Source: "Whaling in the North Atlantic - Economic and Political Perspectives," Ed. Gudrun Petursdottir, University of Iceland, 1997, ISBN 9979-54-213-6. Proceedings of a conference held in Reykjavik on March 1st, 1997, organized by the Fisheries Research Institute and the High North Alliance.
Author: Kate Sanderson, Secretary to NAMMCO, Søndre Tollbodgate 9, University of Tromsø, 9037 Tromsø, Norway.

The North Atlantic
Marine Mammal Commission -
in principle and practice

NAMMCO in context -
background, establishment and structure

The North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission was formally established with the signing of the Agreement on Cooperation on Research, Conservation and Management of Marine Mammals in the North Atlantic. This was done on April 9 1992 in Nuuk, Greenland by the fisheries ministers of the Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland and Norway.

The year 1992 is also remembered for certain other events on the international front related to discussions on whaling in the North Atlantic; namely Iceland’s withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission, and Norway’s announcement the same year that commercial minke whaling would be resumed in 1993. On the broader international arena, 1992 was also the year of the UN Earth Summit in Rio, the follow-up to the World Commission on Environment and Development, and a reaffirmation of the principles of conservation and sustainable development.

In this context, then, the NAMMCO agreement can be seen as very much a product of its times, reflecting a recognition of the need to explore new approaches to international cooperation on conservation and management and a desire for the meaningful application of the general principles at stake in terms of resource conservation and sustainable use. More specifically, one of the prime motivating factors behind the creation of NAMMCO was the dissatisfaction in the North Atlantic with the inability of the IWC to agree on a basis for conservation and management of large whales according to these principles and its own Convention.

The political process leading to the establishment of NAMMCO goes back to 1988, when the first of a series of annual international conferences on the rational utilization of marine mammals was hosted by the Icelandic minister of fisheries at the time, Halldór Ásgrímsson. Parties to the Conference were the present four NAMMCO member countries as well as Canada, Russia and Japan.

From the Conference forum there developed a memorandum of understanding which was signed in 1990 between the Faroes, Greenland, Iceland and Norway establishing the North Atlantic Committee on Cooperation on Marine Mammal Research (NAC), which paved the way for the formal development of the NAMMCO agreement and the establishment of this new body in 1992.

Despite the obvious causal link between developments in the IWC and the political genesis of NAMMCO, the future significance of NAMMCO as an appropriate international regime is found in those aspects of the agreement which break new ground and provide new emphases for managing marine resources, within a general framework which is fully consistent with requirements for international cooperation on marine mammals under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Firstly, NAMMCO covers all marine mammals in the North Atlantic, including smaller species of whales as well as seals and walruses for which there has not previously existed an international mechanism for cooperation on their conservation and management.

Perhaps most important is the conviction of the Parties to the Agreement, highlighted in the preamble, that regional bodies in the North Atlantic can ensure effective conservation and sustainable marine resource utilization and development with due regard to the needs of coastal communities and indigenous people. In this respect, NAMMCO is itself the end result of a prevailing trend towards regional rather than global approaches to conservation, motivated by a desire to reduce the distance between resource managers and resource users, and ensure an effective consultation process so that local communities are involved in conservation and management decisions which may ultimately affect their lives and livelihoods.

At the cornerstone of conservation is the need for reliable scientific knowledge of resources on which to base management decisions. Built into the NAMMCO agreement is the desire for a better understanding of the dynamics of the marine ecosystem - the ultimate producer upon which coastal communities rely. Research collaboration through NAMMCO, with a starting point in specific marine mammal species and stocks of interest to member countries, focuses at the same time on the complex ecological role of marine mammals as both predators and prey, as potential competitors for resources, and, not least, as potential victims of human impacts such as pollution in the marine ecosystem.

