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Protecting whales by distorting uncertainty: non-precautionary mismanagement?
Fisheries Research 52 (2001) 217±225
Protecting whales by distorting uncertainty: non-precautionary mismanagement? Tore Schweder* Department of Economics, University of Oslo, Box 1095, Blindern 0317, Oslo 3, Norway Received 15 July 1998; received in revised form 8 February 1999; accepted 25 July 2000
Abstract Precautionary management is based on science, and is incompatible with large ¯uctuations in the management regime. Whaling is managed by the International Whaling Commission, and has seen large ¯uctuations. It is argued that both the period of intense Antarctic whaling and the current period of protectionism have been unduly prolonged by scientists expanding out of proportion the uncertainty surrounding management issues. In the 1950s, uncertainty concerning ®n whale stock status and trend was consistently distorted from one quarter, and in the 1990s a minority in the Scienti®c Committee blocked consensus over the revised management procedure that had been successfully developed by the Committee. In both cases, the political consequence of expanded uncertainty in the science was lack of action resulting in a continuation of business as usual. Extending a period of heavy exploitation longer than the resource can sustain is mismanagement. Extending a period of extreme protectionism when the resource is known to scientists to sustain valuable exploitation is also mismanagement even from a conservationist point of view. This might, in fact, erode the role of science in management and thus prepare the ground for subsequent overexploitation. Distorting uncertainty by injecting controversy or otherwise expanding uncertainty has contributed to excessive ¯uctuations in management regimes and consequently in stock abundance. Detrimental ¯uctuations might continue, since science is side tracked and management now is based on sentiments that might fade. # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: International Whaling Commission; Revised management procedure; Instability in management
1. Introduction It is widely recognised that a prerequisite for precautionary ®sheries management is a proper recognition of the uncertainties surrounding our understanding of the ecosystem and the ®shery itself. Improper recognition of uncertainties has usually been towards neglecting or underestimating uncertainties. According to FAO (1995), ``A precautionary approach
* Tel.: 47-228-55127; fax: 47-228-55035. E-mail address: [email protected] (T. Schweder).
speci®cally requires a more comprehensive treatment of uncertainty than is the current norm in ®shery assessment. This requires recognition of gaps in knowledge, and the explicit identi®cation of the range of interpretations that is reasonable given the present information.'' An overemphasis on uncertainty might also be detrimental both in ®sheries management (including whaling) and more generally. When uncertainty is unduly expanded, the ®eld is open for management to be based on sentiments or narrow economic or political interests. This will tend to create instability in management causing both inef®ciency
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and increased danger of long-term damage to the system. Unstable management is less precautionary than stable management at the same long-term level of utilisation, almost by de®nition. It is furthermore less ef®cient from a resource utilisation point of view. For these reasons, it is important to obtain an appropriate understanding of the uncertainties involved in a given management context. Since science related to management usually is a collective enterprise, with laboratories or scienti®c committees expressing the views, it is important that the agreed views and controversies expressed by the scienti®c body as a whole are appropriately balanced. Schweder (2000) argue that unnecessary controversies were injected and sustained in the ®n whale debate in the Scienti®c Committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in the 1950s, and that they contributed to prolong the period of excessive whaling in Antarctica. This is summarised below. At present, the political situation is reversed, dominated by unconditional protection for whales. In the present paper, I discuss the controversy over the revised management procedure (RMP) in 1991. The evidence suggests, in my view, that the controversy was unnecessary and that it was injected into the debate for reasons outside science. 2. Controversies in science in the International Whaling Commission The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling sought ``to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry''. The Convention took note ``that the history of whaling has seen over-®shing of one species of whale after another to such a degree it is essential to protect all species of whales from further over-®shing'', and it stated that management ``shall be based on scienti®c ®ndings'' (International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, 1946). IWC came into operation in 1949. In 1951, the Scienti®c Committee was formed. The status of the ®n whale stock in the Southern Hemisphere was the main topic of debate in the Scienti®c Committee throughout the 1950s. The broad picture is as follows.
2.1. The fin whale controversy Pelagic whaling in Antarctica was at the outset based on the concept of the blue whale unit: one unit being one blue whale, two ®n whales, 2.5 humpback whales or six sei whales. Quotas were given in these units and it was up to the whalers to determine the species and stock composition of the total catch. From 1946 to 1953 the quota was 16 000 units. This level was in 1951 believed by the scientists to be too high, ``. . . but, in all the circumstances'' they did not recommend any change. Ruud (1952) doubted that the stock of ®n whales could sustain the heavy exploitation it was subjected to in the long run. Decreasing average length, and increasing percentages of immature whales in the catches were to him signs of depletion. From catch per unit effort statistics, the blue whale stock was found to be in decline, and the ever increasing catches of ®n whales to be expected as the blue whale catches fail would be unsustainable. Based on an area-speci®c analysis of catch per unit effort (CPUE) and of catch composition, the Scienti®c Committee, except for the Dutch member, found in 1953 that both the blue and the ®n whale stocks showed ``unmistakable signs of depletion''. The dissenting scientist argued that the mode of operation had changed and that the CPUE series were dif®cult to interpret. Based on a replacement yield rate of 8% and a pre-war population size of 375 000 ®n whales and a contemporary abundance of 190 000, he calculated the replacement yield in 1953 to be about 24 000 ®n whales, which was the number of whales taken yearly at the time. Despite the lack of agreement among the scientists, the catch limit was reduced from 16 000 to 15 500 blue whale units. Next year, the Scienti®c Committee strongly recommended the quota be reduced to 14 500, but against objections from the same dissenter. He argued that it would be suf®cient to raise the minimum length for ®n whales so that more whales which otherwise would die naturally would be taken. In 1955, he was the only appointed member of the Scienti®c Committee dissenting from advising a reduction in the total limit of 14 500 blue whale units. Netherlands voted against lowering the quota by referring to the disagreement among the scientists. The debate went on with new papers bringing further evidence and concluding that the ®n whale
