Ministerial Conference on
Environment and Development
in Asia and the Pacific 2000
Kitakyushu, Japan 31 August - 5 September 2000
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A new look at whaling
Whaling represents one of the world’s worst environmental failures, yet it has become a remarkable success story in the Pacific sub-region. From the middle of the last Century until the 1980’s whales were hunted to the brink of extinction. As the whale herds in the North Atlantic and North Pacific vanished, the hunt turned, in earnest, to Antarctic waters. By the 1940’s the Blue, Right and Grey whales were on the verge of extinction. Although their demise was forecast in the 1930’s there was no attempt at management of the whale hunt until, in 1946, the 46 whaling countries of the world formed the voluntary International Whaling Commission. Despite efforts at regulation, the whales continued to decline. In 1963, the humpback was protected. In 1965 the blue whale was protected. In 1979 factory ships were banned. In the early 1980s the quota set for all species world wide was 14,500 and sperm whales were totally protected. By then, almost all member nations had given up whaling, except for the USSR, which terminated all whaling operations after the 1987 season following the 1986 IWC ban on all commercial fishing. Iceland, suspended whaling operations in 1989 and Japan formally ended commercial whaling but continued to hunt whales for scientific purposes (the wale meat is sold to pay the scientific costs).
In 1994, the IWC banned whaling permanently south of Africa, Australia and South America, making the whole of Antarctic waters a Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. In all, an estimated 1,400,000 whales were killed in Antarctic waters and all species except, perhaps the small Minke whales, were hunted to the edge of extinction. New Zealand and Australia are working towards the creation of a South Pacific Whale Sanctuary to adjoin the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. In August 1998 the South Pacific Forum members voted in support of the proposal. In 1999, Japan, which continues to hunt whales in Antarctica despite the sanctuary, announced it would oppose the proposition. The whaling industry thus represents one of the worst examples of environmental degradation in the Pacific. Cooperation for management of whale stocks produced minimal results. Most of the countries quit whaling simply because whale products were replaced with less expensive alternatives and whales were simply too costly to find as their numbers declined. Russia was able to continue only because of government subsidies. Japan continues to hunt whales because the meat is a high-value luxury item in Japan. The 1990’s saw the development of a whole new whale industry with widespread cooperation for environmental management. Whales are again an extremely valuable commercial species in the South Pacific – but this time, they are valued for the tourism industry. In New South Wales, Australia, more than 50 ship operators conduct cetacean-based tourism activities. These range from watching humpback whales and dolphins in Merimbula to sea kayaking with dolphins in Byron Bay. The industry is worth about US$ 6,000,000 a year in New South Wales. A bevy of laws protect the rights of the cetaceans from overzealous tourism operators. It is against Australian Federal whale-watching guidelines to swim with dolphins or whales except with carefully regulated and licensed tourism operators. The Commonwealth imposes fines up to $100,000 and jail terms for killing, injuring, or deliberately interfering with whales or dolphins. Whale watching is also important for the Pacific island countries, especially Hawaii, New Zealand, Tonga, the Cook Islands, American Samoa and New Caledonia. SPREP’s Marine Mammals Conservation Programme, in collaboration with Whales Alive (an NGO), hosted a sub-regional workshop for whale watching operators and guides in Tonga. Participants from American Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, Niue and Tonga attended the course to trial and revise whale watching guidelines for the region. SPREP also produced a field guide to marine mammals of the South Pacific and a baseline review of the knowledge and issues for marine mammal conservation in the region. SPREP estimates that whale watching is now worth T$1 million a year to Tonga. Australia and the Pacific Islands Forum are now discussing a South Pacific Whale Sanctuary.
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