Re International pressure can end Japanese whaling, Otherviews, April 5: Professor David Feldman's analysis of the U.S. position with Japan on whaling is entertaining but based on some misconceptions.
True, there is no sizable whaling industry in Japan, and the supply of whale meat in the Japanese market was reduced by the moratorium on commercial whaling. However, this lack of economic muscle is hardly a good reason for Japan to sacrifice what is left of this industry.
The scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission has never considered Bryde's, sperm and minke whales endangered. As with many of the decisions and resolutions of the IWC, such as the establishment of whale sanctuaries, the zero-catch limit was set for political reasons, not economic or scientific reasons.
Similarly, most of the world's countries now support the sustainable utilization of whales.
More than half of the countries that attended the latest meetings of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora supported ``downlisting'' of the minke whale to the category allowing controlled international trade.
Feldman doubts whether the IWC can be ``reinvented'' to set, monitor and enforce catch limits for whales such as the abundant minke.
In fact, it could do just this if the United States and other nations would cooperate with countries such as Japan, Norway and Russia that want to undertake sustainable commercial whaling. Indeed, the chairman of the scientific committee resigned in protest in 1993 because the regulatory regime his committee had carefully and painstakingly drafted was blocked by the United States and others for political reasons.
The sustainable management of these marine resources is within our grasp and presents a more hopeful scenario than the current status quo.
What we can agree on is this: It doesn't make economic sense for whaling to become a tool of trade policy.
EUGENE LAPOINTE Dunedin | |||||
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