Time for an Alternative Whale Management Org

Time for an Alternative Whale Management Organization

The World Council of Whalers today called for a new organization to manage and regulate the commercial hunting of abundant whale populations.

“It is clear that after decades of unsuccessful quarrelling through the Whaling Commission, no-one can find a way to compromise, which would pave the way for the orderly development of sustainable commercial whaling,” the founding chairman of the World Council of Whalers, Tom Mexsis Happynook, said from Canada.

Mr Happynook said that, currently, the mandate as set out in the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) was not being met, and it was time to explore possibilities of whaling nations managing sustainable commercial whaling through other means.

“The passing of the so-called Berlin Initiative at this year’s meeting in Germany to strengthen the conservation agenda of the IWC is an example of two groups talking past each other – one thinking conservation meant total protection of all whale stocks regardless of abundance, while the other seeking regulated and monitored sustainable commercial whaling.”

Mr Happynook said that whalers of the world were united in the knowledge that the Whaling Commission’s mandate was to bring about “the orderly development of the whaling industry” to manage sustainable commercial whaling.

“An alternative management organization to the IWC is a very real solution to the continued disrespect for whaling people’s social, cultural, economic and food requirements that is prevalent at the IWC. This suffering cannot continue,” he said. “The World Council of Whalers – supported by the world’s indigenous and coastal whaling people’s – believes credible regional alternatives to the current dysfunctional international system must now come to the fore.”

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