Whale mining, whale saving

Abstract

When delegates attending the UN Conference on the Human Environment, at Stockholm in 1972, voted overwhelmingly for a ten-year moratorium on commerical whaling, few would have believed that 14 years would elapse before that resolution endorsed by the UN General Assembly would be implemented. Yet practically every year the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has rejected proposals for a pause, a moratorium, a cessation or a ban; not until 1982 was the necessary three-quarters majority of voting member states obtained. The 1982 decision was for a pause of indefinite duration, starting at the end of 1985. It was decided to set catch limits for all whale stocks at zero as from the 1985-86 whaling season in the Antarctic (where Japan and the USSR still operate factory ships) and from the 1986 season for land-based whaling in both northern and southern hemispheres. The decision has been accepted by all but four whaling countries. One of those is Portugal, which is not a member of the IWC, and which continues exploitation of sperm whales in the Azores. The others are Japan, Norway and the USSR, which together account for threequarters of the present world catch of the several species of ‘great whales’. The key to the implementation of the IWC decision for a pause is Japan. The Japanese domestic market attracts all the Japanese and Soviet production of whale meat-which is now by far the most valuable commodity derived from whale and about half the Norwegian production, as well as most of the meat from the other countries that will continue whaling until the end of this year: Brazil, Iceland, Peru, the Philippines, Republic of Korea and Spain. In Stockholm, an inflatable model of a blue whale expressed rising universal concern about the future of planetary life in general and of the living ocean in particular. The image of ‘the endangered whale’ has remained a symbol for organizations concerned with environmental protection and animal welfare, who wish to prevent what they regard as the misuse of living resources and a cruel and unnecessary mass slaughter of wild animals. Even in a world living under the shadow of death caused by toxic wastes, acid rain, deforestation and drought, and ultimately by ‘nuclear winter’, saving whales is for millions of people a crucial test of their political ability to halt environmental destruction for profit by a few. On the face of it, saving whales should be easy. They are extremely attractive forms of wildlife: some of them sing, and many people have