By Eileen Herbert

Since an Argentinean company established the first Antarctic whaling station at Grytuken on South Georgia in 1904, more than 1.5 million whales have been slaughtered in the Southern Ocean alone. Eight out of 10 species are now severely endangered, and some have lost over 90% of their numbers. The blue whale has been culled to less than 1% of its original population and shows no sign of recovery, despite having been protected for 30 years.

At immediate risk is the northern minke. This is the only species with a population anything near its original size. It was too small for whalers to bother with until the early '70s. Most other species having been decimated, the hunting of minkes now provides the only possibility for a commercially viable industry.

It will take decades, if it happens at all, for whale stocks of the Southern Ocean to recover from the slaughter that has occurred. Despite this shocking reality, Japan, Norway and Iceland are strongly opposed to the sanctuary and have campaigned vigorously against the International Whaling Commission's 1986 indefinite moratorium on commercial whaling.

These countries have consistently undermined the international control of the whaling industry by violating regulations, exempting themselves from IWC decisions and conducting “scientific” whaling. Iceland withdrew from the IWC in 1992, and Japan has threatened to withdraw if the sanctuary is endorsed. Norway has not withdrawn but announced at the opening of the IWC meeting in 1992 that it would resume commercial whaling of the northern minke in 1993.

Robbie Kelman of Greenpeace says that the sanctuary will spell the end of the whaling industry. “The Indian Ocean has provided a sanctuary for whales since 1979, and another in Antarctic waters would make the cost of equipping and maintaining the necessary fleets totally unfeasible. There wouldn't be enough whales to hunt outside of these areas.”

This is not the IWC's first attempt to safeguard depleted whale stocks. As early as 1937, the danger of over-exploitation was evident, and the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling was negotiated in London. The following year the convention established a sanctuary prohibiting commercial whaling in an area encompassing a full quarter of the Antarctic region. Due to falling catches elsewhere, the area was reopened to whaling in 1955.

In 1975, the IWC recognised its failure to control commercial whaling and adopted a New Management Procedure (NMP). The scheme set catch quotas on a species-by species basis, with depleted stocks placed under protection. By 1979 the IWC's own Scientific Committee had questioned the ability of the NMP to provide long-term protection of endangered species. That same year, the IWC nations declared that “the only way to assure stocks are not over-exploited is through a moratorium”.

It wasn't until 1982, 10 years after the UN appealed for a ban on commercial whaling, that the IWC voted 25-7 for a moratorium beginning in the 1985-86 whaling season.

The Scientific Committee is now engaged in negotiating a new set of rules known as the Revised Management Procedure (RMP) . The RMP is intended to provide a more solid conservation program than the NMP. In 1992 the committee agreed to devise a scientific procedure for calculating catch limits. It also concurred, however, that the RMP is to provide only one part of future conservation measures.

More than 14,000 whales have been killed under the guise of science since the moratorium was declared. Whaling for “scientific research” is no different from that conducted for profit. It features the same explosive harpoon grenades that can take up to an hour to kill a whale, and the meat is still being sold.

Japan argues that it needs to hunt an average of 300 whales per season, in the name of science. The gross income from whales caught on a “scientific” voyage to Antarctica by the Nisshin Maru No. 3 in 1991 was $20 million. Once upon Japanese restaurant tables, the meat sells for as much as A$200 per kilo.

“Scientific” whaling has provided nothing but a few statistics about the size, age and sex of the whales killed. It produces no information concerning the behaviour of whales or their complex social structures.

The great whales are under increasing pressure from toxic pollution and an expanding ozone hole, which is reducing the population of the krill and plankton upon which they feed. The sanctuary represents a final attempt to save the whales.

“Whales know no political boundaries”, Kelman said. “They belong not to any particular group of nations, but to the whole world. If greed is again allowed to triumph over conservation, then this magnificent creature will be lost forever.”

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