Press Releases
22 February 2001 - Conservation and Management of Cetaceans - Cultural Respect and Common Sense
Robert W G Jenkins
Creative Conservation Solutions
The 3rd General Assembly of the World Council of Whalers was held in the small coastal town of Nelson on the northern end of the South Island of New Zealand on 16-19 November 2000. Meetings of the Council provide a forum for whaling communities to meet and exchange views. The shared respect for cultural differences reinforces a resolve and unity among participants to achieve recognition for cetaceans to be regarded as a renewable natural resource and the right to practice whaling according to traditional values and under the management framework of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.
The meeting featured a series of presentations from representatives of indigenous and local coastal communities on the important role that cetaceans play to their respective cultures and economies and their contribution to the general health and social security of their communities. Representatives of the Government of Japan presented compelling evidence, based on the results of its scientific whaling program, for the need to manage global marine fisheries by harvesting species at all trophic levels - thereby adopting an ecosystem approach as advocated by Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The Nelson meeting was my first in-depth exposure to the impact on indigenous and local coastal communities of the protracted nature of the international debate on whaling and the inability of the International Whaling Commission to satisfactorily resolve cultural differences between its whaling and non-whaling members. I am a conservationist and practicing resource manager with more than two decades of experience and involvement in the management, sustainable use and international trade in wild animals. I share the sense of frustration that whaling communities have over the apparent reluctance of the IWC to recognize cetaceans as a renewable marine resource that is capable of being harvested sustainably.
The international debate on the commercial use of cetaceans has evolved over the last two decades to become one of the most emotive natural resource conservation issues. Objective debate on the subject has become clouded by misinformation that seeks to portray all species of large cetaceans as endangered. Rational decision-making by the IWC has been replaced by rigorously held ideologies that are deeply rooted in complex cultural differences in attitudes toward certain favoured animal species.
Caught somewhere in the midst of this seemingly intractable conflict are those indigenous and local coastal communities for whom the use of certain species of large cetacean is inexorably interwoven into the fabric of their cultures. While it is true that the IWC has approved subsistence use of certain whale species by some coastal indigenous communities according to annual quotas that are established by the Commission, not all indigenous communities are "blessed" with this provision. Furthermore, so strong is the opposition to any commercial use of cetaceans, that the IWC applies the term "subsistence use" in a highly-restrictive sense that prevents communities receiving subsistence quotas from making commercial use of by-products. As a consequence of this IWC policy, these by-products represent a waste of a valuable resource. Furthermore, and arguably more importantly, indigenous artists, artisans, and communities are robbed of the ability to promote greater understanding of their cultural heritage by trading their traditional arts and handicrafts in international markets.
This current IWC policy is imposed by the governments of a relatively small number of industrialized countries. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that this decision to prohibit the commercial use of by-products derived from whales taken for subsistence purposes by small-scale whalers living in small rural communities, appears tinged with a touch of cultural imperialism.