Here is a short paper from 2000 on the IWC by a US member of it's scientific committee. Note the paragraphs in bold.
http://www.certain-natl.org/malignant_neglect.htmlThe International Whaling Commission : A Case of Malignant Neglect
By William Aron
William Aron, Director, Alaska Fisheries Science Center (Ret.),
Affiliate Professor, University of Washington,
presented this paper at a conference held in Corvalis, Oregon
hosted by the International Institute of Fisheries Economics and Trade,
July 10-14, 2000.
Introduction
The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling was signed in Washington, D.C. on December 2, 1946. The initial 14 signatories were all whaling nations. Thirteen of the original members remain, but except for aboriginal harvests, none whale. With the addition of Guinea recently, current membership in the Convention is 41 nations. Almost none of these are whaling, in fact most are opposed to whaling with varied degrees of vigor.
The Convention preamble has all of the words that would please a modern conservationist- and let us be clear at the outset, I use the term conservation to mean the rational use of living resources. The Convention preamble recognizes:
The need to safeguard whale stocks for future generations That the history of whaling has been marked by overfishing. That proper regulation will permit whale stocks to increase and permit fishing without their endangerment That it is in the common interests to achieve optimum population levels of whale stocks without causing widespread economic and nutritional distress and That to achieve the above objectives whaling should be restricted to those species best able to sustain exploitation, to allow the recovery of depleted species. To accomplish the above objectives the signatories decided to conclude a convention for the proper conservation of whale stocks to make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry.
This paper examines how the International Whaling Commission(IWC), which was established by the Convention has operated during its fifty year history. It will look first at some of the Convention provisions that are critical to our understanding and then turn to the evolution of science and the interaction of the IWC with its Scientific Committee
Key Convention Provisions
Integral to the Convention is the Schedule, which serves as the regulatory and operational guide, fixing protected and unprotected species,, seasons, open and closed waters, including sanctuaries, size limits, methods and intensity of fishing, including quotas, gear specifications, methods of measurement and statistical and biological records.
The prime business of the annual meetings of IWC has been to amend the Schedule for the following whaling season. It is important to note that Schedule changes require a three-fourths majority vote. The Convention itself cannot be amended.
Even if an amendment to the Schedule is passed by the three-fourths majority, a member may file an objection within 90 days, and exempt itself from compliance.
The Convention allows any Contracting Government to permit its nationals to take whales for scientific purposes, the number of whales to be taken is determined by the Contracting Government. The Contracting Government also determines how whales taken under a scientific permit are processed and the distribution of the resulting proceeds. The Contracting Government is charged, in so far is practicable, with transmitting the scientific data to the IWC. The Contracting Governments are also charged with taking all practicable measure to provide scientific information from commercial whaling operations.
In the event a three-fourths majority is not reached regarding a Schedule change, the previous year's quota remains in effect.
Of critical importance during the first part of IWC's existence (until 1972) was the use in the Schedule of the Blue Whale Unit (BWU) as the prime management tool. Whale quotas were not set by species or by stock units, but by the oil equivalency of a blue whale. One BWU was equal to 6 sei (or Bryde's - the Bryde's was not treated as a separate species until the 70s), 2 fin or 2.5 humpbacks. This allowed the IWC to control the availability of whale oil- which many believe was the prime reason for IWC's existence ( a clear hint of the future OPEC), as well as allowing whalers to conveniently shift target species if shortages of a particular species occurred in their operating area.
The IWC does not establish national quotas, these must be negotiated separately by the nations that engaged in commercial whaling.
Each member nation has the same voting power, a vote from Oman or Monaco counts as much as a vote from the United States or Japan
IWC Through the Eyes of a Scientist
Just how has the IWC succeeded in its stated purpose of proper conservation of whales and the orderly development of the whaling industry? Simply stated- it hasn't. While my perspective is largely that of a biological scientist, the evolutionary see-saw that transformed IWC from a whaler's club that paid little heed to conserving whale populations to a protectionist organization that largely ignores people dependent on whaling while forcefully saving the whale, should be self evident to all. Just how did this all happen?
The IWC Scientific Committee is a servant to the Commission. During the first twenty years of the SC, there was a strong sense that the SC would only be listened to if their quota recommendations met the industries needs. During my first SC meeting in 1972 I was directly confronted by a more experienced member of the Committee who chastised me for urging a low quota on a whale stock. He had no problem with my estimates, but he was critical for my lack of realism- I was told that if the SC went forward with my views the Commission would ignore us and then select of quota of their choice. The strategy in the SC was to seek the lowest possible quota that the industry could live with, despite the fact that by the early seventies it was blatantly clear to everyone that most of the great whales were in trouble.
The situation was even worse during the first decade of the Commission. About a dozen scientists participated in the early SC meetings, mean attendance was about seven. The members, including Dr. Remington Kellogg, the Director of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, were naturalists, systematicists and physiologists- none were from the rapidly evolving fields of population dynamics or enumeration. Even they, as very good observers, could tell the fin whale was in trouble. The fin whale catch
had risen from about 17000 animals during the 50-51 season to nearly 26000 in 54-55. The SC, in their meeting report details how they wished to reduce the catch to no more than 19000 in 55-56, but recommended that no more than 25000 should be taken because a cut "of this magnitude would scarcely be acceptable". The U.S. joined other members in supporting the high quotas, perhaps because the whalers had sufficient votes to block a low quota- thus the previous years even higher quota would remain in effect.
During this early period the SC regularly expressed their concern for whale stocks. The BWU quota was not being reached, and more importantly the whalers were forced to shift their takes to less valuable species to try to reach their catch limits.
