By Tom Kelly
The declaration of a whale sanctuary in the Southern Ocean is a " major victory", says Greenpeace whale campaigner Robbie Kelman. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) approved the creation of the sanctuary, which excludes commercial whaling, at its meeting in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on May 26. Greenpeace Australia head Lynette Thorstensen said the decision is a death knell for the annual slaughter of whales by Japanese whalers in Antarctica.
Commercial whaling has been subject to a worldwide moratorium since 1985, but until a permanent ban is agreed to, large sanctuary areas are vital to ensure the survival of several threatened whale species. The agreement will protect an estimated 80% of the world's remaining whales from commercial whaling.
It is still unclear whether protection has come too late for some threatened species to recover. Blue whales, the world's largest living animals, growing to a length of 30 metres, may have dropped to a population level that is unable to recover. One hundred years ago more than a quarter of a million blue whales roamed the world's oceans. Today an estimated 700 of these giant mammals remain (and this estimate is based on 17 actual sightings in 12 years).
Populations of blue, humpback, right, sei and fin whales have shown no signs of recovery despite the moratorium on whaling since 1985. In fact, right whales have been protected since 1935 and humpbacks since 1966. The failure of populations to recover is, however, also a result of the difficulty in controlling what actually occurs at sea. For example, it was revealed earlier this year that Soviet whalers secretly ignored IWC rules throughout the 1960s and '70s.
In one year, Soviet whalers took 1200 right whales from an estimated world population of 2500. One vessel operating in the Antarctic in the 1960s killed 717 right whales, 7207 humpbacks and 1433 blue whales. The IWC was informed that the entire Soviet fleet had taken only 152 humpbacks and 156 blue whales over this period.
Indications are that these problems of deception are not just a thing of the past. Japanese whalers have been killing a limited number of whales for the stated purpose of "scientific research", a loophole in the whaling moratorium which has allowed the slaughter of approximately 300 minke whales annually.
According to a report in the New Scientist of May 28, DNA testing of whale meat being sold in Japan indicates that some of it originates from humpback and fin whales. A spokesperson for EarthTrust, the group that commissioned the study, was quoted as saying, "This proves meat from endangered whales is being sold in Japan today, and it is southern minke meat from Japanese scientific whaling that has acted as a cover for it."
Signals from Japan about the possible continuation of "scientific" whaling have been mixed. In the lead-up to the IWC decision, Japan's Foreign Affairs Department told the Kyodo news service that Japan would not withdraw from the IWC if the sanctuary proposal was adopted. The spokesperson also said, "Research will be able to be done without killing whales."
However, the deputy director of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's fisheries division, Yoshiaki Ito, was quoted in the Weekend Australian of May 28-29 as saying, after the vote, that Japan would have to "wait and see" if the sanctuary would render scientific whaling illegal. "If it is legal we would like to continue such whaling", Ito said.
Kelman pointed out that whaling "for scientific purposes" also serves as a means for maintaining whaling ships in a state of preparedness for the resumption of commercial whaling. The declaration of the sanctuary significantly reduces the incentive to maintain a whaling capability, since the most lucrative hunting area is now ruled out. Kelman said that Greenpeace intended to try to hold Japan to the statements it made before the vote, if that proved necessary.
The only other country involved in whaling is Norway, whose representatives chose not to be present when the IWC vote was taken. Norway decided to ignore the whaling moratorium and resumed whaling in 1992. Last year Norwegian whalers killed 300 minkes in the North Atlantic. Norway is currently subject to a consumer boycott campaign being promoted by Greenpeace.
The sanctuary, as it was originally proposed by France in 1992, was to include all waters circling the Antarctic beyond 40 degrees South. In order to win the vital support of Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Sweden and Switzerland, however, it was necessary to exclude Latin American territorial waters.
Kelman explained to Green Left Weekly that Chile and Argentina will not allow whaling in their territorial waters even though they asked that these waters be excluded from the sanctuary.In the end only Japan voted against the sanctuary declaration.
"This is a historic day", said Kelman. "The fight for the whales goes on, but this is the beginning of the end for the whaling industry."
The sanctuary includes the regions to which various whale species migrate south to feed during the summer months. In this "summer haven" whales were concentrated in large numbers and were easily hunted. Although they migrate north out of the protected area as the weather cools each autumn, the whale population becomes much more dispersed, making whaling less feasible. And many of these whales swim to coastal waters of countries where they are protected within territorial waters.
The Southern Ocean sanctuary also links up with the existing Indian Ocean sanctuary, which extends north as far as the equator.