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.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
A question. Perhaps either David or Ann can answer it.
I understood that the IWC was formed to manage and oversee whale stocks, including allocating sustainable harvest quotas.
If Greenland goes ahead with harvesting the 10 humpbacks, does the IWC have any legal powers to stop the Greenlanders? I.e. to override the NAMMCO decision?
Hi Helen,
The IWC is just an international organization, brought to life by nations who signed the ICRW (convention).
Actual enforcement of IWC (non-)decisions is up to each member nation. So if the ruling authority in Greenland had legislation in place that permitted whaling, they could conduct whaling. Norway and Iceland would both have similar domestic arrangements as well. It seems that Greenland’s relationship with Denmark may play a role here though, I’m not sure of their exact legal setup.
So although hunting 10 humpbacks whales would technically be a breach of the rules, I don’t think the IWC can actually do anything about it, other than to complain it. It’s more a matter of reputation for a member party if they break the rules. There might be scope for legal action through another international organization, such as UNCLOS though.
However, in my personal opinion, they should go ahead and hunt the 10 humpbacks if they want to, in the way agreed at the IWC scientific committee that it would not harm the stock in question.
The problem is not the credibility of Greenland/Denmark, the problem is the credibility of the IWC as an international organization. Hunting 10 humpbacks against the rules would help highlight the fact.
More than that, I question if Greenland’s whaling requires an “International” whaling commission to permit the quotas in the first place. It has no bearing on the lives of Australians and New Zealanders, and yet politicians of those countries get to have a say about it, and it’s invariably a very disruptive say.
Thanks David.
It would appear that Australian and NZ attempts to influence the IWC to ban all whaling could, by inciting revolt from whaling members, have the perverse outcome of the IWC losing influence / control on the whale take. Is this what is at stake?
It is almost as if we are seeing resistance to a “World Government”, via IWC, telling sovereign states what, and what not to do in their food gathering activities.
Greenlanders, and Danes, historically have some reputation as recalcitrants, what with their forays into England during pre-Medieval times :-), but just why Australia and New Zealand need to have an input to the animal husbandary activties of a people with a longer history points to the existence of another agenda.
I suspect that signing the Kyoto Protocol is part of it – and yes Luke and his Canutians will say otherwise – but there is another game in play here, and it does not auger well for liberty.
I’m very busy at the moment , but I saw that J. Hansford posted a comment recently about the MWP in Greenland and sheep farming. There is CURRENTLY sheep farming on Greenland:
http://sermitsiaq.gl/erhverv/article47544.ece
As re with Jennifer’s post I will give you the gist of the commentors on Greenland :
http://sermitsiaq.gl/politik/article53890.ece?lang=EN
The commentors so far 6 persons , don’t want to leave the IWC. They say the decision to leave the IWC is ” undemocratic” and ” untrustworthy” ( in Danish).
If you brows the link that I have provided , there are more info on marine mammal policy , management etc.
Anne
How about showing where the sheep are being farmed on greenland – a photo of an abatoir means nothing.
Louis,
It is stated there are 50 sheep farmers on Greenland , here’s a pic from Greenland. The article states as well they grow now broccoli on Greenland , thanks to global warming:
http://sermitsiaq.gl/indland/article25487.ece
Re the IWC and Greenland I see there are more news on the BBC website today …..sorry have to leave now!
Scientists are also on their way to Greenland to question whalers how global warming has affected thier industry:
http://sermitsiaq.gl/klima/article53171.ece
Anne
Nice pictures – latitude and longitude please, otherwise it is propoganda.
Anne,
Whalers usually attribute their luck to climatate changes, and that is based on experience.
Oh, and Anne, when they start growing grapes in Greenland, send me a postcard please 🙂
Louis,
All I know , it’s southern Greenland:)!
Anyway , I’m a little bit surprised of Jennifer’s choice of topic , since this is meant to be a sceptics blog and she is pushing for North Atlantic whaling.
As a matter of fact , the very woman behind the statement ” sustainable whaling” , former Norwegian Prime Minister, M.D Gro Harlem Brundtland , is now the UN Envoye on Climate Change , and whalers like Rune Frövik , thinks that climate change is a very big environmental issue , and pushes for carbon low meat!!!!
Louis,
There is another article on the link that I provided that states that Greenlanders hate to eat vegetables:)!!!!
Anne
Climate always changes, this is not new news.
Pushing for low carbon meat is interesting – especially from the view point of a carbon based life form.
No carbon means no life.
