There are times when it makes sense to step back from a seemingly impossible situation, and take stock of those conditions that appear unlikely to be resolved by additional polite and rational talking. Apparently, this is the step that Japan is taking after more than two decades of trying to change the positions of other Parties to the IWC about the issue of resumption of commercial whaling. When faced with the argument of "scientific uncertainty" regarding the unknown dimensions of the health of whale stocks, Japan initiated programs of scientific research on whales that were intended, as much as could ever be possible, to remove those uncertainties. The IWC Scientific Committee itself finally developed the Revised Management Procedure, widely lauded by the global scientific community as appropriate to assessing all factors that could or would likely affect whale stocks now and in the foreseeable future.

Threatened by the possibility that science would provide justification for resumption, the IWC moved to insert the necessity of a Revised Management Scheme into the IWC protocol so that further delays to whaling could be implemented indefinitely. The Berlin Initiative is the last straw in an overload of duplicity that has finally broken the back of an IWC formed to provide for the conservation of whale stocks and the benefit of the whaling industry. It has finally been recognized that these two organizational goals are never going to be implemented under the social and political conditions that prevail in today's International Whaling Commission.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Japan may leave the IWC in order to spend productive energy on an alternative organization. Such a body would actually carry out the dual goals of whale management and active direction of a resumed, scientifically and socially justified commercial whaling industry. According to Mr. Akira Nakamae, councillor to the Japanese Fisheries Ministry, the idea is already a plan. Mr. Nakamae announced this bombshell while his delegation was attending the Southern Bluefin Tuna conference in New Zealand, in early October. There might be an extended version of NAMMCO, or an altogether new organization, and decisions on the details shall be made before IWC meets in Italy, next July. Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands constitute NAMMCO at present. The NAMMCO model for marine mammal management has been very successful in the North Atlantic, due to the common interests and diplomatic relationships among the members, and the fact that anti-whaling nations have no part in the decision making processes of this organization.

True to its tradition of serious attempts at negotiation and diplomacy, Japan will try once again to convince the IWC to change course, but when this fails, the rival organization shall become reality. Then the power structure of the IWC shall have lost its major adversary, and the remaining Parties can, in the absence of further conflict, decide what to do with their plans for whale watching, dolphin protection, and media relations. Their embarrassment shall be coated over with loud pronouncements that Japan has destroyed the IWC, and doomed whales to extinction. This ridiculous posture is not expected to result in anything of global importance. There will be no further means for anti-whaling nations to prevent Japan and eventually, Iceland from pursuing their goals of science based whale harvest on any stocks that are judged capable of a sustainable take. Although we don't know what Iceland may decide to do when this goes down, we think it would be folly for Iceland to remain in IWC as the only whipping boy left. Nor can we predict what Norway, the Caribbean nations, or Denmark may do when Japan leaves the IWC. It would seem reasonable to expect that those nations whose sustainable whaling is important to their environment and to their citizens, shall now turn their faces to a more promising future of rational discourse based on science and issues of economic and social justice.

IWMC shares the hope of modern whaling nations that a new beginning can be made which shall demonstrate their integrity, scientific expertise, and sovereign determination to the world. Whales have not been the subject of much of the polarity in IWC. The subject has been the power to deny some Parties their sovereign rights under the ICRW. Original goals to save the whales have long been subverted in political intrigue, anti-whaling NGO rhetoric, and sometimes, an apparent willingness to exhibit power for its own sake. This is all going to come to an end, and we feel strongly that the global marine environment, and the future of many coastal peoples, shall be better for it.