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ICELAND AND COMMERCIAL WHALING
This page has been produced in response to a number of queries received by
the IWC Secretariat. The IWC has not expressed a formal view on the issue of
Iceland’s resumption of commercial whaling. The Commission comprises over 70
countries and only expresses its view as a body through meetings of the
Commission. The information provided below is intended to provide a factual
background to this particular issue, not to express a view on it. Individual
member nations can be contacted for their views.
ICELAND’S MEMBERSHIP
In 1982, the Commission took a decision, which came into force for the 1986
and 1985/86 seasons, that catch limits for all commercial whaling would be set
to zero (i.e. the commercial whaling moratorium). A number of countries, but not
Iceland, objected to this decision. Iceland left the IWC in 1992. By 1994 the
Scientific Committee had developed and the Commission adopted the
Revised Management Procedure (RMP) for commercial whaling;
this is a scientifically robust method for calculating safe catch limits. This
has not been implemented, awaiting agreement from the Commission on the
Revised Management Scheme (RMS) which comprises additional
non-scientific matters including inspection and observation.
Iceland re-adhered to the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of
Whaling on 10 October 2002. Its instrument of adherence included a reservation
to the commercial whaling moratorium. The text of the reservation is as follows:
‘Notwithstanding this, the Government of Iceland will not authorise
whaling for commercial purposes by Icelandic vessels before 2006 and,
thereafter, will not authorise such whaling while progress is being made in
negotiations within the IWC on the RMS. This does not apply, however, in case of
the so-called moratorium on whaling for commercial purposes, contained in
paragraph 10(e) of the Schedule not being lifted within a reasonable time after
the completion of the RMS. Under no circumstances will whaling for commercial
purposes be authorised without a sound scientific basis and an effective
management and enforcement scheme.’
The reservation was not acceptable to all IWC member governments, although at
a Special Meeting of the Commission in Cambridge, UK on 14 October 2002, a
majority of governments voted to accept Iceland as a member. Further details of
Iceland’s re-adherence can be found HERE.
PRESENT STATUS OF RMS DISCUSSIONS
The Commission, while adopting the RMP, agreed not to lift the commercial
whaling moratorium until an RMS is in place to ensure that agreed catch limits
are not exceeded1. The Commission has been
working on such a regime for many years but has not yet reached agreement. At
the Commission’s 58th Annual Meeting in St. Kitts and Nevis in June 2006, the
Commission confirmed its view that discussions on the RMS remain at an impasse
and no further collective work was scheduled. It was understood, however, that
this does not prevent individual governments or groups of governments working
together on the RMS if they so choose.
IUCN CATEGORIES AND THE FIN WHALE
The IWC is not directly involved in the IUCN Red List process although some
members of its Scientific Committee participate directly or indirectly in
providing advice. Given the recent increase in queries over the classification
of fin whales, the following summary is intended to provide the interested
reader with some factual background.
A detailed description of the Red List process can be found on the
IUCN website.
The first thing to note is that at present, the classification of fin whales
applies to the species worldwide (called ‘populations’ in the very specific IUCN
terminology) not to ocean areas or ‘populations’ in the traditional biological
sense. The IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria were designed for global taxon
assessments. When applied at national or regional levels, IUCN notes that ‘it
must be recognized that a global category may not be the same as a national or
regional category for a particular taxon’, thus regional populations may be
either more or less threatened than the global assessment.
The fin whale species as a whole was classified as ‘Endangered’ under the
IUCN system in 1996 using their 1994 criteria. The classification of Endangered
can be made on the basis that the species fulfils at least one of five major and
wide ranging criteria. Its definition is:
‘A taxon is Endangered when it is not Critically Endangered but is facing
a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future, as defined by any
of the criteria ….’
It was noted2 that the current status of fin
whales ‘is poorly known in most areas outside the North Atlantic’. The
global categorisation of ‘Endangered’ was made on the basis of one of the
criteria, namely ‘an estimated decline of at least 50% worldwide over the
last three generations (assumed generation time 20-25 years)…..the greatest
decline was in the Southern Hemisphere, which had the largest original
population’. It should be noted that there will be a major review of the
IUCN Cetacean Red List in January 2007, although this will again be at the
global level.
MOST RECENT ABUNDANCE ESTIMATES OF COMMON MINKE AND FIN WHALES AROUND
ICELAND
The most recent (2001) abundance estimate of common minke whales in Icelandic
coastal waters is 43,600 (approx 95% confidence intervals of 30,100 – 63,100).
This abundance estimate was agreed by the IWC’s Scientific Committee at its
Annual Meeting in 2003.
The most recent (2001) estimate of abundance of fin whales for the area off
west Iceland (the ‘East Greenland Iceland stock’) was 25,800 (approx 95%
confidence intervals of 20,200 - 33,000). This abundance estimate was first
agreed at a joint NAMMCO/IWC Workshop in early 2006 and confirmed by the IWC
Scientific Committee at its Annual Meeting in 2006.
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