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The Politics of Whaling

Since its inception over sixty years ago, the daunting challenge of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has been to establish and enforce catch quotas for species that are difficult if not impossible to accurately count.

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The Politics of Whaling

The IWC’s first catch limits were conducted under what was called the Olympic System. Nations were required to report their weekly catch to the International Bureau of Whaling Statistics. When the quota for a species was reached, the Commission would notify all whaling nations that hunting must cease. The policy had an unintended effect. Countries competed with one another to capture as many whales as possible before the open season ended, resulting in the maximum number of allowable whales being killed. In 1975, the Olympic System was replaced by a concept of maximum sustainable yield, allowing the commission to ban whaling of depleted species and those about which too little was known until a predictable sustainable quota could be established.

In 1982, the IWC voted to place a moratorium on all commercial whaling until estimates of existing populations could be updated. The Scientific Committee estimates populations of whale species divided by the oceans they inhabit and only for those about which sufficient is known to make an accurate assessment. Annual counts are averaged over several years.

To get around the ban, Japan began a whale research program, slaughtering a few hundred minkes each year as well a few humpbacks and fin whales. It legitimized its catch by citing the international whaling treaty’s provision that allows whales to be killed in order to study them, though the IWC’s Scientific Committee disputes the scientific value of these killings. Norway resumed its whaling operations to protest what it considered an unnecessary moratorium, unsupported by science.

A country that opposes the moratorium has two options, lobby the Commission to lift the ban or withdraw from the treaty. Japan and Norway have remained members during their protests. In 1992, Iceland withdrew from the treaty but re-joined a few years later. Today eighty-eight countries throughout the world adhere to the treaty. All countries of South America are members except land-locked Bolivia and Paraguay, and coastal countries, Colombia, Guyana and Suriname that never signed, as well as Venezuela that was a member but withdrew. All Central American countries are members except El Salvador and Honduras. Whale watching has become big business on Costa Rica tours and is growing as a past time during travel to Panama.

The debate continues. The concept of managing sustainable stocks implies ongoing whaling and is what the IWC was established to accomplish. A ban takes humans out of the whaling business regardless of whether species are endangered or not. The prospects of bringing the IWC around to a pro-whaling point of view has become less likely as more countries have begun getting into the whale tourism business.

The world has changed. Whale watching in Costa Rica is the norm. Japanese whaling seems out of step with the times. More of us would prefer to go on whale watching trips to Argentina than to eat whale meat. To environmentalists, a ban is the right thing to do. For nations that could benefit from the industry’s resumption and those with coastal fisheries-dependent communities that must compete with the voracious appetite of whales for their livelihood, the issue is more complicated.

In 2010, the IWC proposed an action intended to appease all parties, and eliminate the loopholes that currently undermine its power. Legal commercial whaling would be allowed for a ten-year period, and the number of animals killed each year would be reduced by new strict quotas. Amending the treaty requires a favorable vote of three-quarters of its members.

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