Whales worth more alive than dead, says new report

Yahoo News 23 Jun 09;

FUNCHAL, Portugal (AFP) – Whales are worth more alive than dead, an Australian minister said Tuesday, as campaigners publicised the billion-dollar whale-watching industry on the sidelines of the IWC conference.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett welcomed a report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), which said that in 2008 whale-watching generated 2.1 billion dollars (1.5 billion euros) of tourism revenue worldwide.

Garrett was speaking on the second day of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), where pro- and anti-whaling countries are thrashing out the issue of whether to permit increased hunting of the marine mammals.

"The bottom line is clear," said Garrett, who before his political career was a rock musician with Midnight Oil. "Whales are worth much more alive than dead.

"Responsible whale-watching is the most sustainable, environmentally-friendly and economically beneficial use of whales in the 21st century," he told reporters at Funchal, on the Portuguese island of Madeira.

IFAW's whale programme director Patrick Ramage told reporters: "While governments debate what to do about whales, their citizens are pointing the way."

In 2008, more than 13 million people had taken whale-watching tours in 119 countries, he added.

"More than 3,000 whale-watching operations around the world now employ an estimated 13,200 people," said Ramage.

The 2.1 billion dollars produced in 2008 was more than double the estimated one billion dollars generated by the industry in 1998, said an executive summary of the report.

The IWAF report defined whale-watching as covering all cetaceans -- whales, dolphins and porpoises.

Garrett attended the launch of the launch to show his support.

Australia is one of the IWC member nations fiercely opposed to the hunting of whales.

They, like other anti-hunting nations, argue that hunting whales is not profitable, to the point that some whaling countries have to subsidise the industry.

Anti-whaling nations are fighting to preserve the 1986 moratorium on whale-hunting, although Norway and Iceland are already defying it.

Japan, which says whaling is part of its culture, kills more than 1,000 whales a year through a loophole in the 1986 treaty that allows their killing for scientific research.

Whale-watching 'worth billions'
Richard Black, BBC News 23 Jun 09;

Whale watching generates far more money than whale hunting, according to a report released at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting here.

Worldwide, the industry now generates about $2.1bn per year, it says.

The group commissioning the report, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), says whaling countries would gain from a switch to whale watching.

However, Iceland's delegate here said the two industries were compatible and could grow together.

Iceland recently announced a major expansion of its fin whale hunt and plans to take 150 of the animals this year, along with up to 100 minke whales.

"As governments sit here [at the IWC] debating what to do about whaling, their people are showing the way," said Patrick Ramage, director of Ifaw's whale programme.

"Whale watching is clearly more environmentally sustainable and economically beneficial than hunting, and whales are worth far more alive than dead," he told BBC News.

The report follows on the heels of an analysis commissioned by another organisation opposed to whaling, WWF, which suggested that the Japanese and Norwegian hunts were a net cost to their governments.

Double digit

The Ifaw-commissioned report, compiled by the Australian organisation Economists at Large, found that income from whale watching had doubled over the last decade, with the fastest growth seen in Asia.

In 2008, it concluded, 13 million people went to sea to watch cetaceans in 119 countries.

As an anti-whaling organisation, Ifaw has repeatedly campaigned to persuade Iceland to end its hunts - a practice which, Ifaw contends, is hurting its whale-watching industry.

The potential for conflict between the two industries was starkly demonstrated in 2006, when tourists on a Norwegian boat saw a minke whale harpooned.

But Iceland's commissioner to the IWC, Tomas Heidar, said that in his country the two industries had co-existed successfully for a number of years.

"Allegations that whaling affects whale watching have proven not to be true," he said.

"On the contrary, whale watching has been growing steadily in the last few years after our resumption of commercial whaling [in 2006]."

Economists at Large gathered the data for its report through surveying whale-watching companies, tourist boards, researchers and NGOs.