It is the principle of sustainability that will lead humanity into the next century. Based on this principle we must conserve the biological basis of our existence and confront the major threats to it, whether these be in the form of air and water pollution, soil degradation or the loss of biological diversity.
The problems we face transcend political and geographical boundaries. If they are to be solved, international co-operation is required. This is particularly true of the seas, where vast areas are beyond national control, where the ocean currents spread pollution and where the stocks of fish and marine mammals migrate between national zones and international waters.
Fishing and hunting can provide an environmentally friendly contribution
to the planet's food supply as long as the harvest does not exceed the
reproductive capacity of the stock. Fishing and hunting provide high-grade
protein while in general consuming less energy than is the case with agriculture,
While in agriculture, one must turn the original ecosystem upside down,
introduce monoculture and fight insects and weeds with the aid of chemicals,
fishing and hunting involve the simple harvesting of natural ecosystems.
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«Sustainable use" is applicable only to renewable resources:
it means using them
at rates within their capacity for renewal ...»
Caring for the Earth, A Strategy for Sustainable Living, IUCN/WWF/UNEP, 1991
«The member states ... of the European Union have noted with
satisfaction the
consensus ... to extend practical support to the globally agreed principle
of
sustainable use of the world's natural resources, based on scientific evidence
and objective data.»
Statement on behalf of EU member states to CITES, 1994
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In actuality, the history of fishing and hunting contains a long list of violations of the principle of sustainability. Yet conversely, the history of hunting also includes some of the first attempts at enforcing sustainability through international agreements.
In 1911, the US, Japan, Russia and England (on behalf of Canada) signed an agreement banning pelagic hunting of the northern fur seal following its horrendous over-exploitation. The agreement led to their recovery, and for many years after, the US was able to harvest them sustainably at their mating grounds.
INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE REGULATION OF WHALING
After numerous attempts in the 1930s failed to reach a permanent agreement on the regulation of whaling, negotiations on the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) were finally completed in 1946. The agreement, which is still in effect, entailed, amongst other things, the appointment of a manage ment body, the International Whaling Commission (IWC), whose task it was to establish regulatory measures for the various hunting grounds. The agreement only includes the great whales, that is, all the baleen whales plus the sperm whales, and some of the bottlenose whales, among the toothed whales.
In the preamble to the agreement it says that the history of whaling has «seen over-fishing of one area after another,» and that it is «essential to protect all species of whales from further over-fishing.» However, it also states that growth in whale stocks, due to protection and the regulation of the harvest, will provide the basis for a more substantial harvest in the future. The object of the ICRW is «to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry.» The decisions made by the IWC are to «take into consideration the interests of consumers of whale products and the whaling industry,» and shall be «based on scientific findings.» A Scientific Committee was also later appointed with the object of furnishing the IWC with recommendations.
In many ways the ICRW was ahead of its time. Its objective was to ensure sustainable use, several decades before these words became the catch phrase they are today. However, the political climate of the time was not yet ready for the ICRW's goal to be realised. Whaling quotas were set far higher than recommended by the Scientific Committee, and the uncertainty of scientific data was used not as an argument for invoking the precautionary principle, but for maintaining the status quo. Short-term economic considerations were the order of the day.
«The turning point came in 1965, when for the first time in history the IWC agreed to establish a catch limit in the Antarctic lower than the best scientific estimate of sustainable yield,» wrote J.L. McHugh, former US commissioner to the IWC.(22) Several species of whales were subsequently protected and a new management model was introduced, designed to ensure that the remaining harvests were sustainable. This model, however, had a flaw. It did not take sufficient account of the uncertainty surrounding stock estimates. Recognising this flaw, the IWC then decided to adopt a moratorium on all commercial whaling, effective from 1986. The reasons given for the moratorium were that time was needed to establish reliable stock estimates, and that the Scientific Committee should develop a new management procedure based on the precautionary principle.
