The Long Battle for the Whales: Page 3 Endangered Species Handbook

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The Long Battle for the Whales: Page 3

As one of the wealthiest countries in the world, Norway has profited from rich offshore oil reserves, and has a highly educated, liberal society. As the world's second largest oil exporter, it earns so much revenue that the government has been setting aside about $8.2 billion a year (AP 1997). It does not have an economic need for whaling income. The Prime Minister who first endorsed Norwegian whaling, Gro Brundtland, was known as a "Green" world leader, preaching environmental concern and backing strong national legislation to preserve Norway's environment. As a conserver of marine life, however, Norway has recently proven to be wasteful and destructive. Its centuries-old fishery has collapsed, putting thousands of employees out of work, and causing resentment among a population dependent on Atlantic Cod as a dietary and economic mainstay.

As a totally flawed and specious argument, Norway explained its return to whaling by stating it was needed to allow cod to recover. A 1990 report by the Norwegian Fisheries Ministry concluded that the Atlantic Cod catch would jump 5.6 percent the year following a kill of 1,700 Minke Whales, and higher employment would result (Bright 1991). Other Norwegian researchers have suggested that causing actual extinctions of marine mammals would increase fisheries value by 150 percent! (Bright 1991). Olaf Flaaten, a Norwegian professor who advised Brundtland, described marine mammals in 1988 as "vermin," causing great losses of fishes, citing Minke Whales and Harp Seals as the worst offenders. Apparently, Norway has been conducting control operations of marine mammals for some time. At least 60,000 Harp Seals died in Norwegian fish nets in 1987, taken intentionally (Bright 1991). A Norwegian seal hunt killed 14,000 seals in 1989, and Harp Seal populations in the Barents Sea have been halved since the early 1980s (Bright 1991). Scientists from the IWC and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) have called the theory that fish populations will be increased by killing marine mammals totally baseless (Bright 1991). The underlying cause of the fisheries collapse is overfishing of Atlantic Cod and other fish and their prey, Capelin and Atlantic Herring. In 1996, 10 tons of whale meat were allegedly smuggled from Norway to Japan, and the same year, Norway announced that it would increase the kill of North Atlantic Minke Whales to 425, almost double 1995's catch. Minke Whale meat is sold in Norwegian markets, and the country plans to begin exporting it--in defiance of CITES--to other countries that have taken reservations on whale listings (Chadwick 2001).

The views of Norwegians who endorse slaughter of marine mammals may not reflect the consensus of the Norwegian public. In 1995 a Norwegian newspaper, Oslo Arbeiderbladet, representing the Prime Minister's own Labor Party, editorialized: "The Norwegian battle to gain international acceptance for whaling is already lost. The sooner we realize this, the better. The only argument that could be used to defend the whaling, namely that the science is on our side, is no longer valid. The so-called 'secure' figures of Norway were shown to be based on wrong figures and mistakes in the data programs." The editorial concluded that Norway must stop whaling if it wishes to be taken seriously as an environmentally concerned nation. Some Norwegian whalers, however, claim that whaling does not differ from cod or herring fishing, and that whales are just "big mountains of meat" (Gibbs 1997).

The United States chose not to punish Norway for its illegal whaling. In Section 8 of the U.S. Fisherman's Protective Act, the "Pelly Amendment" permits the President to embargo any and all fisheries products from countries whose nationals have engaged in taking a marine resource in such a manner as to "diminish the effectiveness of an international fishery conservation program." In 1979, an additional sanction was voted into law, the Packwood-Magnuson Amendment. This amends the Fishery Conservation and Management Act to cut fish allocations by half on certification by the Secretary of Commerce that a nation has violated the provisions of the Pelly Amendment. If a nation persists, all fishing rights are canceled. For Norway, its exports of fisheries products to the United States are considerable, amounting to more than $140 million each year. The Secretary of Commerce took the initial action of certifying Norway under the Pelly Amendment, but President Bill Clinton chose not to place an embargo on its fishery exports to the United States. In a letter to Congress in October 1993, President Clinton said the United States’ objectives could best to achieved by "delaying the implementation of sanctions until we have exhausted all good-faith efforts to persuade Norway to follow agreed conservation measures." Prime Minister Brundtland came to the United States and successfully lobbied to prevent economic sanctions against Norway. Before leaving office in 2001, President Clinton decided not to impose import restrictions on Japan under the Pelly Amendment for expanding its "scientific" whaling to include Bryde’s and Sperm Whales.