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stock was declining and could not sustain the catch. These papers were almost as a matter of routine objected to by the same dissenting Dutch scientist. His arguments varied, but were never particularly strong, even by the standards of the day. In the Commission, the Netherlands pushed consistently for higher quotas, often by arguing that the scienti®c evidence for the ®n whale stock being depleted was insuf®cient. The political climate hardened, and in 1959 the Netherlands and Norway withdrew from the Convention, the Netherlands, because it did not get higher quotas, and Norway, because the quota was not reduced. In that year, the majority in the Scienti®c Committee repeated its advice that the catches were excessive and regretted that the quota had been raised from 14 500 to 15 000 blue whale units. The period ended with a deal: to bring the Netherlands back to the Commission, no catch limits were set for the Antarctic seasons 1960/1961 and 1961/1962. It was furthermore decided to establish a committee of three scientists (Allen, Chapman and Holt) to resolve the ®n whale debate and to strengthen the scienti®c basis for whale management. The Commission resolved to bring the Antarctic catch limits into line with the scienti®c ®ndings by the summer of 1964. A more detailed account of the ®n whale debate is presented in Schweder (2000). 2.2. The revised management procedure controversy Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, it was gradually understood that whaling had been excessive, and that many stocks of whales had been depleted. The antiwhaling cause gained widespread support, and the green movement became a formidable force. In 1982, IWC decided to impose a moratorium on all commercial whaling. The moratorium issue was discussed in the Scienti®c Committee. From the report (International Whaling Commission, 1983), it appears that the discussion was polarised. A number of members argued that whaling should be managed on a stock by stock basis. Although many stocks were in need of protection, there were other stocks like the Antarctic minke whale that were in good shape and could sustain catches. It was also argued that although scienti®c uncertainty should be exposed where it
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existed, it was a problem that the Scienti®c Committee's report tended ``to be inconclusive and equivocal on many issues, when a little more time and effort might have produced a more balanced conclusion''. Their worry was that unnecessary controversies in the Committee appeared to the Commission as grave scienti®c uncertainty. It is possible that this was an optimistic view, if controversies were injected, more time would hardly help. Other members argued in favour of the blanket moratorium on the basis of extensive scienti®c uncertainty. They also claimed the experience to have been that the perceived status of whale stocks became more pessimistic as knowledge improved. The Scienti®c Committee gave no coherent advice to the Commission regarding the moratorium. Gulland (1988), who joined the Committee of Three in 1961, took stock of the whaling debate: ``. . . some people opposed to whaling largely for . . . ethical reasons, and who supposedly occupied the moral high ground, have not been wholly objective in their use of science. As passions rose in the IWC, there were a number of participants who were selective in the data they used and the interpretations they made. Some people feel that this willingness to be less than objective in the scienti®c arguments over whales has been . . . damaging to the environmental movement also.'' The particular damage Gulland refers to was the lack of co-operation from Japan and the USSR in the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources (CCAMLR) in the early 1980s. ``. . . it was hardly surprising that the ®shing (and whaling) countries were suspicious and uncooperative. The history of the IWC had taught them that some anti-whaling scientists were likely to interpret any data in a way that showed that catching should be stopped.'' Day (1992) gives a colourful insight into how the anti-whaling activity was organised: ``Inside the IWC, conservationists were at work within the commission's primary defence system: its Scienti®c Committee. For years the IWC whaling nations had defended their position as scienti®cally based harvesting. The People's Trust for Endangered Species ®nanced scientists . . . to create population studies for whale species. Other research had been massively gathered for over a decade by Dr. Sidney Holt and Dr. William de la Mare. . . . The science of the whalers soon lay in
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wreckage, and at last population estimates began to bear some relation to reality'' (Day, 1992, pp. 115±116). In addition to Holt and de la Mare, Day mentions Dr. Justin Cooke. They have all been in¯uential participants in the Scienti®c Committee. Holt was a member of the Committee of Three in the early 1960s, and has been present at annual meetings ever since (until 1995). Cooke and de la Mare have been present in all annual meetings from 1979 to 1996. Together with a few other participants, Holt, de la Mare and Cooke have appeared to form a fraction or group within the Scienti®c Committee that I choose to call the green camp. The green camp is not a formal group. It is composed of scientists that generally and rather consistently argue against the need for lethal research on whales, and against such ®ndings that lend support to the position that some speci®c commercial whaling operations can be reopened without appreciably risking stock depletion provided the whaling is tightly controlled. Members of the green camp tend to support each other in debates within the Scienti®c Committee. For the sociologist of science, the group behaviour (of the green camp and of other loose groups) within the Scienti®c Committee should be a fascinating subject. This is, however, outside my scope. I note only that in the controversies I have looked into since 1981, the green camp with some of the scientists Day mentions as the core has consistently been involved at the radical green end. The controversies were over the moratorium in 1982, over the RMP in 1991, over the Southern Hemisphere Sanctuary in 1993, and over the minke whale abundance estimate in 1996 (International Whaling Commission, 1983, 1992, 1994, 1997). The controversy over the Southern Hemisphere Sanctuary in 1993 was reported in the format of ``some and others'' without naming, but the polarisation was the familiar one. An international group of outside scientists ``could not fail to detect the continuing existence of deep divisions and lack of mutual con®dence between some of those involved in the affairs of the Scienti®c Committee of the IWC'' (Anderson et al., 1987). They also found ``that the Scienti®c Committee has been unduly exposed to the repercussions of political disputes between the whaling and non-whaling countries, and more recently, to external groups who are pressing for a total ban of all whaling for reasons which are not within the competence of the IWC to assess. It would
be dif®cult for any scienti®c advisory body to have maintained a calm, rigorous and strictly impartial approach in such emotive circumstances.'' This drew a reaction from Holt (1988): ``Most of the statements made by the group about the Committee's work and whaling management by the IWC are ill-informed, irresponsible and unhelpful where not damaging.'' 2.3. The revised management procedure A substantial methodological contribution from members of the green camp was made when the Scienti®c Committee developed a precautionary management procedure. Together with introducing a moratorium on commercial whaling from the 1985/1986 pelagic and 1986 coastal season, the Commission decided in 1982 to carry out a comprehensive assessment of potentially exploitable whale stocks by 1990 ``at the latest''. As part of the comprehensive assessment, work was undertaken to revise the management procedure adopted in 1976. This work has been extensive. The aim of the exercise was to construct a procedure that based on periodical abundance estimates with accompanying standard errors, historical catch data, and possibly other data, would automatically produce yearly catch limits for a given whaling operation. The procedure put forward by the Scienti®c Committee in 1991 is a Bayesian statistical methodology for interpreting the incoming abundance estimates together with the known catch history of the operation, to provide a posterior distribution of the parameters needed for setting the catch limit for the year in question. Caution has been built into the procedure in several ways. A cautious prior distribution for the internal parameters (the degree of depletion, the maximum sustainable yield rate of the stock and the multiplicative bias of the abundance estimates) is combined with information obtained from abundance estimates. To prevent positive bias in the abundance estimates or negative bias in their standard errors having a detrimental effect, the information is de¯ated by multiplying the standard errors (of log abundance) by four. In this way, the procedure only slowly adjusts the quotas on the basis of incoming data from its cautious initial level. The procedure was extensively simulation tested, and its precautionary nature was demonstrated. The procedure proposed by the
