Enough whales for watching and eating

Minoru Morimoto
Sydney Morning Herald 16 Jan 08;

The International Whaling Commission passed a global moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982, without any scientific justification and without recommendation by its scientific committee. Since then, differing opinions have become entrenched as polarised rhetoric. Together with a lack of good faith in negotiations, this raises serious questions about the commission's continued institutional legitimacy and whether it has a future.

The whaling convention is not - nor has it ever been - about protecting all whales irrespective of how abundant they are. When it was agreed in 1946, it was about the proper management of the whaling industry by regulating catch quotas so that whale stocks would not be diminished. That Australia was a whaling country when it signed the convention but subsequently changed its position to anti-whaling in the 1970s does not change the convention.

Australia has sacrificed the principles of science-based management and sustainable use that are the world standard (and which Australia uses in other international forums and for the management of its own wildlife) as a political expediency to satisfy the interests of non-government organisations. Australia's intransigence and continued lobbying of other members of the International Whaling Commission to resolutely oppose any return to sustainable commercial whaling - and research whaling - has helped to bring the commission to the brink of collapse. Australia's hypocritical behaviour has been one of the causes of Japan's desire to form an alternative whaling organisation through which appropriate management of whale resources could be pursued.

Furthermore, the suggestion of Australia's Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, and Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, that somehow Japan's whale research violates international law is without foundation. Article VIII of the whaling convention unequivocally provides the right to kill whales for research purposes.

Japan's research is of vital importance. Australia has no intention at the present time to resume commercial whaling so it has no need for the kind of scientific data needed for a sustainable management regime. However, since this is the purpose of Japan's research there are some kinds of indispensable data that simply cannot be obtained by non-lethal means.

As a result of Japan's research program, we now know more about the status of whale stocks and whale biology than at any time in history and this knowledge increases each year.

There are many countries in the world today that hunt or use marine mammals, such as whales, dolphins, seals and dugong, for food. They include Canada, Greenland, Indonesia, Korea, Norway, Iceland, Russia, Japan, the United States and Australia. Australia's indigenous people hunt dugong in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Whaling will continue around the world and Australia has a choice: participate in a calm and rational manner in discussions to manage whale resources within the commission or be left out of a new organisation that will manage whaling in a sustainable, science-based manner. Australia can play an important role in making sure the commission maintains a credible future. It has an opportunity to contribute constructively at a meeting in March. Unfortunately, as Japan's commissioner to the commission, I am concerned that Australia's continuous loud reiteration of its opposition to any form of commercial whaling and its "stepped-up" measures to end Japan's research whaling, including threats of legal action, do not bode well.

In a letter dated October 26 last year, the commission's chairman, Dr William Hogarth of the United States, noted that "doing nothing may lead to the demise of the organisation which would serve neither the interests of whale conservation or management". Is that what Australia wants?

It is time for some common sense to be brought into the debate. Many whale stocks in the world today are abundant and commercial whaling can be managed sustainably. To suggest that forests, fisheries and other natural living resources are able to be commercially managed but not whales makes no sense. To suggest there must be one (whale watching) to the exclusion of the other (whaling) is also a fallacy. There are enough whales for both those that want to watch them and those who want to eat them.

I fully respect the right of Australians to oppose whaling for some "cuddly" reasons, but this does not give them the right to coerce others to end a perfectly legal and culturally significant activity that poses no threat to the species concerned.

Minoru Morimoto is Japan's commissioner to the International Whaling Commission and director-general of the Institute of Cetacean Research in Tokyo.