Conservationists are primarily concerned with biodiversity. They promote balanced and sustainable utilization of natural resources. In other words, conservationists seek to secure ecological systems for future generations. The animal welfare movement i s primarily concerned with the fate of individual animals. A broad range of nuances exist under this banner from those that demand more humane treatment and killing of animals, to the more radical element opposed to any use of animals what soever. This radical element promotes animal rights, and the most extreme example is the violent Animal Liberation Front which has been responsible for a number of bombings in the name of animal rights.
The arguments presented by any interest group give the clearest signals as to the group's orientation within the broader heading of environmentalism. Organizations focused on the environment and biodiversity conservation address issues such as the deterioration of natural habitats, inefficient and excessive energy consumption, and the decline of many species' total populations. Organizations focused on humane killing methods and ethical questions about the killing of animals in general fall into the animal welfare category. In practice, however, the distinctions between the two movements are often blurred. Animal welfare groups are increasingly concerning themselves with ecological systems to preserve the basic foundation of animal lives. Segments of the conservationist camp have developed symbolic associations with the animal world. It is this process that we shall explore here.
Environmentalism is a political movement, and, as for all other political movements, rhetoric is important. It is important to simplify and compress political messages, and this is often done through the use of symbols. The symbols we use are typically taken from nature. This is particularly true in less technologically developed societies. Nature symbols becomes totems which societies use to develop explanations and common under-standing about relationships between people and with the natural world. Specific groups of people may develop special relationships with one individual animal, natural phenomenon, or even an inanimate object. For these people, their totems gives them their identity and legitimacy. Relationships between these groups of people are linked metaphorically to the relation-ships between their particular totems. Relationships to totems can assume religious qualities, and in most totem societies the greatest responsibility is to protect their totem.
Within the environmental movement, the whale, and to some degree the seal, has become a totem for animal welfare organizations such as Sea Shepherd and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), and also for conservationist groups such as Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). In taking up animal totems, these conservation groups have taken an important step into the animal welfare camp.
Why whales and seals?
It is increasingly clear that ecological justifications do not explain why many
members of the environmental movement have chosen to give whales and seals
their high public profile. A number of environmental leaders have stated that their
defence of whales and seals is primarily based on ethical and moral questions. The
Director of the Cetacean Society International, Robbin Burst, has repeatedly
expressed this position and promoted moral and ethical arguments against
whaling. WWF has more recently begun to claim that "a growing number of
people around the world are aware of the remarkable qualities of whales." WWF
continues to support the whaling moratorium despite guarantees that whaling can
be conducted on a sustainable basis. Many of the Commissioners to the
International Whaling Commission (IWC) now defend the continuation of the
moratorium on ethical principles, because, as the US Commissioner has explained,
it is no longer possible to defend the moratorium on a scientific basis.
If it is true that specific species of seals and whales are not endangered and could sustain a limited hunt, why do many organizations which claim to be conservationists and not animal welfare groups - as Greenpeace and WWF do - continue their campaigns against sealing and whaling?
One answer to this question is that there are practical reasons for organizations to maintain these campaigns. Conservationist - and animal welfare groups - both have a tendency to address those issues which are easy to win. To win - or at least give the impression of victory through intensive mass media assaults - is important to build up public trust in an organization's effectiveness and therefore their legitimacy. This legitimacy gives an organization the opportunity to proclaim itself a defender of green values. It also makes it easier for businesses and politicians to buy a "green" image through donations or some other type of support for the organizations. This type of support is naturally directed towards those campaigns that don't directly affect the particular supporting business concern or country. For most multi-national companies and governments, the protection of wild animals is are "cost-free" campaigns. This was particularly evident in 1988 when a pair of grey whales were trapped in ice-flows off the coast to Alaska. While the operation to free the whales cost millions of dollars, the US and Soviet governments, and a number of oil companies, found they had purchased cheap goodwill. The big loser was Iceland as the boycott against Icelandic fish intensified.
Sidney Holt, one of the best known opponents of whaling, has said that it should be relatively easy to protect whales since whales are especially attractive animals and because whaling is of relatively little economic importance. The same can be said about seals and sealing. "We are strategic opportunists," said the German Greenpeace Director Herald Zindler. This view was perhaps most clearly articulated by Steve Sawyer, International Director of Greenpeace, when he said, "Our philosophy regarding issues [which we address] is extraordinarily pragmatic. We choose those we feel we are in a position to win." Often Greenpeace takes over campaigns other groups have started, as they did with both the whale and seal campaigns. Greenpeace successfully brings increased mass media exposure to their adopted causes. TV viewers are presented with the image of David's fight against Goliath as idealistic people risk their lives battling against huge capitalistic enterprises. But the reality is often quite different, with Greenpeace as Goliath and fishermen and hunters as David.