But science the Cambrian we have had carbon life forms – and you consider this bad?
correction, But since the Cambrian, (apologies, watching Bourne Supremacy movie)
Ann Novek said…”There is another article on the link that I provided that states that Greenlanders hate to eat vegetables:)!!!!”
That’s a recipe for stomach cancer. Studies in Scotland and China have shown that a diet high in fatty meats and low in Vitamin C produces a high incidence of stomach cancer. The Scottish diet, in particular, is abysmal, with the amount of heavily fried meat in the diet, as well as processed meat like black puddings (sausage…’meally puddin’).
This study by Swedish researchers show that a diet high in processed meat has a definite link to stomach cancer:
http://www.medindia.net/news/view_news_main.asp?x=12998
Of course, that’s been known for at least 20 years. The problem is the nitrates used to cure the meat. One way around that is high dosages of Vitamin C.
This Canadian article reveals that native populations in Northern Canada suffer a higher than normal incidence of stomach cancer:
http://www.capitalhealth.ca/NewsAndEvents/CapitalHealthintheNews/OtherNews/Stomach_cancer_in_NWT.htm
They are looking at heliobacter pylori as the cause and throw in as an incidental, “BTW…Diet also plays a role, notably a diet heavy in salted and smoked foods and red meat, which describes the traditional aboriginal diet”.
Doh!! When are people going to get it that many cancers are preventable? If you eat a diet high in meat, especially fried meat, at the expense of vegetables and fruit (Vitamin C), you’re asking for it.
I wonder if Greenlanders follow that barbaric European habit of eating raw meat? That would definitely set them up for heliobacter and other organisms.
Finally, barbecued meat is particularly deadly. The black on the meat that so many people prize is a source of free radicals. Those are atoms with an altered structure that form compound in the body which are not good. It helps to take high dosages of Vitmain C since it is an anti-oxidant, as is Vitamin E.
The debate about management of marine mammals today is mostly emotional.
Well, just how did it come about that infants have been allowed into the debate?
Doh!! When are people going to get it that many cancers are preventable?
Infantilism used to be preventable, also. But, sadly, now we have an epidemic. What happened?
I wonder if Greenlanders follow that barbaric European habit of eating raw meat? That would definitely set them up for heliobacter and other organisms.
The “Greenlanders” are simply trying to “lower their carbon footprint”, Gordon. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t”, eh what, Baby?
J. Peden said…”The “Greenlanders” are simply trying to “lower their carbon footprint…”
Not sure if you missed my point but I don’t get your drift. A delicacy in Germany used to be dipping raw hamburger meat in raw egg and eating it. Many people seem to think we are the same as animals in that we are both designed to eat meat. That’s taking it a bit far…eating raw meat and raw egg. Our systems are definitely not designed for that.
Anyway, I was answering the point made that Greenlanders are shunning vegetables, supposedly in lieu of meat. I really don’t give a damn about their carbon footprint since that it is jargon based on pseudo-science.
Gordon Robertson,
Very interesting points.
Do you think humans have increased their lifespan by eating cooked rather than raw meat?
Vitamin C would be pretty hard come by in high latitudes I would imagine.
Eating whalemeat seems a very eco-friendly thing for high latitude dwellers to do as long as there are plenty of whales.
Ms. Mahar wrote: > “I understood that the IWC was formed to manage and oversee whale stocks, including allocating sustainable harvest quotas.”
Only nominally, my dear. In fact, that’s how they lure you in, but please don’t take the bait. In actuality, their primary aim is to propagate wave upon wave of misinformation. It’s what is known as an institutionalized civil war between lobby groups and special interest.
The truth about this titanic bureaucracy known as the International Whaling Commission is that there’s a mountain of blubber to flense through — and I’m not just spouting off when I say that. I know. These people have politicized themselves up to the gills, and in the process they’ve politicized the science as well. They should be harpooned, flogged, flayed, forced to walk the plank, left to wash up on shore.
Mr. Hissink, I like what you say when you say the following:
“It is almost as if we are seeing resistance to a ‘World Government,’ via IWC, telling sovereign states what, and what not to do in their food gathering activities.”
That, I believe, stabs at the meat of the matter.
You add, moreover:
“I suspect that signing the Kyoto Protocol is part of it … there is another game in play here, and it does not auger well for liberty.”
