A new NGO called Species Management Specialists (SMS) has criticised Australia’s stance at the International Whaling Commission and called for a resumption of negotiations to complete a commercial whaling management regime. Following is their media release:
"In March this year, International Whaling Commission (IWC) negotiations to develop the Revised Management Scheme (RMS) for commercial whaling broke down and the impasse is unlikely to be bridged.
“The world’s whale populations are at greater threat with the current impasse at IWC than with an approved management and regulatory regime for commercial whaling, and Australia must take a lot of the blame for this result,” Dr Graham Hall, the Executive Officer of Species Management Specialists, said today.
The majority of the world’s population from more than 20 countries around the world continue to hunt whales, dolphins and other cetaceans for food.
“Our Government’s stance at the IWC is un-Australian – it is extremist and uncompromising and is ensuring the world’s whale populations remain at threat from illegal, unregulated and unreported activity.”
“We have a reputation of ensuring sound management of our fisheries and should be leading by example rather than pandering to right-wing environmental groups who provide nothing to this country’s economy. Japan is a nation with whom this country is very good friends but yet we continue to vilify them for their desire to sustainably hunt whales for food,” he said.
Dr Hall, an Australian game management expert, says the Government takes similar stances with crocodiles and sea turtles. “Ian Campbell would rather take wildlife advice from a crocodile entertainer [Steve Irwin from Australia Zoo] than look at detailed submissions from the most highly qualified reptile scientists in the world.
It’s time to take wildlife conservation seriously and not continue with the ignorant and puerile manner in which it’s dealt with now by the Federal Government.”The Chairman of Species Management Specialists, Hank Jenkins, has worked on wildlife conservation and management issues throughout the world, including 9 years as Chairman of the main technical committee for the convention on international wildlife trade, CITES.
He says Australia’s stance at last year’s IWC meeting in Ulsan, Korea, was an embarrassment. “Australia’s wildlife management experts are as good as they come. Good science and management experience is often ignored in the interests of bad politics – politics that depends on ignorance rather than education in the community.”
“These are serious concerns in a nation committing itself to a knowledge economy, that promotes cutting-edge technology and knowledge as the answer to all problems,” Mr Jenkins added.
Charlie Manolis, an experienced scientist who works internationally, says many government advisers from nations around the world view Australia’s, and New Zealand’s, stance on whaling completely hypocritical given our stance on domestic wildlife populations that have a commercial value, such as kangaroos and crocodiles.
“Minke whales in the southern oceans are abundant. Yet the average Australian thinks they are endangered and the Government does nothing to educate them otherwise to maintain an indefensible political position.”
“The IWC was established in 1948 as the agency responsible for the sustainable management and commercial use of whales. It was not established as a whale protection agency or a whale-watching organisation, which is what Australia and New Zealand are conveniently forgetting,” Mr Manolis said.
SMS while having key spokesmen in Australia, is global in its reach and focus, with members on every continent in the world. The new organisation has published recommendations for CITES in English, French and Spanish at their new website, click here.
SPIEGEL ONLINE - May 26, 2006, 09:55 AM
Opinion
You Can Have Your Whale and Eat It, too
The time has come for regulations that recognize that whaling, handled right and in moderation, can be sustainable.
When the International Whaling Commission convenes this week, its worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling will be under attack. It should be. The time has come for regulations that recognize that whaling, handled right and in moderation, can be sustainable.
The moratorium, in place since 1985, has accomplished a great deal. Most countries, including the United States, have given up whaling, and as a result, many species that were dwindling are now on the rebound. But there are also loopholes that a handful of persistent whaling nations have managed to slip through. Norway has never recognized the moratorium; Japan and Iceland claim that they kill whales for research, though they sell surplus meat for food. Now these countries are clamoring to hunt larger species and to do so in international waters.
In April 2004, I spent two weeks on the Norwegian whaling ship Sofie, living with its five-man crew. I saw the Norwegians shoot six minke whales with grenade-tipped harpoons, drag them to the boat and kill them with blasts to the skull from a .458-caliber rifle. Once onboard, the whales dwarfed us all. But at an average of seven tons, the minke is small for a whale.
There are 120,000 to 182,000 minkes in the North Atlantic. Norwegian whalers hunt them every spring and summer along the fjord-carved coast of Arctic Norway, shooting 639 in 2005 and selling their red, beef-like meat for about $10 a pound. Given the animal's healthy numbers, killing and eating limited numbers of minke whales is sustainable, despite the Norwegian quota increase to 1,052 whales for 2006.
Whalers cite success with the minke programs to make their case for going after larger, more profitable species. But minkes have never been heavily hunted; as a result, their numbers far exceed those of larger whales like humpback or fin, two species Japan plans to hunt in 2006.
For its part, the International Whaling Commission, which is essentially a trade organization founded to preserve whale numbers for future hunting - not for conservation - is predisposed to serve whalers, not the public good. That's why it has failed to come up with a nuanced framework that can accommodate both environmental and economic needs.
The commission focuses on specific whale numbers rather than on general ocean health. But the old saw that all whales are in danger of extinction simply isn't true. Seven of the mammal's 37 species are still endangered, but only two are in serious trouble. Environmentalists need not bother with saving every whale. They'd be better off coming up with a plan to save the oceans.
Whales can become endangered by the loss of other ocean life that sustains them. And when whales are hunted, rather than allowed to die from natural causes and feed back into the ecosystem, that endangers the habitat, which in turn endangers whales. The debate over how to save the whales, therefore, needs to move its focus away from whaling and onto ocean health.
With proper management, whaling need not cause extinctions or deplete ecosystems. But as it stands, the fox is guarding the chicken coop. Whales need at least 50 more years to repopulate before hunting of larger species should resume. The commission, however, has proved incapable of allowing stocks to replenish fully, as we've seen with the moratorium's sloppy loopholes.
A more disinterested body needs to govern whale hunting. I suggest the United Nations. Fifty years would give the UN time to configure a global fishing commission, and the International Whaling Commission time to dismantle.
Limited whaling of certain species would continue, while the others would be given a rest. Conservation is the best option not just for the environment, but for the fishing industry as well. Whaling, however distasteful, needs to be reinvented with global resources - not just whales - in mind.
Philip Armour is the former editor of the Swedish edition of Outside magazine.