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Pro-Whaling Iceland Joins International Whaling Commission CAMBRIDGE, UK, October 14, 2002 (ENS) - Handing a victory to whalers, at a special meeting of the International Whaling Commission here today, national delegates voted by a margin of one to let Iceland join the commission. The single vote was that of Iceland itself. Environmental groups reacted with outrage. "This is a shameful vote and a shocking decision," said Cassandra Phillips, speaking for WWF, the conservation organization. "It will have long lasting repercussions." Iceland joined with a reservation to the current global moratorium on commercial whaling. This means that Iceland is free to legally resume whaling, like Norway, which also has taken a reservation to the moratorium agreed in 1986 by the governments that are members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). “We are very happy that this issue has been settled, and we hope to contribute constructively to the future work of the IWC,” said Stefan Asmundsson, Iceland’s IWC Commissioner. Iceland says it will not start commercial whaling before 2006, unless the commission gives the country a whaling quota. Going whaling now could damage Iceland's appeal as a tourist destination for whale watchers. Iceland left the IWC in 1991, after having agreed to be bound by the moratorium on commercial whaling. Today's decision to admit Iceland follows the country's unsuccessful attempts to rejoin at the London meeting of the IWC in 2000 and the Japan meeting of the IWC this May. Phillips said the vote to admit Iceland could affect all international conventions. "It will no longer be possible to make binding decisions if Parties, who are governments, can leave and then join again at will with a reservation - in this case to the moratorium."
Whale hit by a harpoon (Photos courtesy Croatian Information Service for Biodiversity)"It's a sad day for the IWC," she said. "Decisions are being made based on politics, rather than on whale conservation."Whaling nations are "reaping the rewards of Japan's vote buying strategy," alleges Richard Page, a Greenpeace oceans campaigner. "Of the 19 votes cast in favor of Iceland's rejoining with a reservation, nine were from countries whose position in the IWC is directly linked to their receipt of fisheries grant aid from Japan." Most of these countries as small island states. The vote to admit Iceland was also supported by Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Vassili Papastavrou, whale biologist with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), said, "Iceland didn't oppose the commercial whaling moratorium when it was first adopted, but it was the first country to resort to so-called scientific whaling to avoid the commercial ban Papastavrou.
Whaler and whale"Now that they are back in, the Icelandic Fisheries Agency would like to tear up the rule book of the IWC," Papastavrou said. "Responsible member states need to work together to ensure this doesn't happen. Iceland can't have it both ways. It's back in, so it must now again abide by IWC decisions."Despite 16 years of protection, seven of the 13 great whale species remain endangered, and commercial whaling is increasing. Since the moratorium on whaling took effect, the WWF says that nearly 23,000 whales from five species have been killed by commercial whalers, most of them from Japan and Norway. Norway's whalers will be permitted to harpoon 711 whales next year, the Fisheries Ministry said. The quota is up from 2002 as it includes 40 whales that Norway's whalers failed to harpoon from a quota of 671 set for 2002. The main item on the agenda for this special IWC inter-sessional meeting had nothing to do with Iceland. It was an amendment proposed jointly by the governments of the United States and the Russian Federation regarding the aboriginal subsistence hunt of bowhead whales from the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort Seas. The proposal was defeated at the May IWC meeting.
Bowhead whale in Alaska (Photo courtesy Alaska Department of Community and Economic Development)Today, by consensus, the IWC delegates approved the proposal to allow up to 280 bowhead whales to be landed in the five year period 2003 through 2007. No more than 67 whales may be struck in any year. An annual average of 51 bowheads for the United States and five for Russia was approved.The IWC considers all bowhead whale populations to be "highly endangered" and to number 500 or less, except the Bering-Chukchi-Beaufort Seas stock which numbers over 9,000. Despite agreement by the IWC Scientific Committee has determined that this bowhead whale population is able to sustain the harvest, and the IWC acknowledges that the bowhead hunt satisfies the cultural, nutritional and subsistence needs of both Alaskan Eskimos and native peoples of Chukotka. The reason given by some of the 11 countries who voted no in May was that they believed Japan should also be allocated subsistence whales for four coastal whaling villages, according to the IWC. Japan again attempted to gain approval for coastal whaling, but the delegates did not approve the proposal, although both the United States and Russia voted in favor in return for Japan not blocking consensus on the bowhead whale hunt. The Revised Management Scheme, a set of rules for governing whaling that would go into effect if the commercial whaling moratorium is lifted, will be the subject of closed door discussions over the next four days. |
