Editorial: IWC discord plays into whalers' bloodied hands

OPINION: The politics that surround whaling can be as vicious as the slaughter at the heart of it.

The two sides have been locked in a standoff for years, a reality confirmed by the latest failure to achieve a deal at the International Whaling Commission's meeting in Agadir.

That may be inevitable. The two sides are split by an irreconcilable difference: the Japanese believe they have the right to sail to the Southern Ocean and harpoon nearly a thousand whales a year. New Zealand, Australia and many other countries believe they do not.

The Japanese are reluctant to have a list of what they can and cannot eat dictated to them. Many in Japan regard whaling as important in asserting their right to fish where they want in international waters, and whales as a resource to exploit sustainably. They will catch whatever they can within the letter of the law, even if it means delivering whale meat to the tables of Japan by exploiting shamelessly a loophole excluding scientific research from the moratorium on commercial whaling.

New Zealand, like the other nations opposed to any whaling, regards whales as creatures that deserve complete protection. The ideal is that no whale should be harpooned anywhere.

However, international relations is about the achievable, not the ideal. As Susan Lieberman, of the anti-whaling Pew Environment Group, which was open to a deal, noted: "I ... would rather there were no whaling but wishing something were true doesn't make it true."

Opponents of the New Zealand position of accepting the possibility of a deal allowing some commercial whaling worldwide saw it as legitimising the killing. They argued it ran the risk of giving the Japanese an incentive to continue when falling demand for whale meat, the rising cost of the programme and the international opprobrium whaling attracts make quitting ever more attractive. Supporters saw a compromise as a way of saving at least some whales. According to some reports, the Japanese were looking at reducing the number killed in the Southern Ocean to an average of 300 a year over 10 years - still disgraceful, but a drop that would have meant more than 6000 fewer whales killed over the decade.

That is all now irrelevant, and New Zealand has little option but to follow Australia down the legal path, and seek to bring the disgusting slaughter to a halt through the International Court of Justice.

That is not ideal either. Success is uncertain. It will take years – some estimate up to a decade – to wind its way from beginning to end, and during those years the Japanese are likely to be able to continue operations. Then there is the danger that, without the compromise deal, the IWC will collapse completely, and the Japanese will slaughter as many whales as they want.

The sad truth is there are no good options for those who want whaling to stop – and whales will pay the price for that.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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