To buoy that statement a bit, allow me to quote at slight length the economist Dr. George Reisman:
“It should be realized that environmentalism’s goal of global limits on carbon dioxide and other chemical emissions, as called for in the Kyoto treaty, easily lends itself to the establishment of world-wide central planning with respect to a wide variety of essential means of production. Indeed, an explicit bridge between socialism and environmentalism is supplied by one of the most prominent theorists of the environmental movement, Barry Commoner, who was also the Green Party’s first candidate for President of the United States. The bridge is in the form of an attempted ecological validation of one of the very first notions of Karl Marx to be discredited — namely, Marx’s prediction of the progressive impoverishment of the wage earners under capitalism…. The Reds claimed that the individual could not be left free because the result would be such things as ‘exploitation,’ ‘monopoly,’ and depressions. The Greens claim that the individual cannot be left free because the result will be such things as destruction of the ozone layer, acid rain, and global warming. Both claim that centralized government control over economic activity is essential. The Reds wanted it for the alleged sake of achieving human prosperity. The Greens want it for the alleged sake of avoiding environmental damage” (George Reisman, “Environmentalism Refuted,” 2001).
One must always remember that economics and politics go together like white wine and fish. This is so because in order to live, humans must produce; and economics is the science of production and exchange. These leviathan-sized bureaucracies, such as the IWC, are just so much flotsam. But they’ve become somewhat dangerous because they’ve developed an Ahab-like monomania, believing, among other things, that they have legitimate authority and jurisdiction over the individual’s right to produce and exchange. They do not. But the issue is obviously far from finished and sunk. In the words of one who would know:
I now leave my cetological System standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small erections may be completed by their first architects; grand ones, true, ever leave the copestone to prosperity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught — nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!
Said Herman Melville in his celebrated chapter “Cetology.”
Thin king man
Good comment Sir! I am very familiar with George Reismann’s writings tto.
I had a “on the road to Damascus” experience when I was studying mineral economics at Macquarie University in the early 1970’s and stumbled onto Mises’ text “The Theory of Money and Credit”.
I am an Austrian as a result of reading that seminal text.
Thin KIng Man said : “But they’ve become somewhat dangerous because they’ve developed an Ahab-like monomania, believing, among other things, that they have legitimate authority and jurisdiction over the individual’s right to produce and exchange. They do not. But the issue is obviously far from finished and sunk.”
Perhaps the greater problem is that the public often agrees with their assumption of authority, and air of legitamcy.
spangled drongo said…”Do you think humans have increased their lifespan by eating cooked rather than raw meat?
Vitamin C would be pretty hard come by in high latitudes I would imagine”.
I have no idea whether cooking meat alone has been beneficial, but I do know that organisms in uncooked meat can be deadly to humans. Animals don’t seem to suffer in the same way.
Vitamin C is a vital nutrient for humans since we don’t make any for ourselves. I would imagine anyone in high latitudes would be in sub-clinical states of scurvy all the time unless they got fresh vegetables or fruit. However, there seems to be enough Vitamin C in uncooked meat to enable a person to survive. Also, the Arctic summer season provides sources of Vitamin C and it could be preserved in potatoes, tubers, etc.
Many of Scott’s Antarctic expedition party died of scurvy but they were eating canned, cooked meat.
Vitamin C takes part in many essential processes in the human body. The cement that sticks our cells together is dependent on C and it takes part in the muscle growth process twice. Bones depend on it as do teeth. It’d hard to accept that the government recommended daily allowance (RDA) is only 75 milligrams. Smokers burn that much C with a pack of cigarettes.
Linus Pauling was an expert in chemical structure and one of the all time leading researchers in that field. A book he wrote on the structure of the chemical bond is still used as a text today. He became interested in Vitamin C later in his career and his investigations indicated that humans were dangerously low on Vitamin C. Of course, the medical community, who gets a 6 month course on nutrition, ridiculed him.
Pauling pointed out that a 154 lb billy goat makes 12 grams of C for himself in a day and claimed the goat knew more about C than the government. He figured we humans need a minimum of 1 gram a day, preferably 3 grams. That’s 40 times more than the government recommends.
Vegetables are not a particularly good source of vitamin C, although a couple of potatoes could supply the RDA. However, boiling them leeches the vitamins and minerals out of them. Depending on raw meat for C strikes me as being pretty dicey. To get Pauling’s RDA, you’d need to eat about 40 oranges a day. One teaspoon of ascorbic acid crystals from a drug store gives you that amount but it’s bitter. I buffer it with baking soda, and a mixture of magnesium and potassium.
Thanks Thin King Man for your your comment about institutionalised civil war between lobby groups and special interest. This actually lines up with some of my own experiences, as do other poiitical explanations in Austrian economics. I stumbled across this school via the ramblings of a lost geologist occasionally chucking rocks on a mainstream economics blog. Opps. Off topic.
But back on topic. It will be very interesting to see if the IWC’s power really only boils down to moral posturing. Australia and NZ lining up as they have, are strongly influenced by local political sentiment.
