Whaling: Experts answered your questions

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Arctic natives will be banned from hunting whales for food and clothing after the International Whaling Commission voted against renewing their rights for the first time.

Japan led a rebellion against what it called the hypocrisy of anti-whaling countries after it lost a vote earlier this week to extend whaling in its own coastal areas.

Representatives of the indigenous peoples of Alaska and Russia said the ban would leave them hungry and national delegates from the US and UK accused Japan of playing politics.

This week's annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Japan has been beset by acrimonious exchanges and procedural bickering.

A delegation from Iceland walked out after its application for membership was rejected for the second year running.

What are the arguments for and against whaling? Why is there such bitter division in the ICW?

Transcript

Newshost:
Welcome to this BBC Interactive Forum on whaling. This week's meeting in Japan at the International Whaling Commission has been an acrimonious affair after Japan lost a vote to resume limited commercial whaling. Pro-whaling nations voted down for the first time the renewal of rights for American and Russian indigenous populations to hunt whales for their own consumption.

We've received hundreds of e-mails on this issue and here to answer your questions, on the phone from Japan, Kunio Yonezawa, former Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission and from Bristol Dr Sidney Holt, a whale specialist with the Mammal Society.

We can put our first question to Dr Sidney Holt. Robert Simon, USA: Why ban indigenous people from hunting? Why not impose a catch limit?

Dr. Sidney Holt :
Well there is a catch limit imposed but it has different principles from commercial whaling because it has to meet the needs of the local people who are not allowed to sell the meat or to export it or trade it in any way.

Newshost:
Mr Yonezawa, what would you say to that? Do you think a catch limit could work.

Kunio Yonezawa:
Yes catch limits are there.

Newshost:
So you actually think a catch limit would be a good thing to do?

Kunio Yonezawa:
The reason why we objected to the US proposals on bowheads, we agreed on setting quotas for other species but we voted no to setting bowhead quotas for five years.

Newshost:
SJ Francis, Warwick, England: Whaling is a key part of life for the indigenous people of the Arctic and Russia, so a complete ban affects their way of life. Why was no exception made for them?

I know Mr Yonezawa you feel that the moratorium has got it right so far but do you feel perhaps that this is too drastic and that an exception in the case of these people should be made?

Kunio Yonezawa:
Obviously the US and the Russian Federation failed to get a three-quarter majority but we didn't ban taking whales in those communities. The United States and Russian Federation can go to objection procedures so that they can continue with the present hunting. So no problem.

Newshost:
Let's put that point to Dr. Holt. What do you feel about people who really need to have an exception made in their case and that they exist solely on this way of life?

Dr. Sidney Holt :
I think this conversation is a little off the rails. They have had quotas continuously. This is the first year it has been denied and it was denied by Japan not by the other countries and there was only one reason for this. That is that Japan was taking revenge for having lost a request for a special commercial allocation for its coastal whalers. So in fact there have always been quotas for the indigenous people - of Alaska, of North of Russia and so on.

Newshost:
Ben Postans, Nottingham, UK: I can understand hunting from a tribal point of view does not pose as big a threat to numbers as commercial fishing. But how can we guarantee that people in Russia and Alaska will not kill more whales to sell on the black market?

Dr. Sidney Holt :
I think that both the Russians and the United States authorities have put in place very, very careful controls and remember this whaling is all carried out from just off their coasts, it is not at all like the commercial whaling which takes place far out to sea in the ocean or at least up to 100 miles from the coast. There's a very different problem of policing it.

Newshost:
I know that you've followed the way it's been policed for a very long time. You'd be best to answer the question from Philip Jackson, Coventry, UK: What scientific research is being done using whales and with what purpose? What has been discovered so far?

Dr. Sidney Holt :
In terms of killing whales, almost nothing has been discovered. This was a device used by Japan to continue commercial whaling under the moratorium - it is commercial. But a new argument has been made that whales are eating a lot of fish and therefore you have to kill them to look in their stomachs and see what they're eating.

Newshost:
Would that be the scientific benefit then. Stuart Innes, Scotland: What exactly are the scientific benefits of killing whales?

Dr. Sidney Holt :
It would be a scientific benefit if it were not that we already know what they're eating and how much and have known that for a very long time.

Newshost:
Jim Nixon, USA: What happens to the hundreds of whale carcases that are slaughtered by Japan, in the guise of "scientific research" after they have completed their biological studies?

