Subject: UPCOMING IWC ISSUES

From: Alan Macnow <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Jun 1996 11:31:56 -0700 (PDT)

FROM: Alan Macnow
                                              Consultant,
                                              Japan Whaling Association
                                                TEL: (212) 688-5580
                                                FAX: (212) 688-5857
                                                [email-masked]

          PRO AND ANTI WHALING FORCES SEEK SHOWDOWN AT WHALING MEETING

                Pro and anti whaling advocates are marshalling their
        forces to define the future of the International Whaling Commis-
        sion (IWC) when it holds its annual meeting in Aberdeen, Scot-
        land June 24-28.
                The IWC, established by the International Convention for
        the Regulation of Whaling in 1946, has been roiled by seemingly
        irreconcilable differences between those who want to conserve
        and manage whales for sustainable use and those who want to use
        the organization as a means of protecting whales from all harm.
                Under the Convention, the IWC was empowered "to provide
        proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the
        orderly development of the whaling industry."  But in recent
        years, strengthened by the addition of non-whaling countries to
        IWC membership, to the point where they command a three-quarters
        majority, anti-whaling advocates have changed the course and
        complexion of the IWC's actions.
                This year, most of the contentious issues will come to a
        head at Aberdeen.
                The big issue is whether the IWC has the authority to
        bypass the provisions of the Convention and change its purpose
        without the consent of all the member nations.  The issue has
        come up before but was not pursued to a conclusion in areas such
        as the commercial whaling moratorium, humane killing, and
        studies of small cetaceans.  In the past, member nations opposed
        in principle or practice to measures that did not conform to the
        provisions of the Convention either filed an objection and were
        exempted, or went along in a spirit of accommodation.
                This year the issue will be pressed in several areas.
                Foremost is the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary (SOWS), a
        measure prohibiting commercial whaling, but not whale research
        or aboriginal whaling, in the 13 million square miles of water
        surrounding the Antarctic.  The SOWS, passed in 1994, prevents
        the sustainable use of such abundant and fast reproducing spec-
        ies as minke whales. These are not endangered and number over
        three quarter of a million animals.  The SOWS was not approved
        by the IWC's Scientific Committee, the Commission for the Con-
        servation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the Scientific
        Committee for Antarctic Research or any other reputable scien-
        tific body.  A battery of opinions from legal experts contends
        that passage of the measure was illegal.
                Sustainable use advocates and many scientists and ju-
        rists will press hard at this meeting to get the IWC back on the
        road mandated by the Convention: the conservation, development
        and optimum utilization of the whale stocks.
                With the passage of the commercial whaling moratorium in
        1982, and at the request of the IWC, the IWC Scientific Commit-
        tee was assigned to develop a Revised Management Procedure (RMP)
        that would expedite the rebuilding of depleted whale stocks,
        ensure against future depletion, and provide a means of utiliz-
        ing abundant whale stocks at sustainable levels.
                The Scientific Committee worked for eight years to de-
        velop and test a faultless procedure. But the anti-whaling ma-
        jority of the IWC delayed its implementation, causing the
        chairman of the Scientific Committee to resign in protest.
        Those who oppose the resumption of whaling, even at sustainable
        levels, are expected to raise more roadblocks to incorporating
        the RMP with measures to ensure that catch quotas and research
        requirements are enforced.
                Another area of strong contention will be a proposed ban
        on the use of the electric lance.  The lance is used to elec-
        trocute whales not killed quickly with explosive harpoons.
        Anti-whaling proponents, however, allege that the device is not
        fast enough to qualify as a humane killing method.  Japan, which
        uses the electric lance, has data showing that the mean time to
        death when it is employed is 44 seconds.
                Adversaries of the proposed lance ban see it as just an-
        other device to prevent implementation of the Revised Management
        Scheme.  The ban is opposed, too, by those who see the whole
        humane killing issue as outside of the terms of the Convention.
                An effort to extend the authority of the IWC to dolphins
        and other small cetaceans also is expected to face strong oppo-
        sition at Aberdeen.  Three reasons given for opposing it are:
        The IWC Convention only provides jurisdiction over large whales,
        not small whales, dolphins or porpoises.  The UN Conference on
        the Environment and Development, the Convention on Biological
        Diversity, and a number of other conservation entities recommend
        regional management over international management for oceanic
        species with regional habitats, such as most small cetaceans.
        And third, most countries do not want to see small cetacean man-
        agement enmeshed in ideological disputes, as at the IWC.
                Other issues that will be raised at the IWC meeting are
        likely to be:
                * The new assessment of Atlantic minke stocks based upon
        new Norwegian sightings surveys.
                * The effects, if any, of pollution, global warming, and
        other environmental factors on the whale populations.
                                     -end-