We now introduce a form of protectionism that is largely incompatible with conservation. For want of a better label, we call it "preservationism". Unlike the protectionist, the preservationist will not admit of exceptions - reasonable or otherwise. The preservationist wants to ban all whaling, irrespective of whether a particular species is stable or endangered, an attitude that is clearly incompatible with the industry of whaling. Whalers and preservationists view each other as mortal enemies - as is dramatically reflected in the "whalers wars" that began approximately in 1978 and have since escalated.166.

Eight new members, all nonwhaling states, joined the IWC by its thirty-fourth meeting, in 1982, making the prospects for a moratorium brighter than ever before. The Seychelles announced that it was amending its position in the Commission in favour of a phase-out or negotiated cessation of commercial whaling because this course would "facilitate the adjustment that whaling nations will have to make if the whale is to be saved from extinction, and at the same time (would) safeguard the future work of the Commission as a growing alliance of nations committed to preserving all cetaceans for posterity."