To clarify my original query, I was actually after clarification about the duties of the IWC, and whether in leaning towards banning harvesting of whales, instead of limiting the take to sustainable, it was actually in conflict with its purported reason for existing.
Gordon,
As a past sufferer of scurvy and barcoo rot and a witness of people with stomach cancer from lack of vit C, I go along with those thoughts.
WRT cooked meat, I suspect that as humans became more civilised and sophisticated, their diet and food preparation changed their gut flora and they probably couldn’t cope so well with the bacteria in raw meat.
Even though some raw meat tastes good I always worry about eating it.
As one cow said to the other, “do you ever worry about mad cow disease?”
“I don’t have to”, was the reply, “I’m a horse”.
And Jen,
How do you eat a raw whale?
One juicy bite at a time.
Helen,
Many parties to the IWC feel that that is the case.
I personally expect we’ll see a parting of ways at some point in the not too distant future, and indeed the IWC’s (collective) decision to deny the Greenlanders a sustainable take of 10 humpbacks looks like it may help to precipitate this.
A part of the problem is, as the Norwegians state, whaling (and sealing) aren’t major issues. Whaling is a very small issue these days. The fact that nations such as Australia and New Zealand don’t regard the situation at the IWC as being symbolic of similar issues in other forums is why they are prepared to mess around and put their domestic politics first.
I hope, the collapse of the IWC doesn’t turn out to be the sad precedent that it has the potential to be – that is I maintain faith that internationally, sovereign states don’t need to have every other sovereign state (even unrelated ones) involved in order to be able to make reasonable decisions. Indeed in the current climate, decisions aren’t possible except where certain states are excluded. I think this is the workable solution for the 21st century. Whaling states will be able to catch whales, and non or anti-whaling states will be able to complain about it as much as they like. That way, every one is happy. This is the new equilibrium I think the whaling issue is heading towards.
Gordon & spangled, interesting topic, just thought I’d put in my two cents.
It would appear that a mostly meat diet reduces the bodies need for vitamin C. I don’t have the studies handy, but its observed that L-ascorbate is structurally related to glucose so sugar in the diet may increase the need for vitamin C.
Raw meat does have the most vitamin C present, but freshly cooked meat appears to have some as well based on a couple of hospitilisation studies (most beef in the supermarket has been aged for weeks).
Carnivores can eat raw or even rancid meat because their digestive tracts are quite short. Therefore, any bacteria present don’t have sufficient time to multiply in the gut and cause problems. That said, I think omnivores can develop some immunity since bear’s can eat carrion.
I don’t think FRESH raw meat is a problem for humans at all. Every hunter-gatherer tribe ever studied eats some percentage of their meat raw. It puts you up for more parasites for sure, but these are not normally deadly.
Joel,
It’s interesting that some humans have a liking for meat that’s almost carrion.
Last week I came across a Grey Goshawk [active predator of live animals] actually eating carrion. Never seen it before.
Jen, sorry about this O/T.
Joel said…”It would appear that a mostly meat diet reduces the bodies need for vitamin C”.
I’d be extremely wary of that Joel. I have no idea what effect reduced sugar has on Vitamin C requirements, but I’m not talking about the range recommended by governments. I am convinced the RDA leaves a person open to everything from sub-clinical scurvey to heart disease. There’s plenty of evidence available as well that our requirement of C goes up dramatically during illness.
Many physicians still claim that any C intake in excess of the RDA is excreted in the urine. They are taught that in their 6 month nutrition course, and although many studies are available to refute that, they carry on the tradition. Pauling disproved that with an experiment on himself, and he was an expert researcher. He took a dose of 10 grams of C and measured what he excreted, which was about half. The rest went into circulation, but most of the excretion was through the bowels, and he claimed that helped prevent cancer.
Vitamin C in the bowels absorbs water into the intestinal tract, making the stools softer and passing any carcinogens that may adhere to the intestinal walls through slower movement. It is also an excellent anti-oxident, which means it will neutralize many potential carcinogens.
You can prove the ‘bowel tolerance’ thing to yourself. If you’re a healthy person, taking 5 grams of C will force a rush to the toilet in about an hour. If you’re sick or elderly, you can take a lot more with no effect.
The advantage of taking large dosages of C (> 1 gram/day) is giving yourself insurance against going short. Also, it gives extra C to work on processes that would normally be ignored if the body was short of it. A human requires a lot of collagen as a base for cells and the RDA is equivalent to a pinch of salt. Vitamin C is also involved in many other processes.
