Last month, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) held their 59th annual convention in Anchorage, Alaska. Each year, around 400 delegates from 77 membership nations meet to assess the status of whale populations worldwide and to establish harvesting regulations and quotas. Due to a history of widespread overfishing and subsequent decline in whale numbers, the commission has suspended commercial harvesting of whales for the last 21 years. The decision to prohibit commercial whaling was again supported by a majority of countries this year, so the official ban remains in place, despite growing tension in recent years between the commission and some of its member countries that support reinstating commercial whale harvesting.
Current Whaling Projects
The International Convention for Regulating Whaling, 1946 permits countries to harvest whales for scientific research and sustenance use for approved communities. Japan and Iceland both maintain scientific research programs; Japan harvests more than 1,000 whales a year. Following data collection, whale meat and other by-products are sold. Members of the commission have increasingly lobbied for the suspension or reduction of these research programs, maintaining that whale harvesting does not address any critically important research needs. However, Japan argued that the whale research program is important in the context of understanding marine ecosystems and decided to continue whale harvesting for the 2007-08 winter season. Iceland, also, does not plan to discontinue its program.
The IWC's scientific committee, consisting of 120 scientists, examines these scientific programs. Their suggestions, like the ban on commercial whaling, are not binding and membership countries can continue to issue research permits. Norway is currently the only member country that defies the IWC moratorium and commercially harvests whales for profit. Current whale populations were estimated as follows:
Population Estimates for Whale Species (years vary)
Source: International Whaling Commission
Sustainable Harvest for Sustainable Livelihoods
Japan also presented commission members with a proposal to reestablish whale harvesting programs in some small rural villages that had ceased hunting whales since the 1982 moratorium. The issue was not decided on at the convention. Certain aboriginal communities in Alaska, Denmark, Serbia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines currently are given permission by IWC to sustainably harvest whales, allowing these communities to continue their traditional livelihoods and to participate in the scientific regulation and monitoring process.
The Role of the IWC in Conserving Whale Populations
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was set up under the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling which was signed on December 2, 1946 in Washington D.C. The purpose of the annual conventions are to provide for the conservation of whale stocks and to facilitate the orderly development of the whaling industry. The IWC and its member countries govern whaling conduct worldwide, protect certain whale species, create sanctuaries, designate open and closed seasons and areas for whaling, and to set catch number and size limits. They also compile, fund and publish research.
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