passed. While downplaying the new conservation committee's importance, the Japanese delegation so far has remained at the meeting in Berlin. The Berlin Initiative vote, which was preceded by a heated debate, deepened the divisions within the IWC, taking the organization to the brink of a split. Established under the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, the IWC states its purpose as providing for "the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry." The whaling nations have been working towards completion of a formal document known as a Revised Management Scheme that would establish criteria for sustainable whaling and permit the lifting of the global ban on commercial whaling. The fact that the Revised Management Scheme is not even on this year's IWC agenda, and today's vote in favor of a conservation committee has turned the whaling nations away from participation in the Whaling Commission.

Rune Frovik, secretary to the High North Alliance, a coalition of whaling nations, said, It is time for the whaling nations to realize that the Whaling Commission does not have the intention to take up its responsibility and resume the management of sustainable whaling. It is time to look for other alternatives outside of this dysfunctional organization."


Sanctuaries gain support but not enough

Auckland, Wednesday, June 18, 2003: Vote-buying by the Government of Japan at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Berlin has once again frustrated attempts by the peoples of the South Pacific and the South Atlantic to establish whale sanctuaries in their regions.

This is the fourth year that the South Pacific Sanctuary has been proposed by Australia and New Zealand and the third year that the South Atlantic Sanctuary has been proposed by Brazil and Argentina. It is scandalous that these sanctuaries have been sabotaged by vote buying,says Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner Rebecca Hayden.
Both sanctuaries would protect the migratory corridors and breeding grounds of whale populations that have been depleted by commercial whaling and safeguard the growing whalewatching industries in those regions.

The IWC ends on Thursday and issues of concern to Greenpeace still to be discussed include:

*   Small type whaling ­ Under this item, Japan has asked every year for 16 years for an emergency quota of 50 minkes whales to meet the needs of four former whaling towns in Japan. The needs, if any, of these towns have now been met twice over. First by a change in domestic regulations which allows whales caught in nets to be processed on shore and marketed (now providing a catch of about 100 minke whales a year) and second by the allocation of a researchquota of 50 minke whales a year to the small type whaling vessels operating from these towns. Small type whalers operating out of these towns were actually catching minke whales up until May 20, less than a month before the start of the Berlin meeting. This year the Government of Japan has massively increased its request and is now asking for a quota of 150 minke whales and 150 of the much larger Brydes whales.

*   Scientific permits ­ Japan's so-called scientific whaling and a similar hunt proposed by Iceland are expected to come under heavy criticism. A resolution aimed at curbing these abuses of science, proposed by Germany, will be vigorously opposed by the Government of Japan, its paid supporters and other pro-whaling countries.

*   By-catch proposal ­ A resolution calling for measures to tackle the huge by-catch of small cetaceans will be proposed by 18 member countries. Among the sponsors are European fishing nations France and the UK, who themselves are responsible for large numbers of dolphins and porpoises dying in nets every year.