The structure of NAMMCO is based closely on the model of another regional body familiar to the founders, namely NASCO. The Commission is made up of a Council, which provides the main forum for the exchange of information among Parties, establishes Management Committees and guidelines for their work, and coordinates requests for scientific advice. Management Committees (at present in the form of a general Management Committee) propose to their members measures for conservation and management, and make recommendations to the Council concerning scientific research. The Scientific Committee, to which each member country appoints three scientific experts, provides scientific advice in response to requests from the Council. A number of other Working Groups have also been set up under the Commission, which are described briefly below. The Secretariat was established in Tromsø, Norway in September 1993 and currently has a staff of three.

Decisions of the Council and Management Committees must be made by consensus. The Agreement is open for signature by other Parties with the consent of existing Signatories.

NAMMCO in practice - the first five years

As a basis from which to begin its work, the Scientific Committee compiled a selected list of those marine mammal species with direct or indirect management interest to members of the Commission. Requests for advice on a number of the following species and stocks have been forwarded by the Council to the Scientific Committee, which has dealt with these at its annual meetings since 1993:

Killer whales - ongoing
Northern bottlenose whales - stock assessment & population modelling
Atlantic walrus - assessment across range
Ringed seal - assessment across range
Grey seal- assessment across range & focus on sealworm
Pilot whale- effects of Faroese drive hunt (through ICES Study Group)
Harp & hooded seals- assessment across range (Joint ICES/NAFO Working Group on Harp and Hooded Seals)


Built into the Council’s request for advice on these species, apart from questions related to abundance and distribution, is also a focus on their role in the ecosystem, including interactions with other marine resources, the effects of environmental changes and changes in the food supply.

With the exception of the killer whale, the Scientific Committee has completed assessments of the species listed above and has presented its findings to the Council. In the case of the pilot whale and harp and hooded seals, NAMMCO’s requests for advice on these species have been dealt with by existing expertise in other fora. The Study Group on Pilot Whales established by ICES has now completed its work, and its findings will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee at its 1997 meeting in relation to the Council’s request for an evaluation of the sustainability of the Faroese hunt. A number of issues are outstanding in the work of the ICES/NAFO Joint Working Group on Harp and Hooded Seals, but population assessments for the Northwest Atlantic were available in 1996 and reviewed by the Scientific Committee at its 1996 meeting. As for the grey seal, further assessment of the dynamics of the sealworm has been requested, and the Scientific Committee will deal with this at its 1997 meeting, to which a number of experts in this field have been invited.

Important for the Scientific Committee is the fact that sufficient funding is earmarked to ensure the participation of relevant experts in its work. The recent comprehensive assessments of the Atlantic walrus, ringed seals and grey seals, for example, would not have been possible without the valuable active contribution of scientists from a number of other, non-member countries, in particular from Canada, but also from the UK and Russia.

Based on the findings of the Scientific Committee, the general Management Committee has agreed on a number of proposals for conservation and management at its last two annual meetings, summarised as follows:

Northern bottlenose whale: coastal use of bottlenose whales in the Faroe Islands is sustainable - catch of up to 300 whales a year would not lead to stock decline;
Atlantic walrus: recommend measures to arrest decline in stock along west coast of Greenland;
Ringed seal: present catch levels in West Greenland / Canada are sustainable;
Harp seals: 1990-95 catch levels in Northwest Atlantic are well below replacement yields;
Hooded seals: 1990-95 catch levels in Northwest Atlantic are below replacement yields

Other ongoing work in the Scientific Committee includes the continued monitoring of stock levels and trends in stock levels of all marine mammals in the North Atlantic. The Scientific Committee Working Group on Abundance Estimates, which met in Reykjavik in February 1997, has been reviewing the results of the 1995 North Atlantic Sightings Survey (NASS 95). NASS-95 was coordinated by the NAMMCO Scientific Committee and carried out in the summer of 1995 through national whale sightings surveys in Iceland, Norway and the Faroe Islands. The report of the Abundance Estimates Working Group, which will be presented to the Scientific Committee at its next meeting, will provide an overview of the latest information on the abundance of whales in the North Atlantic, including updated estimates for the Central Atlantic minke whale stock, as well as fin, sei and pilot whales, based on the data from NASS-95 in relation to data from NASS surveys carried out in previous years.