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Scienti®c Committee was made still more precautionary on the initiative of the Commission when it accepted the draft procedure in 1991 for further development. The procedure is explained and discussed by Cooke (1995), and in International Whaling Commission (1992 and 1993). Incidentally, the development of the RMP has been organised in an interesting way. There were ®ve separate development teams. About twice a year, over a 5-year period, the teams got together in week-long meetings with a few additional scientists to discuss recent developments in each of the ®ve procedures to compare simulation results and to plan simulation experiments for the next half year. Some teams consisted of scientists from whaling nations and others from the green camp. The process of mutual learning and competition turned out to be productive. Despite the great differences in technique between the ®ve draft procedures, they all improved signi®cantly in the process, and their ®nal performance properties did not differ dramatically. Cooke (1995) characterises the RMP as a new approach to ®shery management. The process of development of the procedure was also innovative and of more general interest. Unfortunately, this story has not been properly told in the literature, except implicitly in International Whaling Commission (1985±1993). The Scienti®c Committee had a dif®cult choice in 1991 when selecting one of the draft procedures to be recommended to the Commission. There was considerable debate, but based on the scienti®c considerations and with the highest emphasis on risk minimisation the Committee recommended one of the procedures as the best single stock procedure (International Whaling Commission, 1992). The recommended procedure was developed by Justin Cooke. He joined, however, a minority that objected to the recommendation. The minority was led by Holt and de la Mare and it included 7% of the Scienti®c Committee. The minority suggested that all ®ve competing procedures should be forwarded to the Commission, and among them, they preferred the procedure developed by de la Mare. For this procedure, they said ``the catch limits decision rules seem so intrinsically cautious (conservative), it is notable that it has proven possible to devise a scheme with satisfactory, if not spectacular, performance in providing high sustained catches in the future, and minimal
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disruption to an industry once it has been permitted to resume. A part of the price paid for this performance is that a depleted stock may be protected longer than would be the case with other procedures before such permission would be given'' (International Whaling Commission, 1992). It is remarkable that Cooke joined the minority and thus weakened the recommendation to the Commission that the procedure he had worked so hard to develop himself was the best single stock procedure. That he also signed the minority statement concluding that another procedure was the one to be preferred adds support to the hypothesis that the green camp had an agenda of a more political nature. It is unusual for the Scienti®c Committee to advice the Commission as a committee when controversy has developed in the Committee, instead of using the ``some and others'' format. However, the selected procedure was recommended by the Committee as such, and it named the members of the minority. This recommendation was thought to be of outstanding importance by many members. The controversy in the Scienti®c Committee made it possible for the anti-whaling majority in the Commission to reject a resolution which ``expressed con®dence, trust and gratitude to the Scienti®c Committee for its work over the past 3±4 years . . . and adopt the (recommended) procedure with a tuning of 66%''. Australia opposed the resolution because it had missed some signi®cant points, and introduced another resolution which was adopted by the majority. Here, ``the Scienti®c Committee's recommendation . . . upon which further development of the RMP shall proceed'' was accepted, but with the high tuning level of 72%. The choice of 72% rather than 66% reduces the catch quotas computed by the procedure. Norway voted against the majority resolution because it ``suspected it would further delay implementation of a revised procedure and will stipulate protection levels that will virtually prevent resumption of commercial whaling in the foreseeable future''. Although the Commission resolved to continue the work with due diligence, it has still in 1999 not implemented a management procedure for any commercial whaling operation. There has, however, been commercial minke whaling in the northeastern Atlantic by Norwegians since 1992, regulated by the Norwegian government using the recommended
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procedure tuned to 72%. This whaling is legal under international law since Norway objected to the moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982. 3. Discussion 3.1. Uncertainty in the management context An intrinsic dif®culty in science related to the management of ®sh, whales or other large-scale aspects of the environment or natural resources is that one cannot possibly do experiments with the great oceans or other major parts of the environment. The scienti®c evidence is therefore often of an observational nature. Hard experimental evidence might only be available for bits and pieces of the picture. The scienti®c basis for management of ®sheries and whaling will necessarily involve judgement of a subjective, preferably inter-subjective, character. FAO (1995) points to the importance of not understating the uncertainties surrounding ®sheries management. My point is that exaggerated uncertainty is also potentially damaging. 3.2. Was uncertainty distorted in the IWC? It is dif®cult to escape the conclusion that unnecessary controversies were injected and sustained over the ®n whale issue in the 1950s and that they helped the Dutch politicians argue their case in the Commission, and this was a contributing factor in prolonging the period of excessive whaling in Antarctica. Unfortunately, unduly expansion of uncertainty is not only a matter of the past. The Committee of Three, of which Holt was a member, was brought in by the Commission for the purpose of sorting out the ®n whale debate, and to improve the competence in population dynamics and other management-related ®elds within the Committee. It is ironic that claims of a hidden agenda have re-emerged. Butterworth (1992) uses the term hidden agenda without naming names, but clearly with reference to the green camp in the Scienti®c Committee. He holds that under the terms of the convention, the agenda: to ban whaling on grounds of animal rights or because whales are sacrosanct, had to be hidden and to be played out in the Scienti®c Committee.
