Last week, the International Whaling Commission announced a proposed 10-year deal, spearheaded by the Obama administration, that would suspend the moratorium and allow whaling countries to kill whales legally for commercial purposes for the first time in a generation.
See what the LA Times is saying:
The Obama administration argues that the whaling moratorium should be suspended because it has loopholes that are being illegally exploited by Japanese, Norwegian and Icelandic whalers. They believe that after 25 years of conflict within the International Whaling Commission, commercial whaling should be legalized in the hope that, by bringing the killing out into the open through agreed-upon quotas, a consensus eventually will emerge in support of a phase-out of whaling altogether.
Its intentions are good. But the strategy is dead wrong.
First, the proposed deal nowhere requires a phase-out of whaling. Not in 10 years. Not ever.
The new rule would allow Japan, Norway and Iceland, the last remaining whaling nations, to kill whales for commercial purposes and ignore scientific levels of sustainability for the great sea mammals.
The plan is
a whaler's wish list," said Patrick Ramage, IFAW's Whale Program Director. "It throws a lifeline to a dying industry when endangered whale populations face more threats than ever before. This would be a breathtaking reversal of decades of U.S. leadership and conservation progress at the IWC."
The current proposal would also:
Overturn the global ban on commercial whaling and allow hunting in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary around Antarctica.
Approve the killing of whales for commercial purposes by Japan around Antarctica and in the North Pacific.
Add new rights for Japan to hunt whales in its coastal waters.
Allow continuing whaling by Iceland and Norway in violation of long-agreed scientific procedures and the global whaling ban.
The Obama administration is spearheading a policy that would allow commercial whaling to proceed for 10 years. Commercial whaling has been banned since the 1970s. Before the ban on commercial whaling, close to 40,000 whales were killed annually; since the ban, that number has dropped to fewer than 2,000, and whale populations have begun to recover.
The administration is arguing that if we see whales being slaughtered, we are more likely to support a total moratorium. But that is like saying if we see people killing puppies, fewer people will kill puppies. It's garbage.
According to a survey by the Nippon Research Center, more than 95 percent of Japanese residents had never eaten whale. But the Japanese government has begun supplying schools with whale meat in an attempt to justify its slaughter. Additionally, Japan has begun bribing land-locked nations in Africa, and poor nations like Nauru and Togo, with aid in exchange for support of position within the IWC.
Whales are intelligent animals. Australia has taken the lead on their protection. For the US to take any other position is abominable.
In 2009, these are the numbers of whales killed by the three remaining countries that kill whales for "scientific purposes:
The plan is
a whaler's wish list," said Patrick Ramage, IFAW's Whale Program Director. "It throws a lifeline to a dying industry when endangered whale populations face more threats than ever before. This would be a breathtaking reversal of decades of U.S. leadership and conservation progress at the IWC."
The current proposal would also:
Overturn the global ban on commercial whaling and allow hunting in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary around Antarctica.
Approve the killing of whales for commercial purposes by Japan around Antarctica and in the North Pacific.
Add new rights for Japan to hunt whales in its coastal waters.
Allow continuing whaling by Iceland and Norway in violation of long-agreed scientific procedures and the global whaling ban.
The Obama administration is spearheading a policy that would allow commercial whaling to proceed for 10 years. Commercial whaling has been banned since the 1970s. Before the ban on commercial whaling, close to 40,000 whales were killed annually; since the ban, that number has dropped to fewer than 2,000, and whale populations have begun to recover.
The administration is arguing that if we see whales being slaughtered, we are more likely to support a total moratorium. But that is like saying if we see people killing puppies, fewer people will kill puppies. It's garbage.
Almost 2,000 whales were killed by Japan, Norway and Iceland in 2009. That doesn't include whales killed by ships and those that die annually as a result of whaling: whales that are "struck and lost" not “landed” or counted as “takes” which suffer and die later.
For Obama to countenance such a slaughter is an outrage. Write, call and/or email. Please.
UPDATE: From the Comments:
The 10-year plan would cut -- but condone -- hunting in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, which won international protection in 1994. Japan's annual quota of 935 Antarctic minke whales -- which it takes in the name of scientific research, an exception to the moratorium -- would be cut to 400 during the next five years and then drop to 200 in the following five years. Its current hunt of 320 sei and minke whales off its coast would be reduced to 210. From Bob S
Also: The Chair and Vice-Chair of the International Whaling Commission today unveiled a draft proposal to bring all whaling operations under full IWC control and to strengthen further and focus the work of the IWC on conservation issues. The 88 member governments of the IWC will have 60 days to review the plan before discussing it at their annual meeting in June where it could be changed or adopted.
If adopted, the proposal (see pdf: Proposed Consensus Decision to Improve the Conservation of Whales from the Chair and Vice Chair of the Commission) for a 10-year peace plan keeps the moratorium on commercial whaling. Importantly, the three countries that at present set their own catch limits (Japan, Norway, Iceland) will have agreed to IWC-set sustainable catch limits that are substantially below present levels as well as to a rigorous oversight and enforcement arrangement. As proposed, several thousand less whales will be caught over the ten-year period than would have occurred if the present situation remained. From Northanger
And there's this: As the current proposal is written, pro-whaling countries will directly benefit with a return to what was described by the president as "unacceptable" commercial whaling. Nearly 25 years of conservation efforts may be swept aside if former staunch allies of the whales, the U.S. and other nations following our lead, capitulate to Japan as they have indicated.
The president's unfulfilled pledge to "ensure that the US provides leadership in enforcing international wildlife protection agreements" could be achieved by compelling Japan to honor all the agreements it has broken with impunity. Japan has violated the Law of the Sea Convention, the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
If the president truly wanted to see these agreements upheld, he could seek redress from the rogue whaling nations by using the sanctioning powers available under the Pelly Amendment against Japan, Norway, and Iceland until they stop whaling completely. Carol Muske-Dukes, Poet Laureate of California