Environmental Threats:
Consensus on Concern - Split on Action

"Despite a lack of direct evidence for cetaceans, the Workshop believed that there are sufficient data on the adverse effects of pollutants on the health of other marine mammals and terrestrial species to warrant concern for cetaceans. However, the report and its recommendations show that a considerable amount of fundamental research is needed before it will be possible to adequately address the question of the effects of chemical pollutants on all cetaceans."

This was the conclusion reached by the International Whaling Commissions's Scientific Committee on the effects of environmental changes on cetaceans, after reviewing the comprehensive report from the IWC Bergen Workshop held this March on chemical contaminants in cetaceans.

- doomsday prophecies -
Meanwhile, as the end of the millennium nears, doomsday prophecies proliferate of the imminent demise of all whale populations - not now from commercial whaling, with the moratorium still firmly in place, but from reproductive disorders and sexual malformations, mass viral infections and tumorous growths. The omens are the toxic whale carcasses which, we are told, are washing up on beaches faster now than ever before. The reason? Chemical pollution.

"Even if all the Earth's whaling fleets were mothballed tomorrow, the future of many whale species would remain in doubt," writes the WWF in a new report entitled Environmental Threats to Whales.

It must be understood, however, that these doomsday prophecies are speculative and based on absolute worst-case scenarios. The Bergen Workshop report makes it quite clear that there is no evidence of any direct lethal effects of contaminants on cetaceans. The long-term risks to whales of effects such as hormone disruption, cancers and suppression of immune systems have been extrapolated from observations of extreme cases such as the belugas of Canada's highly polluted St. Lawrence Seaway, as well as experimental and laboratory studies on other species, such as seals.

Against this must be weighed the many whale stocks that are documented as being in perfect health, with low levels of chemical toxins. There are also the success stories of extremely high reproductive rates in seal stocks in areas that are amongst the more heavily polluted, such as the harbour seals of the Wadden Sea, the sea lions of California, and the grey seals of Scotland and Ireland. And in general; reports from all around the world give the story of "rising tides of whales".

Anyhow, everyone agrees that there is reason for concern. Though programs to clean up the North Sea and the Baltic Sea have met with some success, new chemical compounds are constantly being introduced, and their impact on the environment is impossible to predict. But when it comes to deciding what action to take, opinions are sharply divided. If groups like the WWF and the EIA have their way, all whaling will halt while the IWC quota calculation model for whaling, the Catch Limit Algorithm, is modified to take environmental threats into account.

- reducing catches to zero would do little - The IWC Scientific Committee, on the other hand is adamant that no modifications are necessary. In its report last year to the IWC, the committee concluded that the Catch Limit Algorithm (CLA) "is robust to a wide range of uncertainty" and that "there would be little advantage in modifying the CLA further to incorporate adjustments to account for environmental change."

The Scientific Committee had been asked to take a closer look at the robustness of the CLA to environmental degradation following expressions of concern from some NGOs, and in particular the EIA. Justin Cooke of the Center of Ecosystem Management Studies in Germany, whose work at present is funded by Greenpeace and IFAW, was charged with addressing these concerns. Cooke concluded that "the interactions between the effects of catches within the limits set by the CLA and external influences on the population are small to moderate, even when the external effects are severe ... If the environmental effects are severe then even reducing catches to zero would do little to mitigate them."

In other words, if the environmental catastrophe some people are predicting actually happens, it really won't make any difference to whales whether there are whalers out there catching them or not.

And to those who would use the platform of environmental threats to attack whalers, Cooke says: "It is important that potential adverse environmental threats are addressed in their own right and not merely in the context of catch limits."

The action now needed to address these environmental threats should not be to attack fishermen, whalers and sealers, say Norwegian environmental organisations, but to identify and eliminate the sources of contamination. These same environmentalists have formed a united front with the Norwegian fishermen's association to fight pollution, a coalition that has been particularly active in the struggle to contain adverse environmental effects of oil drilling.

The prophets of doom still insist that they are right, but perhaps the most startling thing about them is that those who cry loudest - the EIA and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society - seem totally incapable of proposing a plan of action to stop the polluters. Instead of compiling a list of all those industries they claim are posing such a great threat to whales, and then shouting that list from the rooftops, they target a boycott campaign at shops selling Faroese fish.