All this was played out over the last three days of IWC 54 in Shimonoseki, but everyone there knew that it was not really about concern over Bowhead whales. The problem was a bitter IWC history of denial of traditional resources to Japanese coastal whalers, whose north pacific Minke whale stocks number 25,000, and whose government had been asking for an interim relief quota of 50 whales per year, to be granted until the moratorium on commercial whaling shall be lifted. This was the 16^th year that such a request had been made, and once again, it was turned down by a vote in the IWC, whose majority members oppose any resumption of commercial whaling, and who will do everything possible to prevent a lifting of the moratorium, as Mike Tillman said in Monocco, "regardless of the science".

When considered in biological terms, the two stocks are very different. Minke whales reproduce faster than do Bowhead, they are indisputably more numerous, and North Pacific Minkes outnumber the total population of Bowhead; estimates are 25,000 Minke to 10,000 Bowhead.

When considered in political terms, the Japanese have for years had to suffer the political and human consequences of IWC denial of resources to their four coastal communities, in which there is ample documentation of economic and cultural distress since the moratorium went into effect. The traditional level of commercial whaling activity in those villages was approximately the same as is seen in towns and the few larger cities in southern Greenland, where a quota of large whales is granted to Greenland Inuit under aboriginal subsistence conditions. In Greenland, surplus whale product is sold in supermarkets and small stores, after hunters' families and local communities have had their fill of whale meat and blubber. Further, it is rumored that in northern Alaska, some sale of whale product is also taking place, causing some nervous embarrassment among the US delegation, who had been ready to declare that it doesn't matter, since all the product sold stays within Alaska. Yet, we note, the same level of commercialism exists in Greenland today as did in coastal Japan prior to the moratorium, yet no one at IWC has brought this up for public discussion, because aboriginal subsistence whaling is supposed to be entirely free of "commercial elements". The reality is much different.

Protectionist NGOs are nervous, because they know that anti-whaling nations plan to deny Japan's request forever, and will stall indefinitely in order to prevent the RMS from ever being finalized. NGOs had until now, felt confident that the impasse at IWC would just go on forever, with no progress towards approval of commercial whaling, because anti-whaling nations are afraid of the NGO-driven media backlash they would suffer at home, if they ever voted otherwise. These NGOs never dreamed that they might be accused of causing an impasse that would ultimately deny Inuit their subsistence quotas.

This year, Japan and other pro-whaling nations denied consensus, pointedly and only, to the US and Russia for their natives' Bowheads, in retribution for the repeated denial of Minke resources to Japan's coastal villages. Government of Japan officials knew that neither nation would actually forbid their natives from taking their Bowhead quotas. Consensus was reached on great whale quotas for the Caribbean, for Greenland, Russia for gray whales, and for the Makah Indians in Washington state. (There are 26,000 gray whales available to the Makah, who would be allowed only 5 per year).

The point was further driven home when Japan's delegation announced that if the IWC would grant Japan's villages a reduced interim allowance of 25, not 50, north pacific Minkes, that Japan would then agree to a US/Russian Bowhead quota by consensus. This deal was not accepted by the US and Euro-Australian-New Zealand-Latin American block, leading to the denial of the quota for Bowhead whales.

Siberian and Alaskan natives will get their whales next spring, when their quota is due for renewal. Domestic decrees will grant them, if the IWC does not do so via postal vote or some other method, before then. Japanese coastal villages will receive their Minke whales, and the number will be 100, not 25 or 50. They will be delivered after the usual scientific research on their bodies and their stomach contents is completed by the government research fleet that plys the waters around Japan each year. Other species will be added, and there will be enough whale meat to keep the villages viable.

In the IWC, the environment is solidly bipartisan. Consensus on aboriginal subsistence quotas for Alaskan and Siberian Inuit may never happen again. Additional members are being sought by each side, because this is now a war for enough votes to grant or deny access to traditional resources, whether they be traditionally or commercially distributed after they are landed. The Revised Management Scheme will have to be decided by a 3/4 majority vote, and both sides are determined to control the outcome. Science has taken a back seat to politics, traditional diplomacy has disappeared, and there is no trust that agreements made among nations in private will be acted upon in good faith. Either governments will take back their sovereign powers through renewal of relationships, or they will remain estranged through fear of the attacks of environmentalist NGOs. Perhaps the showdown happened because IWC 54 was held in Shimonoseki. Perhaps it would have happened, regardless. Next year, in Berlin, the hard feelings will continue the struggle to deny access to whale resources, ignoring principles of resource sustainability and ICRW treaty mandates regarding human needs.