Holt (1992) perhaps, expressed this agenda: ``This year we successfully resisted enormous pressure from Iceland, Norway and Japan to lift the moratorium. But we do face a real possibility that some commercial whaling will be allowed to resume in 1992. . . .We have, as it were, gained time through talking about science and conservation. . . .At the same time, scienti®c research that is relevant has been supportive, and political lobbying through the IWC delegations, primarily, and through their superiors in Government, has been intense and continuous. . .. I think we are all agreed that we should aim at keeping the moratorium in place, at least until the year 2000. . . .If we can do that and if we can hold the dam, as it were, for a few more years, that will give us time to assemble the ethical arguments against whaling, and to get them diffused further in the world. . . .We have, however, established the effectiveness of combined operations in science, politics and public information. We have established the multiplying effect of environmental and animal welfare organisations working together. . . .There has been too much diversion of activity towards the idea of maintaining simple diversity in the living system of the planet. This can too easily move into saving endangered species and not caring for minke whales, harp seals, or East African mammals. They are in the hundreds of thousands or millions.'' Before the meeting in 1991, there were no signs of unease with the development of the RMP. Cooke and de la Mare were indeed active in the process, and Cooke did not express any doubts before his procedure was selected with respect to the appropriateness of using his procedure for managing whaling in the real world. Holt was also very supportive of the development work and the achievements. If the opposition against the recommended procedure was based on a sudden understanding at the 1991 meeting, one should expect the minority scientists to continue to argue against the RMP. The RMP was, after all, presented to the Commission for adoption, and the Scienti®c Committee has carried out the further work it has found necessary from a scienti®c point of view to have the procedure implemented for managing minke whaling in the North Atlantic and the Antarctic. Since Norway is using the RMP outside the IWC to regulate its minke whaling, the performance properties of the procedure are an important issue, not only from an academic
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point of view. Scientists behind the minority statement in 1991 have, however, not been particularly active in investigating the RMP further, except for pointing out that extreme the so-called process error could lead to unsustainable catch limits. To the extent the RMP has been further investigated, the driving force has mainly been USA and its scientists. In addition to a review of the RMP commissioned by the US National Marine Fisheries Service (the report is available from the International Whaling Commission as document IWC/46/24) and some further work on the robustness properties of the RMP, US scientists regularly check the quota for northeastern Atlantic minke whaling calculated in Norway. This cross-checking revealed numerical weaknesses in the IWC computer program for RMP calculations (International Whaling Commission, 1998). The point here is that green camp scientists have not been particularly active in substantiating their objection in 1991 towards the recommended procedure, which forms the core of the RMP. Instead, they caused a new controversy in 1996 when estimates of abundance of northeastern Atlantic minke whales were reviewed in the Scienti®c Committee (International Whaling Commission, 1997). If that controversy had been sustained, Norway would have come under more political pressure when continuing its minke whaling. There is certainly evidence supporting the view that the minority statement in 1991 was an act of injecting controversy creating scienti®c room for political action. From the point of view of ``holding the dam'', the minority statement must be regarded as a success since the IWC is still dragging its feet on implementing a management regime based on the RMP. As far as the IWC is concerned, the moratorium on commercial whaling is still in force. 3.3. Long-term effects on harvest and ecosystem of unduly expanded uncertainty The Whaling Commission is indeed international. In international negotiations consensual knowledge is more important than advanced knowledge. Regulatory actions, such as reducing quotas from a stable level which the industry has adapted to, or implementing a management regime with non-zero quotas where there earlier was a moratorium, are vetoed more easily the more uncertainty that surrounds the knowledge.
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According to Underdahl (1989), ``substantial uncertainty . . . may serve as the political equivalent to live ammunition in the hands of actors opposed to (new) regulatory measures''. The history of whaling is characterised by enormous ¯uctuations. The slow population dynamics of whale stocks and the potential for high pro®ts in whaling, even when stocks are depleted, were the main contributing factors for these ¯uctuations in the past. In recent years, the weight of the popular mood in Western society with whales almost regarded as sacrosanct (Butterworth, 1992) has been the decisive factor. In the last 50 years, with whaling managed by IWC and based on scienti®c ®ndings, another factor contributing to large ¯uctuations is the tendency to have uncertainty expanded out of reasons. This was done both in the era of excessive whaling in the 1950s and in the recent era of protection. The excessive Antarctic whaling was undoubtedly prolonged by the politics of the Netherlands. This politics was facilitated by the Dutch member of the Scienti®c Committee, who prevented a clear scienti®c message to come through. The prolonged excessive whaling had two effects on long-term management. Stocks were brought down to low or dangerously low levels, resulting in long recovery times if rebuilding at all is possible. The other main effect of the earlier excessive whaling is the tremendous swing in sentiments in the western world. The Netherlands is again an interesting case. From being the most aggressive exploiter, the Dutcharenowamongthemostaggressiveprotectionists. The swing towards protectionism resulted in the moratorium decision in 1982. Currently, commercial minke whaling is carried out by Norway with a current take of some 600 whales. Japan takes some 400 minke whales under special permit (see below). Aboriginal people catch bowhead whales (Alaska), grey whales (Siberia and Washington State, US), minke, humpback and ®n whales (Greenland) and humpback whales (Caribbean) for subsistence. The present very limited whaling is under political pressure, and with the present sentiments in the in¯uential countries, it is not unlikely that whaling will be reduced rather than expanded in the near future. Minke whales are abundant in the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean. Many depleted stocks of other whale species are reported to be recovering at encouraging rates (Best, 1993). The resource basis for
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whaling is thus broader than to support present exploitation, and it is expanding. The present period must be characterised by a very low degree of utilisation. A drastic down scaling was necessary after the previous period of excessive whaling. The present period of very low degree of utilisation has, however, been lasting longer than necessary from a resource point of view. The period of near complete and indiscriminate protectionism was prolonged by the non-adoption of the RMP in 1991. The lack of scienti®c consensus in 1991 was important for the non-implementation policy we have experienced, and it eroded the in¯uence of science to such a degree that the Commission neglected the unanimous recommendation from the Scienti®c Committee in 1993. The overly expanded uncertainty in 1991 is thus a decisive factor in the prolongation of the present protectionism period. How long the current period of extremely low degree of utilisation of whales will last is hard to say. Demand for whale meat does not seem to go away in countries like Japan, Korea, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and USA. Aboriginal peoples in North America (the Makah Indians in Washington State) and Siberia have, in fact, been pressing for expanded whaling. Global demand for food in general, and meat and fat taken from mammals in particular is increasing, since the world population is expanding, and the per capita demand is increasing. With increasing dif®culties in meeting these demands from ®sheries, aquaculture and agriculture, it seems likely that global potential demand for whale meat and blubber will remain substantial and actually increase. With recovering stocks, the economic potential in whaling is likely to increase. Whale meat and blubber (whale bacon) are highly valued in the Japanese market place. The supply of these products comes largely from the 300 minke whales taken annually in Antarctica and the 100 minke whales from the North Paci®c taken under special permit issued by Japan for the purpose of scienti®c research (see International Whaling Commission (1998) for a discussion of the scienti®c merits of this research and of the political issues involved). The supply of whale products to the Japanese market is very limited, and the prices are extremely high. The Norwegian consumer values whale meat, which is currently often used in restaurants and in
