Examentrainers

1	1		It is time to take the first big step towards lifting the ban on commercial whaling. It
	2		needs to be done this week - and offers the best hope of saving whales.
2	3		Many environmentalists privately support this apparent paradox. They admit, also in
	4		private, that the scientific basis for the moratorium¹, which came into effect in 1986, has
	5		collapsed. But few say it publicly, for the fight against whaling has achieved a symbolic and
	6		emotional status far exceeding its ecological significance.
3	7		The bitterness of the dispute provoked by this difference between private belief and
	8		public positioning is almost unprecedented, even in the hot-headed world of green
	9		campaigning. The row over whether to accept a new system for calculating quotas for
	10		killing whales, paving the way for the moratorium to be lifted, will come to a head
	11		tomorrow when the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which regulates world
	12		whaling, meets in Mexico.
4	13		Greenpeace, which helped to lead the campaign that originally won the ban, has
	14		been bitterly attacked for suggesting in an internal document that it did not oppose
	15		commercial whaling 'in principle': it hurriedly backed down. The World Wide Fund for
	16		Nature and the International Fund for Animal Welfare have also had to undertake
	17		damage-limitation exercises after being attacked for failing to voice total opposition to the
	18		new quota.
5	19		And yet whaling is a relatively unimportant environmental issue. Green groups
	20		know that it raises money. Politicians love it because it enables them to look good at no
	21		cost. But whaling pales into insignificance beside such global threats as the greenhouse
	22		effect, thinning of the ozone layer, felling of the world's forests and erosion of its topsoil - not
	23		to speak of the predicted extinction over the next decade of a million species.
6	24		No one pretends, for instance, that minke whales, the only species at risk from
	25		commercial hunting, are endangered. There are at least 800,000 of them, mainly in the seas
	26		around Antarctica. Under the new quota proposals less than 2,500 would be killed each
	27		year.
7	28		There are other reasons for protecting whales. Killing them is cruel: nearly a tenth
	29		take more than 10 minutes to die. Whaling is also hard to control: Russia recently admitted
	30		that its fleet killed more than twice as many whales as allowed by IWC quotas over several
	31		decades, and slaughtered hundreds of protected blue, humpback and right whales in the
	32		process. Whaling employs few people, yields only a luxury food and has to be heavily
	33		subsidised. The giant creatures are worth much more alive than dead; whale-watching
	34		tourism brings in more than £200m a year.
8	35		The moratorium was agreed, after centuries of slaughter which drove most species
	36		close to extinction, because conservationists convinced the world that the methods used to
	37		calculate quotas were unsound. It was supposed to hold until the IWC's scientific
	38		committee had developed a better system. This has now been done. Dr Sidney Holt - one
	39		of the longest-serving scientists on the committee who did much to bring about the
	40		moratorium - says: 'Practically speaking, the original scientific justification is no longer
	41		valid.'
9	42		If the new system is accepted in Mexico this week, the first step will be taken
	43		towards lifting the ban. Paradoxically, this offers the best chance of saving whales. For it
	44		will make it easier to get agreement on a proposal, put forward by conservationist nations
	45		on the IWC, to make the Southern Ocean around Antarctica a sanctuary where all killing
	46		would be permanently prohibited.
10	47		Whatever happens in Mexico, the arguments will rage on, adding to the immense
	48		amount of time, money and energy that has been spent-on this relatively minor
	49		environmental issue over the past 15 years. If half of these resources had been diverted to
	50		combating ecological crises that really do threaten the world, maybe it would already be a
	51		safer place - for whales as well as people.

Geoffrey Lean in the 'Independent on Sunday', May 22, 1994

¹ moratorium: official agreement to stop a particular activity for some time