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«The culimination of eight year's work by the Scientific Committee
is the
most rigorously tested management procedure for a natural resource yet
developed. It sets a standard for the management of all marine and other
living resources ... (it) is very conservative and certainly more conservative
than anything else that has gone before ...»
Greg Donovan, IWC Scientific Editor, 1995 (23)
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The resulting management procedure was approved by the IWC in 1994, but was officially shelved pending the development of an inspection scheme for the hunt.
However, since the moratorium was adopted in 1982, a new situation has arisen. The most influential nations at the IWC - the US, the UK, New Zealand and Australia - will no longer accept the resumption of commercial whaling under any circumstances, even if sustainability and acceptably humane killing methods are assured, justifying their intransigence with arguments based on public opinion.(24) Therefore, achieving the three-quarters majority required to lift the moratorium and allocate whaling quotas is no longer conceivable.
NORTH ATLANTIC MARINE MAMMAL COMMISSION
These developments within the IWC were partly responsible for the establishment in 1992 of the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO). The whaling nations of the North Atlantic wanted an alternative management body that would be equipped to take over the work of the IWC should the present trend continue. There were other reasons, however: the need for a body to provide management advice on small whales and seals, and to co-ordinate research activities. Today NAMMCO has four members - Greenland, Iceland, Norway and the Faroe Islands - while Canada, Russia, Denmark, Japan and Namibia have observer status. Unlike the IWC, membership is not open, and new members must be approved by existing ones.(25)
So far, the organisation has concentrated on species of small whales, walruses and seals. It remains to be seen whether the member nations will also use NAMMCO as a management body for the great whales. NAMMCO has already challenged the boundary line with the IWC by giving management advice on the northern bottlenose whale, which is also on the IWC management agenda. In addition, NAMMCO coordinated sighting surveys in 1995 which provided the basis for its Scientific Committee's revision of the stock estimates for a number of large whales in the North Atlantic, including fin whales and sei whales, and for minke whales in the Central Atlantic.
UNCLOS
Those nations which have ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) have committed themselves «to work through the appropriate international organisations» with regard to the management of whales (cetaceans). The obligation to «work through» appropriate organisations does not necessarily involve membership of those organisations, but can also be realised through practical co-operation, for example at a scientific level.(26)
One of the general principles of UNCLOS involves the optimum sustainable utilisation of renewable marine resources. This principle was confirmed by the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development.
If a nation does not fully utilise a fish stock in its own territorial waters, UNCLOS opens the possibility for other nations to harvest the resource. It is clear that such nations as the US, that have introduced national legislation banning the harvesting of marine mammals, have difficulty in accepting that such an arrangement also applies to marine mammals. This would mean that sealers from other nations could harvest the abundant stocks of sea lions on the west coast of the US. Therefore, negotiations have led to exemptions from the obligation to optimally utilise marine mammals, both in UNCLOS and Agenda 21. The US and Australia are therefore not obliged to allow other nations to enter their national zones when they themselves choose not to harvest the abundant stocks of marine mammals present there. This does not, however, affect the right of other nations to harvest marine mammals in their own territorial waters or in international waters. Nor does it affect the IWC's obligation to live up to the objectives of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.
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«States ... commit themselves to the conservation and sustainable
use of
marine living resources on the high seas. To this end, it is necessary
to:
(a) Develop and increase the potential of marine living resources to meet
human nutritional needs, as well as social, economic and development
goals ... "
Agenda 21 from the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development,
Chapter 17
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Those nations opposed to the commercial utilisation of whale stocks do not question that the principle of sustainable use has set the standard for all international cooperation on the environment since the Brundtland Commission's report, but they claim that whales and seals must be exempted from the principle.
HANDS-OFF POLICY
When it comes to efforts at maintaining sustainability and solving problems in international waters, fisheries lag far behind whaling and sealing. Today, a number of fish stocks are still subject to over-exploitation, for example in the North Sea, in spite of strong and frequent warnings from scientists. The collapse of the cod stocks off Newfoundland is an example of the consequences of this, both economical, social and cultural.