private parties, while it earlier was regarded as cheap and not particularly festive food. Blubber is, however, not valued as a diet item in Norway. In recent years, blubber has been stockpiled in the hope that it again can be exported to Japan. In the summer of 1995, the price of blubber rose by a factor of nearly 700, from 11 ùre to 70 crowns per kilogram when it was rumoured that Norway would issue an export license. This price increase re¯ects the strength of the demand of whale products in the global market place, and the potential pro®ts that can be made. Holt (1992) hoped to keep the moratorium on commercial whaling at least until the year 2000. Later, the dam against whaling should, he hoped, be held by ethical arguments. Science would then not have much of a place in the management of whales. But will ethics be suf®cient to protect whales, in the same way as Hindu ethics protect the sacrosanct cows? It is not implausible that in the coming decades, ethos in USA, EU, Australia and New Zealand will swing back from caring almost religiously for whales. With science demoralised since it has little in¯uence, and possibly side tracked from management since it no longer is needed when management is based on ethical arguments, it is not obvious that science will be able to suf®ciently and quickly re-establish itself as a basis for management if a new period of exploitation is entered. We might then again experience a period of unsustainable whaling, possibly with new scientists employing the method of uncertainty maximisation, resulting in insuf®cient regulation and prolonged excessive utilisation. The overly expansion of uncertainty that we have seen on two occasions in the advice on whaling is then not only alien to science (National Academy of Sciences, 1992; Schweder, 2000), but might have great negative effects on the long-term management of whales. In the short run, the current distortion might lead to cautious management. But in the long run I fear that the effect of expanding uncertainty for the purpose of keeping the moratorium in place could create social volatility that could lead to management that is far from optimal. Excessive ¯uctuations as those experienced in whale management are de®nitely sub-optimal with respect to long-term yields. Schweder and Hagen (1999) ®nd that the more variability there is in stock abundance around a long-term mean, the smaller the average yearly catch. This is borne out in simulations,
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and it follows theoretically when the production curve is convex as in the Pella Tomlinson model. More important than this, excessive ¯uctuations in management can produce large ¯uctuations in stock abundance with increased likelihood of severe stock depletion in the long run. Protectionism might seem precautionary in the short run, but with management based on popular mood in secular societies, there is hardly any guarantee that the period of protectionism will last very long. This is particularly true since the popular sentiments against whaling are largely based on the conception that whales are threatened by depletion and extinction, as re¯ected by all species of great whales, including the abundant minke whale, being listed by CITES. This understanding is contrary to the relevant science, as can be seen from the Reports of the Scienti®c Committee of the IWC. With antiwhaling sentiments based neither on religion (in the usual sense of the word) nor science, the question is when they will give way for indifference, possibly paving the way for a new period of over-utilisation. The International Whaling Convention from 1946 mandates the regulation of whaling to be based on scienti®c ®ndings. However, if science is demoralised by not being listened to, or eroded from the inside by misconduct in the form of uncertainty distortion or otherwise, it is less likely that science can function properly as the necessary check and balancing force for management. The Convention, on which IWC is founded, also mandates IWC to ``provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry''. Aron et al. (2000) argue that IWC is dysfunctional and even verging on extinction since it upholds its policy against commercial whaling in spite of its ability to regulate whaling according to the Convention by implementing the RMP. Continued political dysfunctionality in the management of whaling certainly contributes to the potential for long-term volatility in whaling, which is inef®cient from a utilitarian point of view and conservationally dangerous. Acknowledgements A pre-runner of this paper was prepared while visiting the secretariat of the International Whaling
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Commission. Thanks are due to Ray Gambell and Greg Donovan at the IWC, and to Ray Beverton, Richard Laws, Ed Miles, Tim Smith, Oran Young and others, who all have read earlier versions of the paper and given me help and encouragement. References Anderson, R.M., Beverton, R.J.H., Semb-Johansson, A., Wallùe, L., 1987. The state of the Northeast Atlantic minke whale stock. Report of the Group of Scientists Appointed by the Norwegian Government to Review the Basis for Norway's Harvesting of Minke Whales. ékoforsk, As, Norway. Aron, W., Burke, W., Freeman, M.M.R., 2000. The whaling issue. Mar. Policy 24, 179±191. Best, P.B., 1993. Increase rates in severely depleted stocks of baleen whales. ICES J. Mar. Sci. 50, 169±186. Butterworth, D.S., 1992. Science and sentimentality. Nature 357, 532±534. Cooke, J.G., 1995. The International Whaling Commission's revised management procedure as an example of a new approach to fishery management. In: Blix, A.S., Wallùe, L., Ulltang, é. (Eds.), Whales, Seals, Fish and Man. Elsevier, Amsterdam. Day, D., 1992. The Whale War. Grafton, London, pp. 115±116. FAO, 1995. The precautionary approach in fisheries. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 350/1. Gulland, J., 1988. The end of whaling. New Scientist 120, 42±47. Holt, S.J., 1988. The state of the Northeast Atlantic minke whale stock: a critique. In: Paper Presented to the Scientific Committee (IWC/SC/40/Mi1), International Whaling Commission. A Revised Version of the Paper Commenting only on the ``Scientific Aspects of the Report'' was Published in Rep. Int. Whaling Commission 39, 213±218. Holt, S.J., 1992. Animal protection and environmentalism: science. In: Ryder, R.D. (Ed.), Animal Welfare and the Environment. Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., London, 216 pp. International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, 1946. International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, Washington, DC. International Whaling Commission, 1983±1999. Report of the International Whaling Commission (the annual reports of the IWC are referred to by year; references are to the Report of the Scientific Committee when not otherwise indicated in the text). National Academy of Sciences, 1992. Responsible Science Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process, Vol. 1. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. Ruud, J., 1952. Modern whaling and its prospects. FAO Fisheries Bulletin No. 5. Also published in The Norwegian Whaling Gazette 41 (12). Schweder, T., 2000. Distortion of uncertainty in science: Antarctic fin whales in the 1950s. J. Int. Wildl. Law and Policy 3, 73±92. Schweder, T., Hagen, G.S., 1999. A note on the cost of instability in whale management. J. Cetacean Res. Mgmt. 1, 137±140. Underdahl, A., 1989. The politics of science in international resource management: a summary. In: Andresen, S., éstereng, W. (Eds.), International Resource Management. Belhaven Press.
Protecting whales by distorting uncertainty: non-precautionary mismanagement? Tore Schweder* Department of Economics, University of Oslo, Box 1095, Blindern 0317, Oslo 3, Norway Received 15 July 1998; received in revised form 8 February 1999; accepted 25 July 2000
Abstract Precautionary management is based on science, and is incompatible with large ¯uctuations in the management regime. Whaling is managed by the International Whaling Commission, and has seen large ¯uctuations. It is argued that both the period of intense Antarctic whaling and the current period of protectionism have been unduly prolonged by scientists expanding out of proportion the uncertainty surrounding management issues. In the 1950s, uncertainty concerning ®n whale stock status and trend was consistently distorted from one quarter, and in the 1990s a minority in the Scienti®c Committee blocked consensus over the revised management procedure that had been successfully developed by the Committee. In both cases, the political consequence of expanded uncertainty in the science was lack of action resulting in a continuation of business as usual. Extending a period of heavy exploitation longer than the resource can sustain is mismanagement. Extending a period of extreme protectionism when the resource is known to scientists to sustain valuable exploitation is also mismanagement even from a conservationist point of view. This might, in fact, erode the role of science in management and thus prepare the ground for subsequent overexploitation. Distorting uncertainty by injecting controversy or otherwise expanding uncertainty has contributed to excessive ¯uctuations in management regimes and consequently in stock abundance. Detrimental ¯uctuations might continue, since science is side tracked and management now is based on sentiments that might fade. # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: International Whaling Commission; Revised management procedure; Instability in management
1. Introduction It is widely recognised that a prerequisite for precautionary ®sheries management is a proper recognition of the uncertainties surrounding our understanding of the ecosystem and the ®shery itself. Improper recognition of uncertainties has usually been towards neglecting or underestimating uncertainties. According to FAO (1995), ``A precautionary approach
* Tel.: 47-228-55127; fax: 47-228-55035. E-mail address: [email protected] (T. Schweder).