Kunio Yonezawa:
Before responding to this question, I have to respond to what Dr Sidney Holt mentioned. His statement carried lots of misstatements. There is no truth in his statements. It is not Japan that killed the joint US and Russian Federation proposal on bowhead whales. We have no intentions to deny the right of a coastal people to continue hunting. It is the extreme group that killed the joint proposal. He may not know, but we have been very close at one point to come to a compromise. We've been approached by certain countries for a compromise and we are prepared to accept that but at the final minute we were told that a compromise was not acceptable to those radical countries.

Newshost:
Ewan Edwards, Aberdeen, Scotland: How can Japan justify catching so many minke whales in its "scientific whaling" program? Is it really just a con to allow them to continue catching whales in the hope that the IWC will back down further and allow them to extend their whaling programme?

Kunio Yonezawa:
As I mentioned earlier, the moratorium lost its validity in 1991 when the scientific committee unanimously adopted the revised management procedure and the commission is procrastinating on finalising. The commission adopted RMP in 1993 but procrastinated on the implementation for that scheme for 10 years. So the moratorium lost its validity for almost 10 years now. There is no reason why we cannot take a certain amount of whales out of the very robust population.

The reason the moratorium was arranged was that we are short of scientific information for the safe management of whale resources. Our scientific research is intended to provide essential scientific information to manage the whale population. Secondly, the scientific information is to understand the role of the whale species in the eco-system so that we can maintain the eco-system in a good shape. The scientific research is intended for this and other purposes.

Newshost:
Do you agree that there is a robust whale population?

Dr. Sidney Holt :
I agree the whale population is robust but I'm afraid the argument that's just been made is completely false.

First of all the commission is not procrastinating over the science, it's procrastinating over management and that includes especially things like an international observer or inspection scheme which everyone knows is absolutely essential but which the whaling countries have been dragging their feet on. This year particularly, it's become crucial because in the past, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we knew that the Russian whalers in the Antarctic had been cheating and fiddling the statistics. This year, from Japanese scientists and from a manager of a Japanese whaling operating, have produced documents showing that the Japanese whaling operations have been fiddling the statistics for many years. This makes it absolutely essential that there is an international observer scheme before there is any lifting of the moratorium.

Newshost:
So you need balance. We have a question from Jerry Wachter from Richmond, USA: Is there really any way to balance the needs of coastal fishing communities with the need to protect the whale species?

Do you think that we can achieve that balance?

Dr. Sidney Holt :
If by coastal whaling we mean commercial whaling, not the whaling by indigenous people, yes, of course that can be done. But it has to follow the same rules as oceanic whaling exactly. If the whales are there, then there should be quotas but that has to be in the context of a serious properly monitored management scheme and it's that that is lacking. The moratorium was set up not just to get the science right but to get the management right as well as to give the whales the chance to recover.

Newshost:
Hasan Kozan, Boulder, Colorado, USA: I have seen polls that show over 90% of the worlds people believe that whaling should be banned. When will the world governments and organisations start listening to the people?

Kunio Yonezawa:
Before responding to that question. Let me respond to what Sidney Holt said. There was a lot of misinformation in it. Whether we should allow the hunting of whales depends totally on the status of the whale population whether the purpose is for economic purposes or otherwise. The point is that we need to implement what we have agreed 10 years ago as soon as possible and he says the Japanese are procrastinating on the international observer scheme. On the contrary, there is a precedent in the international observer scheme as we see in other parts of the world, that those extreme countries are introducing extremely unrealistic proposals year after year. They didn't propose it at once but they changed the proposals year after year so that they could drag on the discussions.

Newshost:
Guy Harris, Christchurch, New Zealand: Should we disband the IWC?

Do you think that the IWC is working?

Kunio Yonezawa:
The IWC is not working because of the majority group. The majority group does not respect the provisions of the International Whaling Convention, the Law of the Sea Convention Agenda 21 or scientific fact.

Newshost:
Dr. Holt do you think the IWC is working? Can I extend the question: Guy Harris went on to say: Should we be trying to put international laws for the protection of endangered whales and dolphins in place that have got nothing to do with IWC? Should we see another body formed?

Dr. Sidney Holt:
I think right now we have to try to make the IWC work. It could work, but there's no doubt that it is not working well at present. There is at present no alternative but we have to bring law and order back into whaling. What is happening right now is whaling is completely out of control - Japan catches what it likes - any special, endangered species and Norway is doing the same thing.

We have to get it under international control and that can only be for the moment under the IWC. The IWC has some very good things going for it - it's got sanctuaries, It has got at least a regulatory system in the pipeline - the problem is to get it through the pipeline and into effect - then we can look at whether we need something better than the IWC. I think eventually we do need something better that's more in line with modern thought about whales and their values which are not just as meat but in other ways like tourism as so on and in terms of the current law of the sea which has changed since the IWC was set up. But for the moment we have to keep the IWC and make it work.