Facing a clear crisis, the IWC assembled a group of outside experts to provide a new perspective. Three outstanding population scientists, K.Radway Allen, Douglas Chapman and Sidney Holt- the Committee of Three-later supplemented by John Gulland to become the Committee of Four, were called together to provide analysis and advice. The Committee began its work in 1961, issued an interim report in about a year and their final report on time for the 1963 meeting of the Commission. The Report strongly recommended elimination of the use of the BWU and very severe cuts in a number of quotas. The report was only partially accepted. Use of the BWU continued for 10 more years, more than 14,000 fin whales were taken, instead of the less than 7000 recommended, but the take of blue and humpback whales was stopped (they were truly scarce).
A sense of what happened during these early years is shown in the viewgraphs- which if you could read them will demonstrate the shift of take from one whale species to another as they were each harvested to commercial insignificance.
The willingness of the whaling industry to over harvest appears to be less a case of foolish optimism, a disease which is widespread among fishermen of nearly all nations, and more likely a function of the economic truths detailed by Colin W. Clark. In 1981 Clark's paper, "Economic aspects of renewable resource exploitation as applied to marine mammals(FAO Fish Ser., 5, Vol.3) indicated that the slow growth of marine mammals was in direct conflict with profits. Operational and capital costs were sufficiently high to make harvest rates that were biologically safe economically unsound.
This was a period when hardly anyone outside of the whalers cared or thought about whales. A few humane groups protested the cruelty of whale killing, but the conservation community was largely silent and the environmental community as we know it today did not really exist.
The 1970s saw a rebirth of environmental concern. There was created, in a very short period, air, water quality, endangered species and marine mammal protection laws .New organizations were created, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Council on Environmental Quality and the Marine Mammal Commission to implement the new legislation.
The tragedy of the whale issue was seized upon as a unifying force by U.S. groups ranging from the traditional wildlife conservation organizations to the more extreme protectionists, as a symbol of what was wrong about man's use of natural resources.
At the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972, the U.S. pressed for a 10-year moratorium on commercial whaling . The U.S. proposal was passed by a 53-0 vote with 3 abstentions. The moratorium was designed to provide a pause in commercial whaling to both allow the development of a conservative whaling regime and to allow some time for the recovery of depleted stocks to assure their availability to man. A few months later, despite the fact that most IWC nations had supported the moratorium in Stockholm, it failed to win the three fourths majority required. at the annual IWC meeting in London.
The IWC-SC, which by this time had expanded its membership substantially to include a solid array of quantitative scientists, could not support a blanket moratorium in view of the health of a number of whales stocks, especially the minke whale which was virtually unharvested. It was clear, however, that the status quo was not viable and that public protests which expanded well beyond the U.S. were having an impact on whaling nations, mainly through threatened and real boycotts, especially of Japanese products.
A compromise was reached when in 1974 a proposal called the New Management Procedure, was introduced by Australia. This was a biologically conservative approach that limited whaling to those stocks that were above population levels that produced 90% of the MSY, with the harvest to be limited so the long term safety and sustainablity was assured. The NMP went into effect during the 1975-76 whaling season, and for a short period the SC was allowed to play a key role in the IWC decision making process
The see-saw was now level - but not resting.
The whale had become a true poster child- a wonderful animal perceived by the general public as uniquely intelligent, care giving, remarkably communicative, but most of all, cruelly threatened by merciless whalers with imminent extinction. Sadly, these beliefs were wildly exaggerated.
The protection community, now with a solid understanding of the IWC operation, effectively used the public perception of whales to generate a strategy to stop whaling. With the help of the U.S. Government and others pressures were brought on new nations- with no interest in whaling- to join IWC as anti whalers. By 1981 the IWC swelled to 33 members and easily achieved a three fourths majority in support of a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982( which went into effect during the 1985-86 season). The argument used to support the ban was based on genuine defects of the NMP- mainly in the difficulty in getting data essential for implementation. It should be noted, however, in my own discussions with SC members at the time, the view was expressed that the NMP could still be used without creating a threat to any of the whale stocks.The ban was instituted to allow the SC to generate a new approach that would be conservative and which would be capable of implementation. The SC finished its work on the Revised Management Plan (RMP)in 1993 and unanimously passed it on to the Commission. Acceptance of this plan would be a first step in the resumption of commercial whaling, a step not willingly taken by many Commissioners. The Commission failed to act prompting the Chair of the SC to resign because he could no longer justify himself, "being the organizer of and the spokesman for a Committee which is held in such disregard by the body to which it is responsible"
The RMP would form the basis for an implementation plan- the Revised Management Scheme (RMS) which has not been implemented.. This failure to move ahead has been severely criticized from within and from without, by outgoing IWC Secretary, Ray Gambell, by the well respected International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). and most recently by the leadership of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES). Perhaps, because of these pressure, it appears that some progress may have been achieved at the just concluded meetings in Adelaide, Australia.
Organizations have been formed, for example, The World Council of Whalers, that could replace the dysfunctional IWC, unless the situation changes .Change may prove impossible in the face of the strong anti-whaling public positions taken by many IWC members, especially Australia. Being an anti-whaler, especially for most U.S. politicians, allows donning the green coat without negative constituent impacts. The people who may be hurt are out of sight and their pain seems to carry little weight. Having established environmental credentials by pleading the case for whales you can avoid getting into serious environmental issues, like population control and global warming, that may challenge the jobs and lifestyles of your supporters.
In the meantime whaling operations continue throughout the world, by aboriginal people in the Atlantic, the Carribean, many places in the Pacific, including a tribal hunt just to our north, as well as the bowhead hunt described by fellow panelists.. Legal commercial hunting also goes on, mainly in Norway with hunts underway in Japan for scientific purposes. Many of these takes are addressed under the IWC banner, but many are by non-member nations. Most whale stocks have large migrations and are true trans boundary species, their effective management is an international concern. The current vacuum is untenable.
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