August 17, 2004

What Are Whales For?

What happens after an international environmental policy seems to have worked? Do we return to old habits now that the crisis, maybe, has passed? How do we resolve different cultural practices, and varied economic needs?

What if someone just wants to eat whale?

As Andrew Revkin writes in today's New York Times, this scenario is being played out right now, as member nations of the International Whaling Commission (IOC) contemplate data suggesting that some whale populations have recovered enough to resume hunting.

  • Several members of the IOC--those nations that have long included whale in their diets, and resisted the moratoriums--say some whales have recovered. They are advocating small hunts, and the growing use of language like "whale stocks" (think: salmon stocks) suggests that they are gaining ground.

  • Biologists are forced to consider whether or not sustainable whale hunts are possible, whatever their personal feelings might be. And they worry at the tendency of humans to turn small hunts into industrial-strength depredations.

  • Activists point out that the data is suspect, and that there is no way to humanely hunt and kill a whale. Many simply feel that it's immoral to kill whales.

  • The phenomenal growth in whale-related eco-tourism over the past few decades suggests that whales may indeed be a "special case," of particular fascination to humans and thus worth more to us alive than dead.

    Some of the typical dualities and alliances often encountered in environmental policy debates--East vs. West, industrial vs. developing, indigenous + activist vs. "Modern" --are turned on their ears in this arena, where Japan is allied with European whaling nations, indigenous peoples want to preserve the whale-hunting traditions of their cultures despite (what they see as) Western eco-sentimentality and activist hubris, and many communities--including some in the Nordic countries--have come to rely on the tourist dollars whale-watching brings in, even as their governments advocate ending the moratorium.

    Personally, I'm generally with the Western eco-sentimentalists on this one--and from what I've read, the data being used to promote the hunt is not good science--but I have to acknowledge that this is my bias.

    In 1997, as environmental news editor at OregonLive, I followed the news on the Makah whale hunt. This Native community on the coast of Washington had voluntarily given up their gray whale hunt in the 1920s, after industrial whaling drove the gray to near-extinction. The gray was taken off the endangered species list in 1994, and with the whales rebounding, the Makah felt that the time had come to hunt again. Restoring their traditional whale hunt was essential to their cultural survival...if only they could figure out how to do it.

    Some activists tried to intervene, or as the Makah felt, interfere. Ultimately most of the Big Green groups simply declined to take a stand one way or another, rather than take a position against an indigenous people.

    It forced me to think hard about my own assumptions, and the results remain extremely uncomfortable. Is it ok for the Makah to hunt a whale, but not the Japanese or the Norweigans? Is the argument of scale (the Makah take a couple whales at most a year) relevant to the ethical question of whether it's ok to kill a whale?

    I highly recommend Robert Sullivan's book A Whale Hunt, about the 1997 Makah hunt.

    Hurrah if some whale populations of the world are healthy again--that is the goal, right? But does this mean that the hunt should resume?

    Posted by Emily at August 17, 2004 03:40 PM