The annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) will take place in Kyoto in May. The IWC was established in 1946 to safeguard whale stocks against overfishing and to provide for the optimal utilization of whale resources. For more than two decades, the IWC was unsuccessful in protecting important whale stocks against depletion. But finally, large scale industiral whaling came to a stop in the beginning of the 1970's. Threatened species such as the blue whale appear to be recovering slowly. They are protected by a moratorium which may have to remain in effect for many years to allow the whale stocks to recover completeley.

Not all whales are threatened though. One species in particular, the minke whale, is abundant in all the major oceans. People from settlements along the coast of North Norway have traditionally hunted minke whales off the Norwegian coastline, using small, often family owned boats with a crew of four to six people. The hunting methods are humane by any comparison.

A great deal of misinformation is currently being spread about Norway and whales because we intend to resume minke whaling on a modest scale, catching a few hundred this year. Some participants in the campaign against us believe that whales should not be hunted regardless of scientific or ecological justitication for doing so, or they chose to ignore the best of science and argue that Norway is threatening the whales and breaking international law. Neither is true.

Norway made a specific reservsation against the IWC moratorium of the 1982, with regard to minke whales, and again in 1986, arguing that the moratorium was not ecologically justified with regard to minkes in the North East Atlantic. This reservation is legally sound, based on the whaling convention itself, and permits us to hunt some minkes. Nevertheless, we stopped all whaling for minkes in 1987 and kept a unilateral moratorium for five years while we asked an international group of scientists to make an objective assessment of the North East Atlantic minke stock.

The scientific committee of the IWC has now unanimously concluded that the best estimate of the North East Atlantic stock of minke whales is 87,600 animals. This stock can easily sustain a modest harvest of a few hundred whales and still continue to increase. But the IWC plenary, a highly politicised body strongly influenced by animal welfare groups, failed to act upon the conclusions of the sceinfific committee.