Because sealing and whaling is pursued by only a few nations and the capital investment is small, campaigns against these activities are especially tempting. Neither the big multinational companies nor most of the worlds big industrialized nations are involved. It is a marginal activity conducted in marginal areas. The attraction these campaigns have for pollution-producing industries and a number of governments is therefore easy to understand, but why do so many individuals latch on to the seal and whale campaigns?
Greenpeace Germany justified its involvement in the seal campaign as a means to make money. "It was necessary for us to be big," said Wolfgang Fischer , previous seal campaign director in Germany, on Bayerische Rundfunk's TV,15 January 1990. He continued saying," therefore I found it totally legitimate to use a cute animal with big eyes." Both the white, "innocent" seal pup and the dolphin Flipper generate huge appeal among the general public. But this is only one reason for the organizations involvement. Greenpeace has from its founding in the early 1970's supported a ban on whaling and sealing with moral arguments. Many of its early leaders laid claim to a special relationship with whales. Paul Spong and Robert Hunter, whom have the honour of saving Greenpeace from collapse in 1974-75, arranged among other events a "call-in" for whales where hundreds of people gathered on a beach in California to telepathically draw whales from around the world to a sanctuary. One of the more scientifically qualified leaders, Patrick Moore who has a doctorate in ecology, followed up this event asserting that the whale debate should not be reduced to a question of whether whales are endangered or not, but that public information campaigns should seek to convince people "to believe that whales are good."
Whales, and to some extent seals, have a unique value to many in the environmental movement. They are special animals in a class apart from other animals such as pigs and moose. On this point Greenpeace and WWF distance themselves from the main stream in the animal welfare camp which believe that all animals have intrinsic value. By selecting specific species and bestowing on them special characteristics, these organizations transform these species into totem animals. The whale and seal fit the role of totem animal particularly well. First, both animals live in the ocean. We know relatively little about what happens under the sea, so it is easy to manipulate information and create myths. Second, the living oceans are a symbol of life and untouched nature. Third, wild animals that live in elements which we are shut out from are easily turned into symbols of the freedom which many of us long for. Finally, because seals and whales don't fit into basic picture of nature, where mammals have four limbs and walk on land, while fish have gills and fins and swim in the water.
"Super Whale" - our relative in the water
Environmental and animal welfare activists often speak about the whale in the
singular. We are told that the whale is the world's largest animal, that it has the
world's largest brain, that its brain is large in comparison to body weight, that it is
social and friendly, that it sings, that it has its own child care system, and that it is
threatened, etc. It is true that the blue whale is the world's largest animal and that
the sperm whale has the world's largest brain (although it is small in comparison
to the animal's size), but most of the other assertions are difficult to prove. Those
that do hold some truth are rarely true for more than one or two of the more than
75 different whale species which exist. When one speaks about the whale they are
combining all the characteristics found among the various species, such that the
whale has them all. But such a whale does not exist; it i s a mythical creation, a
"super whale", which is also given human traits. To New Zealand's IWC
commissioner the whale has become our counter-part in water, and for the
previous Greenpeace-Denmark leader, Mikael Gylling Nielsen, it is "the human of
the ocean". Whales, and particularly dolphins, are made an object of cult- like
worship of groups caught in the "New Age" movement.
In attempting to mystify whales, weight is laid on two related circumstances. Particular emphasis is given to the fact that whales have existed for millions of years. Some people claim their long history alone gives them special rights to the sea. The whales become some type of oceanic "indigenous people". Another argument is that whales have had more time to develop their intellectual capacity. Whales are said to have been highly intelligent when humans were still "nocturnal insects", to quote Mikael Gylling-Nielsen. The age of whales places them over humans; they become our teachers.
Furthermore, we are given the impression that whales defend values that humans have lost. According to some, whales are not only superior intellectually but also socially. The western world is plagued by increasing alienation. We are witnessing increasing commercialism, a decline in human solidarity and an increase in crime. Doubt is being cast over our social consciousness, and the qualities often attributed to whales are precisely those that Man is said to have lost. Whales look after the sick and dying, while we pay to have them removed from our sight (albeit by way of taxation i n Scandinavia) and placed in institutions. They look after each other's children for nothing, while we pay for kindergartens and babysitters. Man has probably behaved honourably at some point, but that was in earlier times, before money and commerciali m gained a foothold in society. Today, we are, plagued by a bad conscience because we do not take care of the ageing, or give our children the attention they require.
"The Super Whale" is a symbol built on the idea of the classification of animals and on pure salt water. With these ideas as "raw materials" we construct a product by combining character traits from different species and substantiating them with myths about the intelligence and social conscience of whales. The product has met a large and increasingly expanding market.
"Super Whale" as a Commercial Product
Today, we meet whales in a number of different contexts, and the value of the
non-consumptive use of whales amounts to several billion kroner per annum.
