LAST week the International Whaling Commission (IWC) met on the Portuguese island of Madeira and agreed that climate change is a threat to whales.   A decision on the Danish proposal for Greenland to hunt 10 humpback whales a year was postponed.  Australia’s Environment Minister was there and told the meeting that whale-watching is a growing industry worth more than whale hunting.  Ian Mott disagrees:

“THE claim, by Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett, that whales are worth more alive than dead betrays a breathtaking level of economic ignorance and a dangerous penchant for simplistic, “Cargo Cult” panaceas.

 Garrett’s message,  “That whale-watching is an industry which is growing right around the world and that the potential for communities to generate sustainable livelihood from watching whales – not killing them, but watching them – is significant.”
 
For central to his claim is an assumption that whale watching and whale harvesting are mutually exclusive activities. As if the entire whale watching industry would disappear if a single humpback whale was hunted for food. Clearly, the 1000 Minke whales already taken each year, for a decade or two, have had no adverse impact on the whale molesting industry. Indeed, the industry has a very obvious inclination to maximise the flow-on effects of the media attention provided by the anti-whaling protesters. If the Japanese were not involved in whaling then the whale watching industry would be much smaller than it is today.
 
We need to be very careful about lending credibility to people who are incapable of incorporating any sort of “grey” in their consideration of “black and white”.  There are between 50,000 and 100,000 humpback whales world wide and more than 1 million Minke’s and any suggestion that the further expansion of the whale watching industry is being constrained by inadequate whale numbers, or infrequent sightings, is pure bollocks. As with all tourist related industries, the limit to growth is defined by the supply of customers willing to pay, not by the number of boats, not by the number of operators, and not by the number of whales. Just double the number of operators and we will soon find out how relevant actual whale numbers really are to the viability of the industry.
 
In fact, we have the curious circumstance where the key ingredient in the product mix (the whale population) is in robust good health and expanding while a key element of the marketing message is the claimed threat posed to whales and their supposed rarity. It is marketing of a product using messages that are in direct variance with the facts. Funny, I thought we had a Trade Practices Act that specifically outlawed this kind of marketing.
 
And one really must take a very hard critical look at this $3 billion that is being bandied about as the annual value of the industry. The standard MO of the industry advocate is to throw in the accommodation, meals and all other activities that the whale watcher might engage in during the visit in which they also spent a morning watching whales. So a whole weeks worth of accommodation and entertainment is claimed under the whale watching banner even though it might only occupy a small fraction of the tourists vacation time. If the operators pulled that sort of stunt in a share prospectus they would cop a good long stretch in jail.
 
But these claims also betray a woeful grasp of business costing on the part of Garrett and the industry. Even if we accept the bogus $3 billion value of the whale watching industry world wide we must still spread that value over the entire world population of whales. They cannot have it both ways. The industry does not watch many Minke Whales at all but they insist that the harvesting of Minke’s poses a threat to their industry.  So if this industry is claiming that the survival of every whale on the planet is a prerequisite for the survival of their industry then they must include the capital value of every whale in their costing and pay a commensurate economic rent for their exclusive use of that resource.
 
That economic rent must be determined from existing markets. And in Japan, whale meat retails at 2060 yen/kg or AU $27/kg. So a typical 7.0 tonne Minke whale might produce 3.7 tonnes of dressed meat at $27,000/tonne or $99,900 each.  A 45 tonne Humpback might produce 23 tonnes of dressed meat worth $620,000 each. So if we ignore all the other whale species we can see that the 1 million Minke whales, that the whale watching industry demands exclusive use of, has a capital value of $100 billion. And the 100,000 Humpbacks has a capital value of $62 billion. Add in the other species like Fin whales etc and a total value of the whale resource is easily in the order of $200 billion. And in that light, the $3 billion whale watching industry represents a rate of return of only 1.5% per annum.
 
Or to put it another way, $3 billion divided by 1.5 million whales amounts to only $2000 per whale. It is akin to taking the whole 7 tonne whale and only using 74kg of it.
 
But wait, the whale watching industry currently makes no payment for its current shared use of the whale resource and it has given no indication of a willingness to pay any premium for exclusive use. And to be fair, the whale hunting nations have also given no indication of a willingness to pay for the portion that they use. But unlike the whale watchers, they certainly don’t demand exclusive use of the entire resource either.
 
