Secretary IWC The Red House Stations Road, Histon CAMBRIDGE CB4 4NP Dear Ray, As you know I have been an active member of the Scientific Committee since 1981, chairing various working groups and sub-committees and being elected vice-chairman in 1988. When I was elected Chairman in 1991, the highest priority for the Committee was to complete the Revised Management Procedure (RMP..ed. com.). By that time it had long been recognised that the NMP (New Management Procedure adapted in 1974 ..ed. com.) was unworkable so that, although there was a management procedure defined in the Schedule, the Commission effectively had no mechanism in place for the management of commercial whaling, an unacceptable situation for an international organisation with such a mandate. It was my job to guide the Scientific Committee to finalise the RMP as soon as possible. In 1992, the Committee unanimously recommended the adoption of the draft specification for the RMP, whilst recognising that work remained to be done on documentation of the computer programs, on specifying minimum standards for data required for the RMP, and on outlining guidelines for conducting surveys and analysing data from them. In a resolution, the Commission accepted the draft specifications, thus recognising that the RMP should replace the NMP, and highlighted these other aspects which needed agreement before umbrella Revised Management Scheme could be completed. This year, the Scientific Committee completed its part of that work and unanimously recommended it to the Commission for adoption and endorsement. Although a minority view had been expressed stating that the RMS required further monitoring than that implicit in the RMP itself, the Scientific Committee even agreed unanimously on other data which should be required under the RMS. The question of whether or not monitoring of the RMP's performance should be a minimum requirement of the RMS was, therefore, elevated to a policy decision for the Commission to make; the practical scientific implications had already been dealt with. Thus one of the most interesting and potentially far-reaching chapters in the science of natural resource management came to a conclusion. The Commission could now put in place a mechanism for the safe management of commercial whaling, regardless of whether or not the "moratorium" was lifted. The reality was somewhat different. At the Commission meeting, the work of the Scientific Committee was praised and acknowledged by several delegations to be complete, but it remained unadopted. The future for this unique piece of work, for which the Commission had been waiting for many years, was left in the air. This has left the Commission in the incongruous position of having accepted the draft specifications of the RMP but having neither accepted nor adopted the final version. Of course, the reasons for this were nothing to do with science. Although, despite the unanimity of the Scientific Committee's recommendation, some Commissioners used selective quotations out of context from the Committee's report to justify not adopting the RMP on "scientific" grounds. But the matter of substance is, what is the point of having a Scientific Committee if its unanimous recommendations on a matter of primary importance are treated with such contempt? And in what position does this leave the Chairman? I have come to the conclusion that I can no longer justify to myself being the organiser of and spokesman for a Committee whose work is held in such disregard by the body to which it is responsible. Nor can I justify asking other members of the Committee to spend their valuable time working hard during the year and even harder at annual meetings knowing how the results of this work may be treated. And I cannot justify to my employer spending a significant amount of my own time on such an unproductive end. I am left with no alternative, therefore, but to resign as Chairman of the Scientific Committee. The morale of the Scientific Committee is lower than at any other time in my experience and I think many members will understand my position. I hope that some Commissioners will, too. I am, of course, prepared to continue as Chairman for a short time until the new Chairman is able to take over and to help, if needed, in the development of the work plan for the coming year. I plan to maintain my scientific participation in the work of the Committee and I am willing to continue as Convenor of the Steering Group on management procedures if the new Chairman so desires. Yours sincerely, Philip Hammond |
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