Literature has been witness to a long line of books since Herman Melville's Moby
Dick was published in 1851. In Lloyd Abbey's The Last Whales the genre takes a
new turn whereby all the characters are whales. In this novel, the various whale
species communicate with each other, and everything would have been just fine
had it not been for Man and orcas. Whales also appear in other types of books.
Top quality natural history books on whales are in ever increasing production,
and a number of science fiction writers have also showed interest for the whale. In
David Brin's Startide Rising, for example, the space ship Streaker is partly manned
by neo-dolphins. A number of more recent books must be classified as dolphin
cult books. Titles like Dolphin Dreamtime; Behind the Dolphin Smile; Dance to a
Dolphin's Song; Pictures in the Dolphin Mind, Dolphins and Their Power to Heal and
The Magic of Dolphins tell their tale.
Other art forms have also turned to the whale world in order to address a wider audience. "Whale artists" produce paintings and drawings of whales and dolphins, and photographers and film-makers make documentaries and videos on the life of the whale. CD's with "singing" humpback whales and killer whales are to be found in many shops, as are stickers, T-shirts, lapel badges etc. By way of "Ecoquest 1: The Search for Cetus", the whales have also made their entry into the world of computer games.
Whale tourism has grown into a billion kroner industry. Over 4 million people went on whale safaris in 1991, and today, such tours target the four corners of the Earth, including the Antarctic. In North America alone there are about 200 tour operators offering over 250 different tours. According to some scientists, the boats in some places approach the whales so closely that the whales are changing their behaviour and their migration routes.
Many, however, are not satisfied by merely observing the whales from on deck, they want to swim together with them. Some even claim, although others refute it, that swimming with dolphins has a positive effect on people suffering from depression and on autistic children. Leading dolphin therapist Horace Dobbs describes his patient's reactions to dolphins. They feel relaxed in the presence of dolphins, they can behave "naturally" and are freed from nervousness. One of his patients describes the experience in the following, colourful words:
"The dolphin moved, first slowly, then gaining speed until we were flying through the water like the Concorde ... I felt like a princess being taken to another land by her prince .. We were together as one ... I was he and he was me ... complete harmony and love.
This dolphin loved me for what I was in my heart. It didn't matter if I was old or young, fat or thin. I didn't need to impress him with a series of exam results. I was loved and accepted for who I was."
Testimonies through which one can achieve emotional support from a small group of likeminded people are a typical characteristic of many neo-religious sects. Those taking part in such religious experiences are described as sensitive people with consideration and love for others. In Dobb's book, Dance to a Dolphin's Song, the only person who did not feel that swimming with dolphins was a spiritual experience, is described in negative terms. She was a "very fat, rich American lady" who was only interested in herself.
A feeling of togetherness was important at these seances, and the same thing applies to whale safaris. Some whale watching tours can take on a ritual or cult appearance. At times a strong feeling of fellowship can arise on board when a group of tourists on deck scream "Oooooooh" in unison on seeing a whale wave goodbye with its tail before disappearing into the deep. A tour operator in Hawaii plays on this feeling of fellowship by advertising that everyone learning a particular song, will be accepted as an honorary member of the crew.
Good and Evil People
Symbols allow us to define our own identity and that of others. To some people,
attitudes to marine mammals are conclusive in determining whether one is to be
classified as a good or evil person. Totems help people divide the world in two.
Those having the "Super Whale" as their totem animal are gladly described by environmental activists and animal protectionists as good people, whereas other people are described with less flattering words. By defining money as the totem of the whalers, the animal protectionists are trying to put across the impression that the "good" are fighting - often with their lives at stake - to save the "peaceful" whales from the wicked whalers. The whalers are presented as executioners willing to wipe out the last whale to greedily attain their profits. The following bisection of the world appears from this conception of reality:
evil - good whale and seal protectionists - whalers and sealers totem: whales/seals - totem: money subsistence economy - capitalistic commerce solidarity/sharing - profit maximizing civilized - barbarian purity - pollutionA couple of examples of the rhetoric used in attempts at creating such a concepti on of the world might be appropriate here. In a number of fund raising activities appeals are made to good people to open their hearts, and wallets, for the honourable cause of saving animals. Saying no to whaling is synonymous with being civilized. "Caring for whales is a sign of personal and social maturity ", preaches Victor Scheffer, former member of the US Marine Mammal Commission. In the domestic arena at home in Norway, Pål Bugge of Greenpeace regurgitates for the newspaper Arbeiderbladet,11 August 1990, that the whalers are continuing the Viking tradition of hitting out "in all directions with blood all over".