So where does that leave us? Well, one thing is certain, if the whale watching industry had to pay the full annual cost for each whale that it “uses” based on a normal rate of return on the capital value of the whale then they would very quickly work out exactly how many whales they really needed each year. A modest 5% annual interest on a $620,000 Humpback would amount to $31,000 each year, for each animal they engage with. They could view each whale on its way north and again on its way back south. And they might even spread these costs between other whale watching businesses along the coast who could also view the same whale.  Add some standard tracking devices and the entire industry could offer a guarantee of sightings while actually engaging with a very small number of animals. But the price of a viewing would be unlikely to drop below $3,000 a pop.
 
But no. As is so often the case, the whale watching industry demonstrates how a natural resource that has no value attached to it will ensure the grossest inefficient use of that resource. They seriously believe that they need exclusive use of every whale on the planet to satisfy a market comprised of people who, in all probability, will only pay for the experience once, or maybe twice, in their whole life.
 
The fact is that neither the whale watching industry or the whale eating industry are operating in a way that will optimise this natural resource. One of the two seeks only to use a sustainable portion of the resource while the other demands exclusive use of the entire resource for which it has no intention, nor capacity to pay for.

Ian Mott
Byron Hinterland, NSW, Australia

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Notes and Links

MSM mention of Environment Minister at the meeting
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/24/2607050.htm?section=australia

USA hijacks IWC in an unprecedented move: Denmark’s humpback proposal postponed to special meeting
http://www.wdcs.org/news_stop.php?select=402

Ian Mott is a third generation native forest owner, miller and regenerator from the Byron hinterland.  A former Sydney and Brisbane Executive Recruiter with his own agency, his interest in the family property has seen him evolve, over the past decade, into a property rights activist and consultant. He is secretary of the Landholders Institute Inc and has held a number of positions on national, state and regional level policy and planning bodies.  Mr Mott has a blog at http://ianmott.blogspot.com/

The photograph shows a reader of this blog, known as David, and Jennifer Marohasy eating whale in a restaurant in Tokyo in September 2008.  More here:  http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/09/eating-whale-in-tokyo/

The President of the JWA, Mr Keiichi Nakajima, said the Dutch vessel committing terror on the Antarctic high seas is running low on fuel and is apparently heading to either New Zealand or Australia to refuel.

“The request for port entry from the Sea Shepherd-Animal Planet crew on board the Dutch vessel must be rejected,” he said, “otherwise these countries will be complicit in any further attacks.”

“We know there are different views on whaling around the world. But the actions of the Sea Shepherd crew committing violence under the Dutch flag are no longer a whaling issue, but an issue of human life and safety at sea.”

“We can never accept people resorting to violence and intimidation to get across their point,” Mr Nakajima said.

“This ship proudly says it is from the Netherlands. They display the Rotterdam home port on the stern of the Steve Irwin. The Sea Shepherd-Animal Planet crew aboard the Dutch vessel has no qualms about using the Dutch registry to facilitate their eco-terrorism at sea.”

Last season, this Dutch vessel tried to disable the propellers of Japan’s research vessels. If they were successful, the vessel would become a “dead ship”, and would be in danger of overturning in rough seas.  The Dutch maritime and legal authorities must live up to their international obligations to maintain safety at sea.

“The Sea Shepherd terror acts are far beyond mere protest.”

“The International Whaling Commission has unanimously condemned the actions by the Sea Shepherd-Animal Planet crew and Australia and New Zealand put their names to the statement. To secure safety at sea for all, we urge both governments to reject Sea Shepherd’s request to berth in Australia or New Zealand,” Mr Nakajima said.

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This is a media release from the JWA .

Photograph via the Institute of Cetacean Research, Tokyo.

See blog post of December 27 on the activities of the Steve Irwin in the Southern Ocean here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/12/%e2%80%98steve-irwin%e2%80%99-attacks-japanese-whalers/

According to the Japanese whalers:

The incident occurred when the Kaiko Maru was undertaking a detour in the ice pack area after completing the day’s research activities. The weather had deteriorated and fog had reduced visibility conditions to about 500m.

The Steve Irwin approached the Kaiko Maru from the starboard rear side and within two minutes the protesters aboard started throwing bottles, approximately 15 bottles of butyric acid.

