Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
hunted while suckling). Hunters are also required to take courses and shooting tests before
each sealing season. Such regulations notwithstanding, media reports suggest that the in-
juring of young seals abandoned during the hunt was widespread.
The International Whaling Commission ( www.iwcoffice.org ) is a largely dispassionate re-
source on whaling and the surrounding politics. There are useful sections, such as the
'Status of Whales', with estimates for current whale populations.
Whaling
The International Context
In 1986, as a result of worldwide campaigns expressing critical concern over the state of
world whale populations, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) imposed a
moratorium on whale hunting. Although it has largely held, two key elements in recent
years have placed the moratorium under threat.
The first has been the decision by the three major whaling nations - Norway, Japan and
Iceland - to resume commercial whaling or, in the case of Japan and Iceland, to threaten to
withdraw from the IWC unless the moratorium is replaced by a management plan that al-
lows some whaling.
The second development threatening world whale stocks is a concerted campaign that
has seen nations with no history of whaling - including Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Grenada,
Tuvalu and even landlocked Mongolia, San Marino and Mali - joining the commission.
The result has seen a change from nine pro-whaling votes out of 55 in 2000 to an almost
50% split among its 88 members currently (a 75% majority is required to change IWC
policy). Allegations that pro-whaling votes have been rewarded with development aid
have not been denied by the Japanese.
Norway, for its part, sees the moratorium as unnecessary and outdated. It argues that,
unlike in the past when whalers drove many whale species to the verge of extinction (in
the 17th century alone, Dutch whalers killed an estimated 60,000 whales in the waters off
Svalbard), modern whalers have a better and more informed perspective, that they adhere
to a sensible quota system and now adopt more humane methods of killing. The Norwegi-
ans claim that they support only traditional, family-owned operations and have no inten-
tion of returning to industrial whaling.
 
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