There is a form of imperialism inherent in such conjecture. Aboriginal peoples that do not yet have their own opera, are allowed to catch whales and seals as part of their subsistence or barter economy. But if the hunt is for commercial purposes, it creates disorder in this bisected conception of the world. The conclusion is that aboriginal peoples can gladly continue their hunt as long as they remain "primitive aborigines" well shielded from commercial activities. In this way, those of us living in the industrialized world are provided with a living museum by which we can measure our own development, while at the same time obtaining a means of political control over the aboriginal peoples.
Sealing and whaling in the white, industrialized world is a threat to this
conception of the world and is therefore something that one should oppose or
disassociate oneself with. The whalers become barbarians. Take Brian Davies,
leader of IFAW, for instance, who in a letter to "friends" says the following about
pilot whaling in the Faroes:
"...an uncivilized harvest .. the most brutal festival
you can imagine. Peaceful pilot whales are driven together and tricked towards
land with the help of their loyalty to a captured comrade from their family group.
And there they are quite simply hacked to death ... civilized people have a duty to protect them from sadists" (underlinded as in the original, my italics).
Claims that whalers are evil are even presented in scientific journals. In an article in The American Journal of lnternational Law two jurists write that "a state of mind that [condones] killing whales ... is equivalent to a state of mind accepting the genocide of "inferior" human beings." And the eating of whale meat is more or less made out to be a form of cannibalism. The tabloid newspaper Daily Star told in a two page story on the 11 May 1991 that "greedy Japs gorge on mountain of whale meat at sick feast" at a "banquet of blood".
Selling a Green Alibi
In this paper I have tried to present some of the main reasons why seals and
whales make good symbols, how animal protectionists have produced the concept
of the "Super Whale" and finally how this symbol has met an important market.
Furthermore, we have seen how Whale Safari, and even more so the "Swim-With-
a- Whale" programmes, have provided people with the opportunity of feeling
solidarity and identity metaphorically expressed through totems. One of the
strongest duties one has towards one's totem is to protect it.
The world knows many a sacred animal, and this is something we have to live with. But there are two factors separating the activists totem system from other such systems. Firstly, the activists have a missionary attitude. A Hindu can tolerate Americans eating beef, but an activist cannot tolerate a Japanese eating whalemeat. In this way the Western cultural-imperialistic tradition is carried on. Secondly, one can buy a place in the sun by joining the flock of the "converted". The totem is for sale, it provides green legitimacy and a place among the "good" - something that many have taken advantage of. This is perhaps the greatest hazard involved when perceiving the world in this way.
Many people are in need of a green alibi. Some people buy a symbol, or what we might call totem emblems, to stick on their jackets or windscreens to display their green state of mind. Others buy the logo of an environmental organization for use in advertising campaigns, as Statoil did in Denmark. By paying a million kroner to WWF Denmark, Statoil were allowed to use WWF's logo in their attempts at increasing their petrol sales. WWF has also seen fit to sell whales to anybody wanting to improve their reputation. As WWF Denmark wrote in their "Adopt a Whale" campaign directed towards industry: "Sponsorship will link your activities in a positive manner to the WWF ... A sponsorship will provide your business with the opportunity of showing associates that it takes the environment and the "green wave" seriously... I am sure you will appreciate the opportunities a whale sponsorship will I provide for your business." Brøste chemical industries bought a whale and have got their name and green legitimacy linked to WWF, but whether this has contributed to the welfare of the global environment is rather doubtful.
The environmental and animal protection movements have had great success by manifesting themselves politically. They have managed to market themselves in an excellent way by choosing issues that are "easy to win" and where only a few nations have something to lose, but where many can score cheap points among opinion at home; by producing forceful symbols; by actively marketing their "products" through mass media, i.e. whale safaris, dolphin therapy, etc.; and by effectively exploiting businesses and governments' interest in securing green legitimacy.
The world needs active environmental protection. This is particularly true for coastal communities which are dependent on a clean environment to secure their sustainable utilization of marine resources. We need increased cooperation between fishermen and hunters on the one side and the environmental movement on the other, but today we unfortunately only find mutual mistrust between these two parties. The reason for this is that some environmental activists - although far from all - mix their cards. By mixing together conservation and animal welfare concerns as Greenpeace and WWF do, artificial opposition is created. This makes it very difficult also for other organizations which are struggling to distance themselves from the totemic picture of the world. Therefore, Greenpeace and WWF are in effect under- mining the productive cooperation which is essential to effective coastal environmental conservation. This is in itself a threat against coastal communities. Their methods distract attention from those issues which really are important to the global environment. Focus is diverted from real environmental sinners, and occasionally the environmental sinners and organizations can be seen to legitimate each other. This is most easily seen in the IWC where the US, UK and several other national governments stand against the resumption of whaling, and thereby buy themselves a green alibi, and partial immunity. In return, political legitimacy is given to Greenpeace and other organizations campaigning against whaling. Here in lies the biggest threat, not just for coastal communities, but for the environment in general.