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Indonesia: The Whalers the World Had Forgotten |
| 25.02.1998; |
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The March issue of Life Magazine takes a closer look at
the whalers the world has forgotten. In eastern Indonesia,
the Lamalera people carry out a subsistence hunt each year
for 10-20 sperm whales - a species which is regulated by
the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
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| "The young men who will one day pick up the harpoon watch the hunters and dream of the time they too will become village heroes," reports Life Magazine. "Some play hooky from school to practice their dives, leaping from high rocks, tossing bamboo sticks into the air to impale an imaginary whale." Although the IWC endorses subsistence hunts of the kind taking place here, Indonesia has not joined the IWC, and arguably is under no obligation to do so. The same can be said for the whalers of the Philippines, where a subsistence hunt is conducted for sperm whales and there is a commercial harvest of killer whales. According to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, whaling nations should "work through the appropriate international organizations" for the management of whaling, but Indonesia, the Philippines and others apparently do not consider the IWC to be appropriate. Another whaling nation, Canada, "works through" the IWC by attending as an observer. |
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