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Hunting whales for food and whale oil dates back as far as 6000 BC. Whale oil was an ingredient in products ranging from cosmetics to mechanical lubricants in the 19th and 20th centuries. As a result, numerous whale populations went into severe decline and a worldwide ban on whaling was instituted by the International Whaling Commission in order to stop them from being hunted to extinction. This moratorium has been in place since 1986. Today, although whaling for commercial purposes has been suspended, small-scale exceptions have been made for aboriginal tribal communities and scientists for research purposes.
On the 28th of May, the member nations of the International Whaling Commission, or IWC, will meet in Alaska to decide whether whaling for commercial purposes should be resumed.
The IWC was formed in 1946 to promote and protect whale fishery stocks. It is the primary organization responsible for many aspects of whaling, from deciding which species should be protected to setting limits on the number and size of catches.
The IWC has a total of 73 member nations, including Costa Rica (which has pledged to cast an anti-whaling vote). Any country, as long as it pays the membership fees, can be a member of the IWC. Mongolia, for example, is a member of the IWC despite being a land-locked country and having no vested interest in whales to speak of. Despite officially claiming to be an organization driven by scientific principals, backroom political wheeling and dealing is a major pastime among both pro and anti whaling lobbyists. Japan is frequently accused of bad conduct with many allegations that Japanese whaling interests have offered personal bribes and economic assistance packages to poorer countries in return for their pro-whaling votes.
Japan, Iceland and Norway are the principal pro-whaling members of the IWC. These countries argue that no whale has ever been hunted to extinction and those whales, like fish, can be considered a food source. They claim that there was no scientific basis for the moratorium and that this temporary measure is no longer necessary because, according to the IWC scientific committee, many species and stocks of whale are abundant and sustainable whaling presently possible thus making a total ban on whaling too extreme.
Countries such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Costa Rica, however, want the moratorium to be permanent because they see it as the only way to guarantee the protection of endangered whale species. They argue that the IWC's previous attempts to control whaling under a pro-whaling majority were so disastrous that whale populations have still not recovered from the debacle. Opponents also argue that hunting large marine mammals with explosive-tipped harpoons is cruel and unnatural.
An alliance of national and international environmental organizations called the Costa Rican Coalition for the Whales (www.porlasballenas.com) has campaigned strongly against the lifting of the ban. The Costa Rican government is constitutionally obliged to protect its natural resources and because many whales are born in Costa Rican waters, environmentalists argue that they should be considered marine citizens. Whales are also more valuable as a live resource. Recreational whale and dolphin watching activities generate US$4.2 million for the country's economy annually.
So, is sustainable commercial whaling possible? Yes, but given the divisive issues countries face, and the challenges that legislating and regulating fishing present, it is unlikely that the practice of sustainable commercial whaling will be a reality any time soon. The latest scientific data shows that certain whale species, such as the Minke whale, are relatively abundant, but others have struggled to recover. Blue whale numbers, for example, remain at under 1% of their original levels.
Major international scientific studies in recent years have found that between one quarter and one third of the world's fishing stocks are overexploited. According to the November 2006 issue of the journal Science, if current trends continue, all fish stocks worldwide will collapse within 50 years.
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