If you go short of it, something has to suffer. Ewan Cameron, a Scottish surgeon who collaborated with Pauling, claimed extra C helped build up chemicals in the body that resisted tumor growth.
When you talk about high amounts of meat cutting down requirements of C, your talking about borderline levels of the latter. If you get your C levels low enough, which is unlikely in our societies with a decent diet, you’re a goner. Scurvy is a very painful way to die, and although it only takes a smidgeon of C to prevent it, there’s no telling what borderline levels in your body can do in a negative sense. In other words, counting on a higher intake of meat to reduce levels of C strikes me as a rather dangerous practice.
Gordon, I think you misunderstood me. I wasn’t talking about a high meat diet, rather an almost ALL meat diet. The Inuit seemed to get by on this for a very long time with extremely low rates of heart disease and cancer (pre-westernised Inuits of course).
Way O/T now, but I do take 2g of Vit.C/day =)
I see that Ann has successfully diverted the attention of the thread again. Back to the whales, eh?
The Greenlanders should reward the IWC wanker nations by doubling their harvest to 20 Humpbacks. Australia and NZ in particular have used this forum for entirely domestic diversionary purposes and have indulged themselves at the expense of other nations.
It doesn’t even matter if there is no human market for the whale meat, these clowns need to be put in their place. At the very least it could be used as feed stock for fish farming.
One rarely achieves any long term beneficial outcome by indulging the whims of bullies or nutters. So the sooner they are sent packing the better, preferably with a disproportionate response.
The original point of having international forums was to minimise friction between nations by increasing dialogue and reducing the extent of misunderstandings.
But the IWC is a total abuse of that concept. It is a vehicle for active interference in the affairs of other nations, based solely on manipulation through rhetoric and misrepresentation.
The only rational response when confronted by such systematically abusive and dysfunctional behaviour is to put as much distance between yourself and the abusers as possible.
If there is such a thing as an Australian Embassy or High Commission in Greenland then it would be about time they completely dismembered a Humpback on the footpath outside it. (and left them to clean up afterwards)
I must once again point out my confusion over Jennifer’s agenda.
The North Atlantic coastal communities are opposed to nuclear power and have organisations like ” Stop Sellafield” , the whalers and NGOs alike believe in climate change and want carbon low meat etc, they are against off shore oil projects etc , all those things that Jennifer’s think tank supports….
I really never quite get the point of all Ann’s various digressions but in this part of the North Atlantic, the uranium industry is busy making deals with native “development corporations” for access to uranium on native owned lands. Nunavut is on board and has a joint venture and the industry has just hired a native leader from Labrador to overturn a recently imposed moratorium.
Furthermore, at least one MLA has proposed mini-reactors in every community.
Not sure what this has to do with the IWC but just thought I’d stop Ann’s blanket statements in their tracks.
Hi IceClass,
Thanks for pointing out this with Nunavut, but since Jennifer quoted a Norwegian, I wrote about Norwegian coastal communities….the Norwegians really don’t like nuclear power , they say it’s leaking radiactive stuff from Sellafield that pollutes the North Sea….
Sorry for the off topic post but this is interesting:
….” The Lofoten islanders themselves, and an Icelandic fisherman, presented their situation and anxieties for the survival of their communities, livelihood and culture in a most moving and engaging fashion. The main argument from Norway was presented with passion but courtesy by the Bellona Foundation, a respected organisation campaigning for the purity of the northern seas (it has been much concerned with the parlous state of defunct Russian nuclear submarines, whether sunken or in harbour); it demanded that BNFL should immediately cease discharging technetium and instead provide means to store the stream bearing it until suitable methods of separation and disposal could be developed. The UK Environment Agency explained the considerations behind the currently required steps to reduce prospective discharges of technetium as far as practicable without incurring other risks or costs disproportionate to the benefit. A Russian parliamentary guest speaker, in a diatribe against his nuclear energy ministry, grossly over-ran his time slot without touching on the subject of the conference. Briefly appearing, the Norwegian environment minister dutifully followed the Bellona line, and skated over a challenge to his crucial assumption that a totally satisfactory way of trapping technetium was technically possible.”
My note : the Lofoten Island is the headquarter of the whalers….
About meateating and vitamins:
It is possible to survive on a diet consisting almost entirely of what you can get from dead animals without any dietry deficiencies – thats how people used to survive in the extreeme north.
The secret lies in eating the parts most people today won’t touch – stomach content, liver, kidneys, brain, heart etc.
Eg. liver is a good source for vitamin C – esp. when eaten raw. Calf liver contains almost as much as lemons! Raw oysters are also an excellent source.