IFAW Briefing note on implications of proposals in

IWC 62-7 issued on 22 April 2010

This briefing addresses issues where the text of the proposal has changed since IWC-
M10-SWG4. Other concerns that remain include the suspension of the moratorium
and Southern Ocean Sanctuary. In addition, the provisions for DNA registers and
market surveys preclude any independent or transparent comparison of samples that
would make them genuinely useful in helping to identify and quantify illegal and
unreported catches.

Catch limits and sustainability

The proposed new paragraph 33 states that “All catch limits in this table [4] shall be
set at or below sustainable levels as determined by the most recent versions of the
IWC’s Scientific Committee’s Revised Management Procedure, Strike Limit
Algorithms for indigenous whaling, or, where the results of these are not available,
best available science.”

Unfortunately the Revised Management Procedure (RMP) is not referenced (for

example by citing the published version), hence virtually any approach to determining
catch limits could be portrayed as a “latest version of the RMP”. It is left ambiguous
who would decide what counts as the latest version of the RMP, and who would
implement it (or choose not to implement it). In comments on the previous
proposals1, the UK had suggested Schedule text2 that would have resolved this
ambiguity3 and made it clear that any catch limits should be calculated by the
Scientific Committee according to the agreed RMP specification. Although appearing
to be scientifically based, maintaining the ambiguity in the current proposals allows
catch limits to be based on political decisions.

Currently, the Scientific Committee is not authorized to calculate RMP catch limits.
Results from the RMP are “not available” until calculated. If the Scientific
Committee may not calculate them, then results remain “unavailable” until some other
body, such as the IWC Secretariat, choose to calculate them, but it remains at their
discretion whether they do so, which tuning they use, which “version” and what data
are used. The procedure to be followed is unspecified and not transparent. This could
also have been addressed by incorporating the text in the UK proposal and thus that
the Scientific Committee should undertake the calculations.

The version of the RMP used in the Scientific Committee’s Implementation Trials to
date is the published version with the tuning of 0.72 specified by the Commission and
agreed by consensus. Any catch limits calculated using another tunings would not
have been fully tested and are potentially unsafe. Some catch limits in Table 4 are
above the limits that emerge from the version of the RMP used by the Scientific

1
IWC-M10-SWG4
2
Letter of 31 March 2010 to IWC Secretary www.iwcoffice.org/_documents/commission/future/IWC-
A10-SG1.pdf
3
The proposed text was ‘catch limits shall have been calculated by the Scientific Committee in
accordance with the Revised Management Procedure published in the Journal of Cetacean
Research and Management (Suppl.) 1:251-254’
Committee with the agreed population estimates. It is not clear how these can be
reconciled with the stipulation in Para 33 that the limits not exceed sustainable levels
as determined by the RMP. To eliminate the ambiguity it would be necessary to
specify that the RMP limits be calculated by the Scientific Committee, to authorize
the Committee to calculate them, and to leave the entries in table 4 at zero pending the
results of the calculations.

Under the proposal, the Scientific Committee’s work programme on RMP

Implementations is to continue, but it is not clear at what point, if any, any results
from this will feed back into catch limit decisions, or whether the work is merely a
decoy. As things currently stand, the Committee will calculate no catch limits, but
others would be free to do so on an opportunistic basis, possible using “versions” or
tunings of the RMP that differ from those used by the Scientific Committee in its
Implementations trials. However, sustainability is only guaranteed if the same
version is used for the trials that determine how the RMP will be implemented and for
the catch limit calculations.

The proposals in paragraph 33 make no reference to other human induced sources of

mortality such as bycatch. The IWC had previously agreed that catch limits for
whaling should be adjusted such that total human induced mortality did not exceed
RMP catch limits. In particular, minke whales in the North Pacific are subject to a
high level of bycatch and the current proposals make no provision for this to be
included in setting catch limits, resulting in the risk that total removals are
unsustainable.

Comments on the numbers in Table 4

The numbers in Table 4 do not represent any agreement and are stated as ‘without
prejudice to what might be agreed for the post-2020 period’. Therefore these are still
subject to negotiation and the proposals make no provision for catch levels beyond 2020.
However, particular concerns about sustainability would be raised by catches of 120
minke whales per year around the coast of Japan, and catches of 80 fin whales in West
Iceland. In the former case there is a large bycatch that has not been taken into account,
and in the latter case this only appears consistent with the RMP if more research is
undertaken and to date no research proposal has been proposed. There also appear to be
errors in the specification of the eastern Atlantic small areas for minke whales which need
to be resolved.

Regarding the issue of whether the proposal reduces numbers of whales killed, the
numbers aren't yet agreed, but even the example placeholder numbers by the chairman
hardly amount to a reduction. These figures don't include the Japanese and Korean "by-
catch" which the proposal does nothing to address anyway. These chairman's numbers
total 1839 per year (for the first 5 years) versus 1863 calculated by adding up the most
recent available figures. This is a very tiny reduction, and not in the more vulnerable
stocks.

International trade and domestic use

Paragraph 38 (which remains in square brackets because of no agreement among the
Small Working Group) proposes that ‘Use of any meat or products derived from any
whale taken in accordance with Table 4, or taken under any other circumstances, shall be
limited to domestic use in the country or territory that authorised such take, and/or under
whose jurisdiction such take occurred.’ To the extent to which it applies to whaling in
waters under national jurisdiction, this would bring the IWC into line with the
provisions of CITES. However this text would not fully implement CITES provisions
because products from whales caught in international waters are defined as
international trade in CITES even if all the products are consumed in the flag state of
the whaling fleet.