After the ramming, the Dutch vessel pursued, repeatedly overtook and menacingly turned around the Kaiko Maru for approximately three hours, and thereafter changed course to the east where it disappeared from the Kaiko Maru radar.

I recently critiqued some of the campaigns against whaling, in particular the campaign in Albany, Western Australia, in the late 1970s, in an article* entitled ‘Imposing our preferences on whaling cultures’.  In the same article I ask whether the last whaling cultures will survive.

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Photos via the Institute of Cetacean Research, Tokyo

* ‘Imposing our preferences on whaling cultures’ by Jennifer Marohasy, IPA Review, Vol 60/5, November 2008, pgs 39-41. http://www.ipa.org.au/library/publication/1229552555_document_60_5-distro.pdf (after clicking on the link, scroll down to page 39).

On Saturday I reported that 200 whales are trapped in ice in the Canadian Arctic. 

Today I received photographs of one of the groups of Narwhal trapped in one of the 11 open holes.  

The photographs were taken by Brian Koonoo.

Yesterday the Inuit started culling the whales, known as Narwhal, apparently on the advice of their elders and in the belief that otherwise the animals would die a slow death from starvation and/or suffocation.    

The Narwhal, Monodon monocerus, also known as ‘unicorns of the sea’, have a bizarre spiral tusk extending from their head which can be up to three metres long.   The species is not considered endangered and the normal hunting quota for the Baffin Island community is 130 Narwhal each year.

While both the current mayor, Edward Itta, and his rival and former Mayor, George Ahmaogak, are pro-development and have supported the oil industry, the incumbent Itta is against off-shore drilling.

Mayor Itta claims to be concerned that off-shore drilling will potentially scare away the bowhead whales which are still considered “culturally and nutritionally” important to his community of predominately Alaska Natives. 

There is also the issue of whether offshore drilling, as opposed to onshore drilling, will cut his municipality out of a share in the oil revenue.   Indeed could the whales be a convenient excuse for keeping oil exploration and revenue in the municipality?

In nearby Canada, hunting of bowhead whales is also still considered culturally important.  

In August, The Bowhead Whale Music Festival in Nunavik coincided with the signing of an authorization from Canada’s federal department of fisheries and oceans to kill a single whale.

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was established in 1948 at the initiative of the United States to establish a new world order in whaling.   Initially 15 governments were party to the IWC with Japan at the time under occupation and without the right to join.   

The Commission’s objectives included safeguarding the great natural resources represented by whale stocks and providing for the “orderly development of the whaling industry” recognising that whale stocks will increase if whaling is properly regulated.

But by the 1960s an anti-whaling movement had emerged in the West and the IWC focus started to change.  In 1972, at the United Nations Human Environmental Conference held in Stockholm, the United States lobbied for a moratorium on commercial whaling; a moratorium that came into effect ten years later. 

Japan initially took action to be exempt from the moratorium in accordance with Article V of the convention.   Japan made the case that the moratorium infringed upon provisions within the convention in particular that decisions of the IWC be based on scientific findings – at the time the scientific recommendation was that the moratorium was unnecessary – and take into consideration the interests of consumers of whale product. 

 The United States threatened that unless Japan withdrew its objection it would revoke fishing allocation for Japanese trawlers off the west coast of Alaska.   Japan withdrew its objection, but the US nevertheless phased out its fishing allocation to Japan.

In a book, ‘Reviving the Invisible Hand’, by Deepak Lal, a well known economist born in Indian, reference is made to the West’s obsession with promoting its “habits of the heart” including through the propaganda of the NGOs, most of whom espouse various environmental causes (pg. 233).   Lal explains that the bread and butter of environment groups involves arousing the fear of “Apocalypse Now” (an enduring superstition of mankind) along with the “muddled cosmological beliefs of the West” about how one should live.     

He refers to organisations such as the International Whaling Commission as transnational institutions created after the Second World War to legislate our Western morality around the world and that the infiltration and use of these institution by NGOs as source of potential serious disorder (pg. 234). 