Also on the agenda for the next Scientific Committee meeting is a closer look at the role of marine mammals in the ecosystem with a specific focus on the food consumption of three major predators in the North Atlantic - the minke whale, the harp seal and the hooded seal. As mentioned previously, there will also be a closer review of sealworm infestation in North Atlantic coastal areas, as a follow-on from the 1996 assessment of the status of the grey seal in the North Atlantic.

One other important new development through NAMMCO has been the adoption at the 1996 Council meeting of the Joint NAMMCO Control Scheme for the Hunting of Marine Mammals, which was developed by a Working Group set up under the Management Committee. A central precondition for international cooperation on management of shared resources is certainty that management decisions are upheld and respected in member countries. The NAMMCO Control Scheme provides a mechanism through which NAMMCO members can maintain international transparency in their utilisation of marine mammals.

The Control Scheme has two main elements. The first is an outline of agreed common elements for national inspection schemes specific to whaling operations with a harpoon cannon. The second element is the International Observation Scheme, with application to all types of whaling and sealing in the NAMMCO area, providing for an exchange of observers appointed by NAMMCO. The role of observers, who have no jurisdiction over the activities they observe, is to report on their observations to NAMMCO through the Secretariat.

The Joint Control Scheme is expected to be implemented to some extent, at least on a trial basis, already in 1997.

Other issues of interest to the Council include the levels and effects of contaminants in marine mammals. NAMMCO arranged an International Conference on Marine Mammals and the Marine Environment which was held in Shetland in 1995, and which focused on the sources, levels and effects of pollutants in marine mammals, as well as the health implications of contaminants for coastal communities where whales and seals are an important part of the diet. Papers presented at this Conference have now been published as a Special Issue of the journal The Science of the Total Environment (Elsevier, Vol. 186, 1-2, 1996).

To conclude this brief overview of NAMMCO’s work, mention should also be made of the Working Group on Hunting Methods, which is a forum for the exchange of technical information and advice on methods used in whaling and sealing in member countries; and the NAMMCO Fund, which was set up as a source of funding for information projects related to the conservation and sustainable use of marine mammals.

It was decided last year that funds earmarked for the NAMMCO Fund in 1996 should be used to focus on seals and sealing. As a result, it has now been decided that NAMMCO will arrange an international conference on seals and sealing, and this will be co-sponsored by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Nordic Atlantic Cooperation and High North Alliance. The provincial Government of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada has offered to host the event, which will be held in St John’s from 25-27 November 1997.

NAMMCO in the future - progress and prospects

To draw some conclusions on the work of NAMMCO so far, it would have to be said that the organisation has come a very long way in short space of time, in particular through the work of the Scientific Committee.

In general terms it could also be said that one of the strengths of NAMMCO is the simplicity and therefore flexibility of the agreement and the fact that all decisions must be made by consensus. This requires a real interest and political will on the part of member countries to apply the principles of the Agreement in practice in a way which is acceptable to all Parties, and which takes account of all relevant interests represented in the forum.

How much further NAMMCO will be used actively for management advice and recommendations on other species and issues in the future is entirely a matter for the member countries to agree on. This will depend on the prevailing international political climate and the level of conviction which inspired the creation of the organisation in the first place. The principles are agreed, the organisation has so far operated effectively and has begun to deal with issues which have a practical bearing on management policies and the interests of resource users in member countries. The long-term agenda has still to be drafted.

Additional membership would obviously also shape NAMMCO’s future agenda. The Council of NAMMCO has invited the governments of Canada and the Russian Federation to become full Parties to the NAMMCO Agreement. This option is currently being considered in Ottawa and Moscow, and some indication of views is expected before the next meeting of the Council in Tórshavn, Faroe Islands in May 1997.