"We’ve managed to preserve our native culture while leaping from a traditional hunting community to a modern high-tech society in just one generation."
Jonathan Motzfeldt,
Prime Minister of a Greenland Home Rule Government, 1997 (19)
«This particular tribe hasn't actually
taken whales for 70 years. They certainly did at one stage and they ate
them, and of course in the meantime, as is common with most native American
groups, these people have moved on ... They're comparatively speaking quite
prosperous. They've got facilities within their own area. There isn't a
nutritional need any longer ...»(10)
(Click the image for full-size version and caption)
This is how Jim McLay, New Zealand com-missioner to the IWC, justified his coun-try's opposition to awarding the Makah Indians a quota of five grey whales for ceremonial and subsistence purposes.
And he was right - at least as far as his powers of observation went. Makah Indian society has indeed changed over the 70 years since they caught their last whale, and they are certainly more prosperous, notwithstanding that 40% still live below the poverty line.
But what has this to do with their desire to catch whales? Does the achievement of a reasonable standard of living negate their right to use natural resources?
The Makah caught whales for over 1,500 years, and their legal right to continue doing so is spelled out in a treaty signed in 1855 with the American government. The only reason they stopped was because the stock had been decimated by white wha-lers. But now there are just as many grey whales as there were before. There is not a shred of doubt that a limited hunt of just a few whales a year would be sustainable. Yet even these arguments were insufficient to sway the IWC.
The former colonial powers have also changed. No longer are they driven to hunt whales and seals for oil. Nowadays they can afford the luxury of basing policy on public opinion which elevates marine mammals to the status of inviola-ble icons, irreconcilable with the idea of whale steaks and sealskin coats.
The same public opinion, however, shows considerable sympathy for the international community's allocation of special status to indigenous peoples, something that has been brought strongly into focus in the United Nations Decade of Indigenous Peoples. The object is to make good for past transgressions by colonial powers, and support indigenous peoples in their struggle to regain their rights and strengthen their identities, economies and cultures.
In an attempt to strike a balance between the aspirations of aboriginal
peoples and Western public opposition to the killing of whales, the IWC
has devised a mecha-nism whereby aboriginal groups can be exempt from the
general ban on whaling - but the conditions for qualifying are strict indeed.
No money must be invol-ved, the meat and blubber must be con-sumed «locally»,
and candidates must be able to demonstrate «a continuing tradi-tional
dependence on whaling and on the use of whales».(11)
This provides us with a picture of aboriginals as people living more or
less in isolation from the rest of the world, unaffected by markets.
But how does this match up to reality?
In addressing a 1996 conference on New Zealand's whaling policy, the fishe-ries representative of the Maori, New Zealand's aboriginal people, stated: «Most aboriginal peoples combine both commercial and subsistence uses of wildlife in order to sustain their cultures and communities. Such mixed (subsi-stence and market) economies have existed for centuries.» (12)
Some regard the aboriginal subsistence category «as a living whaling museum. We do not,» says Lars Emil Johansen, Prime Minister of the Greenland Home Rule Government (13)
Greenland receives quotas from the IWC under the aboriginal subsistence category, even though a significant proportion of the meat is distributed domestically through conventional commercial chan-nels. Vacuum-packed whale meat can be found in the refrigerated displays of Nuuk supermarkets, and is also sold at markets in neighbouring villages. The Greenland authorities emphasize that «the whalers have to cover the cost of the hunt themselves, and like anybody else in England, the USA and Australia, they have their own personal expenses to pay and their families to provide for.» (14) In addition to this, there is no other way of ensuring that all the local communities in Greenland have access to whale meat, which constitutes one of the most impor-tant components of the national diet.
Similarly, sealing in Greenland combines aspects of both subsistence
and market economies. Meat and blubber are major components of the local
diet, both for humans and for working dogs, while the skins are a source
of cash income. Western opinion, and most of the organisations in the «save-the-seal»
movement, accept that the aboriginal peoples of the Arctic hunt seals.
But again, provided only that similar conditions to those men-tioned above
are met. Greenpeace, for instance, opposes commercial sealing, but can
accept «the killing of seals done primarily for subsistence, i.e.
that the meat is consumed and the pelt utilised by the family group or
community ... » (15)
Up until 1996, the IWC had approved all applications for quotas under the aborigi-nal subsistence category virtually without debate. In the name of Realpolitik, they were not too worried about the criteria. Russia, for example, was awarded grey whale quotas even though it was well-known that most of the meat ended up being fed to foxes on fur farms. But when the Makah entered the arena, the dust was wiped from the rule book. Opponents of whaling were horrified at the idea that the number of whalers, far from declining, might actually increase. Consequently, the Russian request for five bowheads for the indigenous population of the Chukotski region, beset by a severe food shortage, met with so much resistance that it was withdrawn. Instead, Russia defied the IWC and awarded itself a quota of two bowhead whales.
The rejection in 1996 by the IWC of US and Russian quota demands marked a turning point in the interpretation of regu-lations. Henceforth, that interpretation would be far tighter, something which was also manifested in a resolution subse-quently passed by the German Parliament demanding that «on all accounts one must ensure that products from subsi-stence whaling ... do not become the object of trade or exports.» (16)
Will this stringent interpretation of regula-tions affect Greenland's
whaling? In this respect, New Zealand can be expected to play a key role.
On the one hand, its «basic concern is ... to ensure that whales
are not killed.» (17) Yet on the other hand,
it has appeared to be relatively progressive when it comes to acknowledging
and restoring the rights of indigenous peoples. The result of this conflict
between two divergent interests, with roots in the valu-es of the same
culture, is unpredictable. At home, the New Zealand authorities have acknowledged
the Maori's right to utilise fish resources commercially, where they previously
maintained that their fisheries should be carried out solely for the purpose
of self-sufficiency. «Yet in an international forum they advocate
a general position which is clearly no longer tenable,» the Maori
fisheries representative told a hearing on New Zealand's policy in the
IWC. (18)
10. Interview in YA Morning Report, National Radio in
New Zealand, June 26, 1996.
11. G.P. Donovan, IWC and Aboriginal/Subsistence Whaling. April 1979 to
july 1981 (Cambridge: IWC) (http://www.highnorth.no/de-of-ab.htm).
12. Sean Kerins (Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission), The Sustainable
Use of Renewable Resources: New Zealand and the IWC (Whaling seminar held
by the Ministry of foreign Affairs and Trades, Wellington, New Zealand,
Dec. 18, 1996).
13. Address to the Conference on Whaling in the North Atlantic, Reykjavik,
Mar. 1, 1997 (in press) (http://www.highnorth.no/ad-to-th.htm).
14. Report on the whaling and sealing trades, 1994, Greenland Home Rule
Directorate of Fisheries and Agriculture.
15. Greenpeace International, policy document on sealing, 1983 (http://www.highnorth.no/gr-on-wh.htm).
16. High North Web News, Dec. 14, 1996 (http:/www.highnorth.no).
17. Jim McLay, The IWC- Wither or Whither? (Terra Media World of Whales
Exhibition Lecture Series, Auckland Museum, Aug. 21, 1996).
18. Sean Kerins (Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission), The Sustainable
Use of Renewable Resources: New Zealand and the IWC (Whaling seminar held
by the Ministry of foreign Affairs and Trades, Wellington, New Zealand,
Dec. 18, 1996).
19. Quoted in Putting on a Show, an article by Mark Issit in Scanorama,
Feb. 1997.