What the West doesn’t seem to understand is that while Japan, to again quote Lal, joined the bandwagon of globalizing capitalism, they have done this without sacrificing their culture or cosmological beliefs and see the demand from countries like Australia that they give up their tradition of eating whale – a tradition that can be traced to the Jomon Period of approximately 5,500 BC – as a form of cultural imperialism.    Masayuki Komatsu and Shigeko Misaki in ‘Whales and the Japanese’ (The Institute of Cetacean Research, 2003) indicate that the Japanese don’t like others to dictate what “our habits should be” and suggest that the anti-whaling lobby is practicing ethnic and cultural discrimination (pg. 103-104). 

At a summit of traditional Japanese whaling communities held in March 2002, it was affirmed that “the basis of Japanese whaling tradition and culture, characterised by the total utilization of the whales and a spirit of gratitude, should be maintained and perpetuated”.   

The Japanese have a strong connection to the Shinto and Buddhist religions and believe that deep respect should be afforded animals that are killed so we may eat.   This respect involves not wasting any of the animal and so the Japanese have made a virtue out of utilizing every part of the whale.    There is also a cemetery for whales in the Koganji Buddhist Temple in Nagato City where the fetuses of whales that “did not live to swim in the sea” are buried and kakochos (books of the dead) dedicated to the whales that gave their lives for the well-being of humans.  A service is held once a year in the temple to pray for the souls of the whales.   

The Japanese want an end to the moratorium on commercial whaling and the right to continue to harvest whales.  They see the moratorium as reflecting Western arrogance and believe that they will prevail, simply because “we are right”.

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This is my fourth blog post on whaling following my recent visit to Japan.  

Deepak Lal was elected President of the Mont Pelerin Society at its 60^th Anniversary Meeting in Tokyo.  

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) is facing a revolt.   The whaling nations of the North Atlantic, in defiance of the IWC, recently approved a quota of 10 humpback whales for Greenland.

The North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO), established in 1992 to provide international competence on conservation and management of whale and seal stocks in the region, normally makes recommendations to the IWC. 

But after the IWC rejected Greenland’s request for a quota of 10 humpback whales at the meeting in Chile earlier this year, the countries of the North Atlantic decided enough was enough in particular because the quota had been approved by the IWC science committee and the aboriginal subsistence committee. 

The quota was refused at a plenary session with Australia, New Zealand and the European Union key protagonists.

Opening statements from Norway at the meeting of NAMMCO on 2-4 September included:

“The debate about management of marine mammals today is mostly emotional.  It is disturbing that the attitude towards science as the basis for managing whale stocks is vanishing.  This is especially important as we have based our management of wildlife in general on science.  Also, we have to solve international conflicts in the environmental field (global warming, biological diversity, fishing, effects of pollution, etcetera) on a scientific basis.  Whaling and sealing is not a major issue in this context, but the actions of governments in this matter may create an international precedent for similar actions in more important issues.  We cannot accept that a legal activity conducted with the best practice in one country is not accepted in another country because of emotions.”

The decision by the IWC to block the request by Greenland for a quota of 10 humpback whales, a decision spearheaded by Australia and New Zealand, is indeed seen by many as irrational with comment that, “So, whales are not only considered special by Australians, but humpback are even more special.  How is this?”

Fed-up, Greenland, a Danish Protectorate, has reportedly written to its government asking that it withdraw from the IWC.

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You read it first at JenniferMarohasy.com/blog.

I’m leaving Tokyo for Sydney later today.  

There are two criteria that I consider valid when it comes to ethical food choice: 1. Is the harvest of the animal sustainable, and 2. Is the killing humane.   

Whaling by the Japanese is undertaken in accordance with a strict quota system to ensure populations are not depleted and every effort is made to get a quick and painless kill including through the use of a grenade tipped harpoon. 

So I had no problems with the ethics of eating whale when I visited a restaurant that specializes in whale in downtown Tokyo recently with well known blogger, David.

Furthermore, whale tastes good, at least when it is cooked. 

Our meal started with a green salad containing crunchy whale blubber. 

My favourite dish though comprised lightly peppered whale steaks.

But several of the dishes comprised elegantly presented raw whale meat including cold raw morsels of heart and tail.   

I didn’t enjoy these at all.

Later in the meal we were provided with our own cooking pot which we filled with whale tongue and an assortment of vegetables.

Later David added some raw egg and noodles.

All in all it was a fun evening and I can recommend whale – but it’s definitely best cooked.

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This is my second post on whales and whaling from Tokyo, the first is here.