IWC 60 - Setting the Scene

Santiago, Chile is scenically nestled in the foothills of the Andes mountains. It is a large, South American city with millions of inhabitants, and it stretches out for miles. Winter, with its 60 degree days, 40 degree nights, and occasional rainy days has everyone scurrying about in scarves and heavy coats. Ski season is starting in the Andes. Among this, hardly anyone has noticed that off in one corner, in the Sheraton Santiago, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) will be making important decisions about the future of whales.

This year, Kate Sardi is attending the IWC meeting for us (www.acsonline.org). However, the commission meeting is just the one-week culmination of a month’s worth of discussions about whales and their management. It starts with two weeks of meeting of the Scientific Committee, who both provide scientific advice on the topics the Commission has asked for, and brings up new issues that the scientific community thinks should be brought to the Commission’s attention. Then there is a week of meting of other “technical” committees – the Conservation Committee, the Humane Killing Committee, the Finances Committee, the Infractions Committee, and so forth. Finally, the Commission meets for a week. As the Chief Scientist of the Whale Center of New England (www.whalecenter.org), I have attended the Scientific Committee meeting as an Invited Participant for several years now, and returned from this year’s meeting about a week ago.

The Scientific Committee (SC) is a group of about 200 scientists from around the world. Many nations that are members of the IWC send national delegations to the SC. In addition, a number of people are invited to attend for expertise in one or more areas of the SC’s considerations.

Much of the time that the SC meets is spent in topic-oriented sub-committees that consider particular topics. Such groups include focused sub-committees on the Revised Management Procedure (a determination of how many whales in a population can be taken by non-natural causes), By-catch (entanglement and ship collision deaths), Southern Hemisphere whale populations (focusing on determining the status of southern hemisphere humpback and blue whale populations), Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling Management Procedure (both the size of stocks and how to determine allowable takes for subsistence whaling), Stock Definition, Ecosystem Modeling, the Cetacean’s Environment, Whalewatching (both looking at how data can be collected from whale watch boats to help understand whale populations, and to look at the effects of whalewatching on whales), and Small Cetaceans. The last two groups are controversial, and every year Japan, as a whaling nation, notes its protests to the consideration of these issues in what should be a whaling-focused discussion.

After the eight days in which each sub-committee prepares its report, the full SC spends 3 days considering each sub-committee’s report and passes on a compiled “digest” of the reports for the Commission’s review. However, all deliberations of the SC are considered confidential until the Commission meeting opens and the report is made public, so I can not share any of the details of what was discussed.

However, after being an IWC participant for 8 years, and Vice President of ACS for as long, I can give an impression of what may be coming up as big issues in this year’s full Commission meeting.

Major topics I see are:

1) How the whaling “stand-off” is resolved. Everyone knows that the IWC is deadlocked between conservation-minded countries (like the U.S.) and whaling nations (like Japan, Iceland, and Norway). Right now there is a moratorium on commercial whaling, which will take a ¾ vote to overturn. However, Japan and Iceland are killing whales under self-issued “scientific permits” which are allowed under the IWC rules, and would also take a ¾ vote to overturn. With a split IWC, neither is likely to happen unless a compromise is reached. IWC commissioner Bill Hogarth has spent much of the past year trying to get a spirit of compromise in the IWC. How far that progresses, and what that “compromise” consists of, will be very important this year.

2) Japan’s request for “small-type” coastal whaling – Japan wants to define a new type of whaling, called “small-type coastal whaling” which would allow small fishing villages in Japan to continue to hunt whales but not be considered as “commercial” hunts. This is a strong push for Japan, who have even expressed a willingness to give up some of their scientific kill if given such a quota. However, this would also mean that a new type of whaling would be defined and legalized. I worry that this would start many nations applying for “coastal” hunts, including many of the nations to whom Japan provides millions of dollars of fishery support. I think this is one of the biggest threats to whales, and requires close scrutiny.

3) Greenland has had an “aboriginal” hunt of minke and fin whales for years. Now, they want to increase the number of species they take by adding bowhead and humpback whales to their annual kills. At the same time, there are new allegations that this hunt is in actuality a commercial hunt, with the meat processed and sent away for consumption.

I’m sure there will be many other topics discussed and issues debated in the shadows of the Andes mountains in the coming week. I look forward to hearing what Kate Sardi, our ACS rep to the commission, reports back. The future of many whales hangs in the balance.

I should also point out that an excellent editorial on the current whaling debate by the BBC can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7463633.stm. It is worthwhile reading.

- Mason Weinrich, ACS Vice-President and