IWC53: Watching the whalers
A return to full-scale commercial whaling could be just a hair's breadth away. Although the 1986 moratorium on whaling dramatically reduced the number of whales being caught, hunting still goes on. Now Norway and Japan are seeking to remove the protected status of whales and resume international trade. This would be a disaster for whales. In response to this threat. Greenpeace is demanding an end to all commercial whaling, once and for all. All whale species must be permanently protected.
We continue to take direct action against the whalers on the high seas, bear witness and communicate the truth about whaling back to the world. Over the 1999/2000 Christmas period the Greenpeace ship MV Arctic Sunrise confronted the Japanese fleet in the Southern Ocean Santuary around Antarctica and successfully disrupted its whaling activities on eleven occasions over a 27 day period, while in 1999 the MV Sirius was seized by the Norwegian authorites after peacefully protesting against whaling off the coast of Norway.
Globally, public support for an end to whaling remains strong and there are some indications that attitudes to whaling are even changing in Norway and Japan, albeit very slowly. Greenpeace has stepped up its public information work in both Japan and Norway, showing the Japanese and Norwegian publics that the case against commercial whaling is both compelling and entirely rational. Both the Japanese and Norwegian Governments spend vast amounts of money promoting whaling both domestically and abroad. For instance Norway is currently spending around US$300,000 a year on pro-whaling public relations excercises.
In the political arena we've been lobbying influential members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). These are the regulatory bodies whose decisions could determine the very survival of the world's remaining whales. CITES currently puts all great whales in its Appendix I category, banning all international trade in whale products. If Norway and Japan can get them 'downlisted' to Appendix II this protection will be removed. So far they have tried three times and failed, but they still keep on trying.
Within the IWC Japan is offering foreign aid as an inducement to developing countries who agree to support it. This strategy has enabled it to block plans for two new whale sanctuaries in the South Pacific and South Atlantic in 2000. Greenpeace has exposed this scandal, and we hope to these countries that their interests will best be served by conservation, not whaling.
Many of these countries would benefit from sanctuaries because they aid the development of whale watching, the only truly sustainable economic form of activity involving whales. Whale watching is now a thriving industry in over 87 countries, generating an income of US$1 billion worldwide each year, making it far more valuable to the global economy than the whaling industry.
The simple fact is that both environmentally and economically, whales are more valuable to us alive than dead.
