| The Future of the IWC Must Be Decided Now |
| IWMC-World Conservation Trust extends its
most sincere complements to our most gracious hosts, the government and
people of Grenada. Their wonderful island is a perfect setting for
the serious issues we have come to debate. Among the most serious
is the future of IWC itself. Since its creation on December 2, 1946,
IWC has come to mean many things to many people. This year’s agenda is
a perfect example. There are items addressing whale watching, whale sanctuaries,
and small cetaceans. These things are interesting. But, they have
nothing to do with the regulation of whaling.
The International Whaling Commission’s original mission – to provide for the conservation of whale stocks while providing an orderly development of the whaling industry – appears to have been misplaced, accidentally or intentionally, during the intervening 53 years. Talk among member delegations is more about halting whaling entirely than regulating whaling as an industry. For the past decade, important issues regarding the regulation and resumption of whaling – the Revised Management Procedure (RMP) and the Revised Management Scheme (RMS) – have been postponed ad infinitum. Even the outline agenda for this meeting refers to “tuning” the RMP. IWC has been “tuning” the RMP and RMS for nearly ten years. It’s time to gather the courage to play the music or cancel the concert all together. Today, here at the 51st meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Grenada, it is time to chart the future of IWC once and for all. It’s time to be honest with whaling communities and nations and with the world and state exactly what IWC is. If the intention of the IWC is to abandon its original mission and oppose whaling in any form, then it should be so stated by a declaration to the world that IWC is changing its middle name from “Whaling” to “Whale.” IWC must not waste the world’s time nit picking over how humane killing any living food resource can be (an issue that rings of the grade-school theological question: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?). Or, the state of whale watching. Or picking names for the humane killing working group. Or turning the oceans into museums via sanctuaries. The wasteful days of unregulated and environmentally unsound whaling
are past. The people and nations who whale are talking about subsistence
and traditional whaling. They are talking about taking whales for food.
Quibbling over whether one nation sells a portion of its catch to another
is semantics nothing more.
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