The Whale and the Woodpecker

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) voted yesterday to resume commercial whaling. But the resolution—strongly supported by major prowhaling nations Japan, Norway, Iceland, and Russia—won by only one vote, 33–32, and it cannot become binding unless three-fourths of IWC member nations support overturning the 1986 ban, which was designed to protect threatened populations.

Nevertheless, yesterday's vote is a dangerous step toward resumption of the commercial killing of whales. BBC News reports:

Conservation groups have reacted with dismay.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare said anti-whaling nations needed to work harder.

"It is a wake-up call for countries who claim that they care for whales and they want to protect whales to take action," spokesman Joth Singh said.

Brazil and New Zealand said they would challenge the resolution.

"This is the most serious defeat the conservation cause has ever suffered at the IWC," New Zealand's Environment Minister Chris Clark told AFP news agency.

"It has been a significant diplomatic victory for Japan."

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society says that commercial whaling should not be allowed to resume because it is cruel, unsafe, unsustainable, unhealthy, and uncontrollable. The World Wildlife Federation points out that even with the moratorium in place, 1,300 whales are killed every year, as a result of so-called "scientific" catches by Japan and Iceland and of Norway's choice to ignore the restrictions. The WWF suggests a more comprehensive approach to protection of all cetaceans, an approach that would require action beyond the scope of the IWC:

[I]t has become impossible to separate the threats presented by commercial whaling from those of marine pollution, commercial by-catch, or over-fishing. It is far preferable, and of greater potential conservation to cetaceans, to now address all of the threats to cetacean populations in a broad, multilateral context.

But the immediate problem is that the IWC is being taken over by supporters of commercial whaling. Membership in the organization is not limited to nations that historically had a whaling industry—or even to those that have a clear interest in the issues. Any nation can join and immediately become a voting member.

Recently, many small, poor nations have joined and cast their votes with Japan; Greenpeace charges that they were coerced to do so as a condition of receiving foreign aid from Japan. According to John Vidal and Justin McCurry of the Guardian, those nations include Belize, Mali, Togo, Gambia, Tuvalu, Nauru, Kiribati, Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, Panama, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and St Kitts and Nevis. Each country, whatever the size of its population or its normal sphere of interest, has one vote in the IWC. Japan appears to be buying votes with foreign aid, and it may also have paid membership fees and transportation costs for many small-country representatives to attend this month's meeting in St Kitts.

Some of these nations claim (absurdly) that they support commercial killing of whales because whales are so voracious that their food security is imperiled by declining fish stocks, as AP's Adam Raney reports:

"We're dealing with an ecosystem where whales are on top of the food chain," said Daven Joseph, a delegate from St Kitts and Nevis.

"That's like blaming woodpeckers for deforestation," countered Vassili Papastavrou, a whale biologist for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. "The real issue is overfishing, not whales."

The US voted against the prowhaling resolution, one of the two instances recently when the Bush administration has been, surprisingly, on the side of conservation. The other is the designation of the new Pacific reserve northwest of Kauai. Maybe George Bush really has come to appreciate the fragility of the oceans, at least those portions too deep for oil drilling.

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[Life Cycle of a Whale]

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