speci®cally requires a more comprehensive treatment of uncertainty than is the current norm in ®shery assessment. This requires recognition of gaps in knowledge, and the explicit identi®cation of the range of interpretations that is reasonable given the present information.'' An overemphasis on uncertainty might also be detrimental both in ®sheries management (including whaling) and more generally. When uncertainty is unduly expanded, the ®eld is open for management to be based on sentiments or narrow economic or political interests. This will tend to create instability in management causing both inef®ciency
0165-7836/01/$ ± see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 1 6 5 - 7 8 3 6 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 2 6 3 - 0
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and increased danger of long-term damage to the system. Unstable management is less precautionary than stable management at the same long-term level of utilisation, almost by de®nition. It is furthermore less ef®cient from a resource utilisation point of view. For these reasons, it is important to obtain an appropriate understanding of the uncertainties involved in a given management context. Since science related to management usually is a collective enterprise, with laboratories or scienti®c committees expressing the views, it is important that the agreed views and controversies expressed by the scienti®c body as a whole are appropriately balanced. Schweder (2000) argue that unnecessary controversies were injected and sustained in the ®n whale debate in the Scienti®c Committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in the 1950s, and that they contributed to prolong the period of excessive whaling in Antarctica. This is summarised below. At present, the political situation is reversed, dominated by unconditional protection for whales. In the present paper, I discuss the controversy over the revised management procedure (RMP) in 1991. The evidence suggests, in my view, that the controversy was unnecessary and that it was injected into the debate for reasons outside science. 2. Controversies in science in the International Whaling Commission The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling sought ``to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry''. The Convention took note ``that the history of whaling has seen over-®shing of one species of whale after another to such a degree it is essential to protect all species of whales from further over-®shing'', and it stated that management ``shall be based on scienti®c ®ndings'' (International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, 1946). IWC came into operation in 1949. In 1951, the Scienti®c Committee was formed. The status of the ®n whale stock in the Southern Hemisphere was the main topic of debate in the Scienti®c Committee throughout the 1950s. The broad picture is as follows.
2.1. The fin whale controversy Pelagic whaling in Antarctica was at the outset based on the concept of the blue whale unit: one unit being one blue whale, two ®n whales, 2.5 humpback whales or six sei whales. Quotas were given in these units and it was up to the whalers to determine the species and stock composition of the total catch. From 1946 to 1953 the quota was 16 000 units. This level was in 1951 believed by the scientists to be too high, ``. . . but, in all the circumstances'' they did not recommend any change. Ruud (1952) doubted that the stock of ®n whales could sustain the heavy exploitation it was subjected to in the long run. Decreasing average length, and increasing percentages of immature whales in the catches were to him signs of depletion. From catch per unit effort statistics, the blue whale stock was found to be in decline, and the ever increasing catches of ®n whales to be expected as the blue whale catches fail would be unsustainable. Based on an area-speci®c analysis of catch per unit effort (CPUE) and of catch composition, the Scienti®c Committee, except for the Dutch member, found in 1953 that both the blue and the ®n whale stocks showed ``unmistakable signs of depletion''. The dissenting scientist argued that the mode of operation had changed and that the CPUE series were dif®cult to interpret. Based on a replacement yield rate of 8% and a pre-war population size of 375 000 ®n whales and a contemporary abundance of 190 000, he calculated the replacement yield in 1953 to be about 24 000 ®n whales, which was the number of whales taken yearly at the time. Despite the lack of agreement among the scientists, the catch limit was reduced from 16 000 to 15 500 blue whale units. Next year, the Scienti®c Committee strongly recommended the quota be reduced to 14 500, but against objections from the same dissenter. He argued that it would be suf®cient to raise the minimum length for ®n whales so that more whales which otherwise would die naturally would be taken. In 1955, he was the only appointed member of the Scienti®c Committee dissenting from advising a reduction in the total limit of 14 500 blue whale units. Netherlands voted against lowering the quota by referring to the disagreement among the scientists. The debate went on with new papers bringing further evidence and concluding that the ®n whale
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stock was declining and could not sustain the catch. These papers were almost as a matter of routine objected to by the same dissenting Dutch scientist. His arguments varied, but were never particularly strong, even by the standards of the day. In the Commission, the Netherlands pushed consistently for higher quotas, often by arguing that the scienti®c evidence for the ®n whale stock being depleted was insuf®cient. The political climate hardened, and in 1959 the Netherlands and Norway withdrew from the Convention, the Netherlands, because it did not get higher quotas, and Norway, because the quota was not reduced. In that year, the majority in the Scienti®c Committee repeated its advice that the catches were excessive and regretted that the quota had been raised from 14 500 to 15 000 blue whale units. The period ended with a deal: to bring the Netherlands back to the Commission, no catch limits were set for the Antarctic seasons 1960/1961 and 1961/1962. It was furthermore decided to establish a committee of three scientists (Allen, Chapman and Holt) to resolve the ®n whale debate and to strengthen the scienti®c basis for whale management. The Commission resolved to bring the Antarctic catch limits into line with the scienti®c ®ndings by the summer of 1964. A more detailed account of the ®n whale debate is presented in Schweder (2000). 2.2. The revised management procedure controversy Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, it was gradually understood that whaling had been excessive, and that many stocks of whales had been depleted. The antiwhaling cause gained widespread support, and the green movement became a formidable force. In 1982, IWC decided to impose a moratorium on all commercial whaling. The moratorium issue was discussed in the Scienti®c Committee. From the report (International Whaling Commission, 1983), it appears that the discussion was polarised. A number of members argued that whaling should be managed on a stock by stock basis. Although many stocks were in need of protection, there were other stocks like the Antarctic minke whale that were in good shape and could sustain catches. It was also argued that although scienti®c uncertainty should be exposed where it
