The War Over Whaling Continues

The MY Esperanza and the MY Arctic Sunrise, equipped with a helicopter, speed boats and hi-tech communications equipment, departed Cape Town harbor last Sunday afternoon for the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The boats are not part of some expedition by the South Africa navy, rather they are the property of Greenpeace.

Greenpeace plans to stop Japan killing 935 minke whales by positioning its boats (and helicopter) between the harpoons and the whales, click here for the CNN report.

I wonder how much the expedition is costing and how much energy it will expend?

While Greenpeace takes on the whalers at sea, the Humane Society and Australians for Animals are calling for Japan to be hauled before some international court for its ‘crimes against whales’.

Minke whales are abundant. The whales that are killed are eaten. If the Japanese didn’t eat the whale meat I guess they would eat more grain-fed beef or blue fin tuna? It might be more environmentally friendly to eat whale, than beef or depleted blue fin tuna stocks?

What about Greenpeace and the Humane Society focusing their efforts on some of the really endangered animal species that are killed less humanely and not for food – sun bears for example.

The Canberra Times published the following piece by Glenn Inwood yesterday. It is not available online and so I am republishing the complete text below, with the permission of the author:

The International Whaling Commission is a peculiar organisation. While its legally binding mandate given by the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling is to manage whale populations on the basis of scientific findings to “provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry”, it has not made any significant decisions since it agreed what was to be a short-term cessation of commercial whaling in 1982 – the so-called “moratorium” -and the passing of the “Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary” in 1994. Both of these decisions were taken without the support of its own Scientific Committee.

Since then, the organisation has been in peril: its members polarised on one side of the debate or the other, unable to secure the three quarters majority to make legally binding decisions, dysfunctional and always drawing its interminable last breath as members of both sides question its continued relevance.

Whaling nations hunt a small number of whales from a few abundant stocks while anti-whaling nations cry foul using false claims that whales are endangered, that killing them for scientific purposes is unnecessary and throwing outrageous claims of “barbarism” for domestic political purposes. What occurs is, for the timebeing at least, an insurmountable barrier between a Western environmental crusade and international law, which requires States that sign a treaty to interpret and implement it in “good faith”.

This is where Australia currently finds itself. Its stance at the IWC reflects an emotive environmental movement that has continued unchecked for 20 years or more, and has even been encouraged for reasons of political expediency, simply because there is no longer an Australian whaling constituency. But by taking this position, which has required ignoring its legal obligations and twisting the legal interpretation of an international agreement, Australia has sacrificed its reputation as legitimate partner on matters of resource management where international cooperation is required.

Extreme environmental groups, such as Humane Society Australia and Australians For Animals, have been allowed to manipulate public opinion with unbridled passion and misguided concern for many years at the cost of reasoned, scientific debate, forcing the Australian Government into an unenviable corner where its policies related to the management and sustainable use of wildlife are internally inconsistent and contrary to the paradigms of science-based policy and rule making accepted as the world standard. The Northern Territory’s unsuccessful attempt to implement a crocodile safari hunt is testament to this.

HSUS Australia and AFA have opinions that Japan’s research in the Antarctic is not legal under international law. They now want the Government to take their legal opinions and pursue a case against Japan’s research whaling. Environment Minister Ian Campbell has on his hands an environmental movement that is completely out of control, one that is openly supported by most of the country’s media, and they continue to push their Government in a direction it clearly does not want to take. Both the Attorney General and Mr Campbell have repeated said that they will use “diplomatic means”. Either way, this leaves the Australian Government in an untenable position: how to satisfy the now growing discontent of whaling among the public, fuelled by the media and encouraged by the government itself, yet uphold its obligations under international law.

A legal case against Japan is high risk. If Australia did take the case to some international court or tribunal and lost, it would no longer be able to continue its anti-whaling rhetoric. Defence of its position would become unjustifiable and its standing within the IWC would be severely diminished.

Article VIII of International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling is very clear. Any member of the IWC may grant special permits to kill, take and treat whales for the purposes of scientific research and that all such operations shall be exempt from the convention. This means that such things as “the moratorium” or the “Southern Ocean Sanctuary” do not apply to research whaling. And the meat taken from whales that are killed must be processed and therefore sold at market. This is a legal requirement of the Convention. It cannot be any clearer. Further, the research is not carried out in any waters under Australian jurisdiction because Australia’s Antarctic claims are not recognized under international law.

Australia argues, that Article VIII is no longer relevant because there are other ways to study whales without having to kill them. Yes, there are non-lethal means that provide some kinds of scientific information but there are no non-lethal means to obtain data on population age structure and the biological parameters needed for the proper management of whaling. Nor do non-lethal methods provide data on feeding habits, which are required for modelling species interactions and that will allow scientists and managers to move toward the goals of ecosystem-based management. Some nations are proposing that a new international convention be drafted that, among other things, would remove the existing provisions for lethal research and the provisions that allow the lodging of an objection to, and therefore not be bound by, IWC decisions. (Norway’s commercial whaling is conducted legally through an objection to the moratorium.)

The proposal to draft a new convention, which is supported by Australia, is unlikely to be successful and unlikely to achieve the outcome some IWC nations want since it would be binding only on those who sign it. Mr Campbell believes a diplomatic solution is needed to resolve the whaling impasse, and he is right. But this requires good will, understanding and compromise rather than blustering and rhetoric.

Glenn Inwood is a Wellington-based consultant whose company undertakes communications work for the Institute of Cetacean Research in Japan, which carries out that country’s research whaling programmes in the Antarctic and the western North Pacific.