Whaling could well be used as an example of how international co-operation can transform a situation of over-exploitation into one of sustainable use. A great deal of money has been spent on research and negotiations in recent decades in order to achieve this. But at present, it would seem that the dominant parties within the process of co-operation have abandoned this objective, concluding that the only alternative to over-exploitation is a "hands-off" policy. Such a conclusion can obviously not be applied as a general resource policy. There exist practises within commercial agriculture, forestry and fishing that are clearly unsustainable, but there can be no question of placing a blanket ban on these industries. The only way forward is to strive for sustainable use.
It is difficult enough to explain why marine mammals alone should be protected by a ban on commercial use, but now great efforts are being made to extend this ban to include other species of «charismatic megafauna». Indeed, some radical «green» organisations are even advocating a ban on the commercial use of all wild animals.
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«At its worst the moral of the IWC's history could be this:
Will any nation that signs
a global environmental or resource convention find itself ensnared in a
regime that
appears to discard its original premises and to pay little heed to its
own scientific
advisors?»
Christopher Stone, Professor of Law, 1996 (27)
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Implementing a management system founded on two contrasting principles within one and the same ecosystem will also be a source of conflict. The marine mammal stocks in the northern regions of the North Atlantic play a very significant role as predators. Their consumption of fish is on a par with the take effected by the fishing fleet. The interaction between fish and marine mammals is so tightly knit that the management strategy selected for marine mammals will inevitably affect fish stocks, and, of course, vice versa.
In its 1996 annual report, the World Watch Institute once again pointed
to famine as a probable scenario for the next century. At the same time,
the report showed how both agriculture and fisheries are eating away at
their own assets. In view of such challenges, the management of renewable
marine resources should be based on a general management system where one
can extract the optimum sustainable yield from these resources with as
little energy consumption and pollution as possible.
«Sustainable use of wildlife is a bankrupt philosophy that capitalizes on brutality and death. What the world needs for the next millennium is not a philosophy of death but rather a philosophy of life - that glorifies and preserves the life of all»
Paul Irwin, president of the Humane Society of the United States (28)
«It has also been argued that whales and other cetaceans should not be hunted at an because of their uniqueness. However, all things in nature are unique, and it seems difficult to argue that one species is more unique than another and should therefore receive special treatment».
Report on Marine Mammals, Council of Europe, July 12, 1993
"The Fisheries Ministers urge ... that the Nordic countries adhere to the overriding principle of the sustainable use and management of all living resources and not to establish the marine mammals as a generally protected species ..."
Declaration by the Nordic Fisheries Ministers in conjunction with 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development. Carried at a meeting of Nordic Council Ministers, in Sisimut, Greenland, Aug. 14, 1991
«Marine mammals are part of the living resources of the ocean ecosystems. They should be protected when threatened and only hunted when there is certainty that the size of their stocks allows it. Hunting may also be necessary in order to avert over-population and imbalances in marine ecosystems. Regimes for the use of ocean resources must be improved and based on the principle of sustainability ... »
Report on Marine Mammals, Council of Europe, July 12, 1993
22. J.L. McHugh, The role and the history of the IWC,
in The Whale Problem ed. W. Schevill (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1974)
23. G.P. Donovan, The IWC and the Revised management Procedure, in Additional
Essays on Whales and Man eds. Blichfeldt and Hallenstvedt (Lofoten: High
North Alliance, 1995).
24. Expressed in a number of official opening statements to the IWC.
25. Kate Sanderson, The North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission - In Principle
and Practice, paper presented at the seminar: Whaling in the North Atlantic,
Reykjavik, 1 March 1997. In print.
26. William Burke, Whaling and International Law, (in press, 1997).
27. Christopher Stone, Legal and Moral Issues in The Taking of Minke Whales,
in The International Legal Workshop (Tokyo: Institute of Cetacean Research,
1996).
28. Humane Society of the US, autumn 1994 newsletter.