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existed, it was a problem that the Scienti®c Committee's report tended ``to be inconclusive and equivocal on many issues, when a little more time and effort might have produced a more balanced conclusion''. Their worry was that unnecessary controversies in the Committee appeared to the Commission as grave scienti®c uncertainty. It is possible that this was an optimistic view, if controversies were injected, more time would hardly help. Other members argued in favour of the blanket moratorium on the basis of extensive scienti®c uncertainty. They also claimed the experience to have been that the perceived status of whale stocks became more pessimistic as knowledge improved. The Scienti®c Committee gave no coherent advice to the Commission regarding the moratorium. Gulland (1988), who joined the Committee of Three in 1961, took stock of the whaling debate: ``. . . some people opposed to whaling largely for . . . ethical reasons, and who supposedly occupied the moral high ground, have not been wholly objective in their use of science. As passions rose in the IWC, there were a number of participants who were selective in the data they used and the interpretations they made. Some people feel that this willingness to be less than objective in the scienti®c arguments over whales has been . . . damaging to the environmental movement also.'' The particular damage Gulland refers to was the lack of co-operation from Japan and the USSR in the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources (CCAMLR) in the early 1980s. ``. . . it was hardly surprising that the ®shing (and whaling) countries were suspicious and uncooperative. The history of the IWC had taught them that some anti-whaling scientists were likely to interpret any data in a way that showed that catching should be stopped.'' Day (1992) gives a colourful insight into how the anti-whaling activity was organised: ``Inside the IWC, conservationists were at work within the commission's primary defence system: its Scienti®c Committee. For years the IWC whaling nations had defended their position as scienti®cally based harvesting. The People's Trust for Endangered Species ®nanced scientists . . . to create population studies for whale species. Other research had been massively gathered for over a decade by Dr. Sidney Holt and Dr. William de la Mare. . . . The science of the whalers soon lay in
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wreckage, and at last population estimates began to bear some relation to reality'' (Day, 1992, pp. 115±116). In addition to Holt and de la Mare, Day mentions Dr. Justin Cooke. They have all been in¯uential participants in the Scienti®c Committee. Holt was a member of the Committee of Three in the early 1960s, and has been present at annual meetings ever since (until 1995). Cooke and de la Mare have been present in all annual meetings from 1979 to 1996. Together with a few other participants, Holt, de la Mare and Cooke have appeared to form a fraction or group within the Scienti®c Committee that I choose to call the green camp. The green camp is not a formal group. It is composed of scientists that generally and rather consistently argue against the need for lethal research on whales, and against such ®ndings that lend support to the position that some speci®c commercial whaling operations can be reopened without appreciably risking stock depletion provided the whaling is tightly controlled. Members of the green camp tend to support each other in debates within the Scienti®c Committee. For the sociologist of science, the group behaviour (of the green camp and of other loose groups) within the Scienti®c Committee should be a fascinating subject. This is, however, outside my scope. I note only that in the controversies I have looked into since 1981, the green camp with some of the scientists Day mentions as the core has consistently been involved at the radical green end. The controversies were over the moratorium in 1982, over the RMP in 1991, over the Southern Hemisphere Sanctuary in 1993, and over the minke whale abundance estimate in 1996 (International Whaling Commission, 1983, 1992, 1994, 1997). The controversy over the Southern Hemisphere Sanctuary in 1993 was reported in the format of ``some and others'' without naming, but the polarisation was the familiar one. An international group of outside scientists ``could not fail to detect the continuing existence of deep divisions and lack of mutual con®dence between some of those involved in the affairs of the Scienti®c Committee of the IWC'' (Anderson et al., 1987). They also found ``that the Scienti®c Committee has been unduly exposed to the repercussions of political disputes between the whaling and non-whaling countries, and more recently, to external groups who are pressing for a total ban of all whaling for reasons which are not within the competence of the IWC to assess. It would
be dif®cult for any scienti®c advisory body to have maintained a calm, rigorous and strictly impartial approach in such emotive circumstances.'' This drew a reaction from Holt (1988): ``Most of the statements made by the group about the Committee's work and whaling management by the IWC are ill-informed, irresponsible and unhelpful where not damaging.'' 2.3. The revised management procedure A substantial methodological contribution from members of the green camp was made when the Scienti®c Committee developed a precautionary management procedure. Together with introducing a moratorium on commercial whaling from the 1985/1986 pelagic and 1986 coastal season, the Commission decided in 1982 to carry out a comprehensive assessment of potentially exploitable whale stocks by 1990 ``at the latest''. As part of the comprehensive assessment, work was undertaken to revise the management procedure adopted in 1976. This work has been extensive. The aim of the exercise was to construct a procedure that based on periodical abundance estimates with accompanying standard errors, historical catch data, and possibly other data, would automatically produce yearly catch limits for a given whaling operation. The procedure put forward by the Scienti®c Committee in 1991 is a Bayesian statistical methodology for interpreting the incoming abundance estimates together with the known catch history of the operation, to provide a posterior distribution of the parameters needed for setting the catch limit for the year in question. Caution has been built into the procedure in several ways. A cautious prior distribution for the internal parameters (the degree of depletion, the maximum sustainable yield rate of the stock and the multiplicative bias of the abundance estimates) is combined with information obtained from abundance estimates. To prevent positive bias in the abundance estimates or negative bias in their standard errors having a detrimental effect, the information is de¯ated by multiplying the standard errors (of log abundance) by four. In this way, the procedure only slowly adjusts the quotas on the basis of incoming data from its cautious initial level. The procedure was extensively simulation tested, and its precautionary nature was demonstrated. The procedure proposed by the
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Scienti®c Committee was made still more precautionary on the initiative of the Commission when it accepted the draft procedure in 1991 for further development. The procedure is explained and discussed by Cooke (1995), and in International Whaling Commission (1992 and 1993). Incidentally, the development of the RMP has been organised in an interesting way. There were ®ve separate development teams. About twice a year, over a 5-year period, the teams got together in week-long meetings with a few additional scientists to discuss recent developments in each of the ®ve procedures to compare simulation results and to plan simulation experiments for the next half year. Some teams consisted of scientists from whaling nations and others from the green camp. The process of mutual learning and competition turned out to be productive. Despite the great differences in technique between the ®ve draft procedures, they all improved signi®cantly in the process, and their ®nal performance properties did not differ dramatically. Cooke (1995) characterises the RMP as a new approach to ®shery management. The process of development of the procedure was also innovative and of more general interest. Unfortunately, this story has not been properly told in the literature, except implicitly in International Whaling Commission (1985±1993). The Scienti®c Committee had a dif®cult choice in 1991 when selecting one of the draft procedures to be recommended to the Commission. There was considerable debate, but based on the scienti®c considerations and with the highest emphasis on risk minimisation the Committee recommended one of the procedures as the best single stock procedure (International Whaling Commission, 1992). The recommended procedure was developed by Justin Cooke. He joined, however, a minority that objected to the recommendation. The minority was led by Holt and de la Mare and it included 7% of the Scienti®c Committee. The minority suggested that all ®ve competing procedures should be forwarded to the Commission, and among them, they preferred the procedure developed by de la Mare. For this procedure, they said ``the catch limits decision rules seem so intrinsically cautious (conservative), it is notable that it has proven possible to devise a scheme with satisfactory, if not spectacular, performance in providing high sustained catches in the future, and minimal
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disruption to an industry once it has been permitted to resume. A part of the price paid for this performance is that a depleted stock may be protected longer than would be the case with other procedures before such permission would be given'' (International Whaling Commission, 1992). It is remarkable that Cooke joined the minority and thus weakened the recommendation to the Commission that the procedure he had worked so hard to develop himself was the best single stock procedure. That he also signed the minority statement concluding that another procedure was the one to be preferred adds support to the hypothesis that the green camp had an agenda of a more political nature. It is unusual for the Scienti®c Committee to advice the Commission as a committee when controversy has developed in the Committee, instead of using the ``some and others'' format. However, the selected procedure was recommended by the Committee as such, and it named the members of the minority. This recommendation was thought to be of outstanding importance by many members. The controversy in the Scienti®c Committee made it possible for the anti-whaling majority in the Commission to reject a resolution which ``expressed con®dence, trust and gratitude to the Scienti®c Committee for its work over the past 3±4 years . . . and adopt the (recommended) procedure with a tuning of 66%''. Australia opposed the resolution because it had missed some signi®cant points, and introduced another resolution which was adopted by the majority. Here, ``the Scienti®c Committee's recommendation . . . upon which further development of the RMP shall proceed'' was accepted, but with the high tuning level of 72%. The choice of 72% rather than 66% reduces the catch quotas computed by the procedure. Norway voted against the majority resolution because it ``suspected it would further delay implementation of a revised procedure and will stipulate protection levels that will virtually prevent resumption of commercial whaling in the foreseeable future''. Although the Commission resolved to continue the work with due diligence, it has still in 1999 not implemented a management procedure for any commercial whaling operation. There has, however, been commercial minke whaling in the northeastern Atlantic by Norwegians since 1992, regulated by the Norwegian government using the recommended
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procedure tuned to 72%. This whaling is legal under international law since Norway objected to the moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982. 3. Discussion 3.1. Uncertainty in the management context An intrinsic dif®culty in science related to the management of ®sh, whales or other large-scale aspects of the environment or natural resources is that one cannot possibly do experiments with the great oceans or other major parts of the environment. The scienti®c evidence is therefore often of an observational nature. Hard experimental evidence might only be available for bits and pieces of the picture. The scienti®c basis for management of ®sheries and whaling will necessarily involve judgement of a subjective, preferably inter-subjective, character. FAO (1995) points to the importance of not understating the uncertainties surrounding ®sheries management. My point is that exaggerated uncertainty is also potentially damaging. 3.2. Was uncertainty distorted in the IWC? It is dif®cult to escape the conclusion that unnecessary controversies were injected and sustained over the ®n whale issue in the 1950s and that they helped the Dutch politicians argue their case in the Commission, and this was a contributing factor in prolonging the period of excessive whaling in Antarctica. Unfortunately, unduly expansion of uncertainty is not only a matter of the past. The Committee of Three, of which Holt was a member, was brought in by the Commission for the purpose of sorting out the ®n whale debate, and to improve the competence in population dynamics and other management-related ®elds within the Committee. It is ironic that claims of a hidden agenda have re-emerged. Butterworth (1992) uses the term hidden agenda without naming names, but clearly with reference to the green camp in the Scienti®c Committee. He holds that under the terms of the convention, the agenda: to ban whaling on grounds of animal rights or because whales are sacrosanct, had to be hidden and to be played out in the Scienti®c Committee.
Holt (1992) perhaps, expressed this agenda: ``This year we successfully resisted enormous pressure from Iceland, Norway and Japan to lift the moratorium. But we do face a real possibility that some commercial whaling will be allowed to resume in 1992. . . .We have, as it were, gained time through talking about science and conservation. . . .At the same time, scienti®c research that is relevant has been supportive, and political lobbying through the IWC delegations, primarily, and through their superiors in Government, has been intense and continuous. . .. I think we are all agreed that we should aim at keeping the moratorium in place, at least until the year 2000. . . .If we can do that and if we can hold the dam, as it were, for a few more years, that will give us time to assemble the ethical arguments against whaling, and to get them diffused further in the world. . . .We have, however, established the effectiveness of combined operations in science, politics and public information. We have established the multiplying effect of environmental and animal welfare organisations working together. . . .There has been too much diversion of activity towards the idea of maintaining simple diversity in the living system of the planet. This can too easily move into saving endangered species and not caring for minke whales, harp seals, or East African mammals. They are in the hundreds of thousands or millions.'' Before the meeting in 1991, there were no signs of unease with the development of the RMP. Cooke and de la Mare were indeed active in the process, and Cooke did not express any doubts before his procedure was selected with respect to the appropriateness of using his procedure for managing whaling in the real world. Holt was also very supportive of the development work and the achievements. If the opposition against the recommended procedure was based on a sudden understanding at the 1991 meeting, one should expect the minority scientists to continue to argue against the RMP. The RMP was, after all, presented to the Commission for adoption, and the Scienti®c Committee has carried out the further work it has found necessary from a scienti®c point of view to have the procedure implemented for managing minke whaling in the North Atlantic and the Antarctic. Since Norway is using the RMP outside the IWC to regulate its minke whaling, the performance properties of the procedure are an important issue, not only from an academic
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point of view. Scientists behind the minority statement in 1991 have, however, not been particularly active in investigating the RMP further, except for pointing out that extreme the so-called process error could lead to unsustainable catch limits. To the extent the RMP has been further investigated, the driving force has mainly been USA and its scientists. In addition to a review of the RMP commissioned by the US National Marine Fisheries Service (the report is available from the International Whaling Commission as document IWC/46/24) and some further work on the robustness properties of the RMP, US scientists regularly check the quota for northeastern Atlantic minke whaling calculated in Norway. This cross-checking revealed numerical weaknesses in the IWC computer program for RMP calculations (International Whaling Commission, 1998). The point here is that green camp scientists have not been particularly active in substantiating their objection in 1991 towards the recommended procedure, which forms the core of the RMP. Instead, they caused a new controversy in 1996 when estimates of abundance of northeastern Atlantic minke whales were reviewed in the Scienti®c Committee (International Whaling Commission, 1997). If that controversy had been sustained, Norway would have come under more political pressure when continuing its minke whaling. There is certainly evidence supporting the view that the minority statement in 1991 was an act of injecting controversy creating scienti®c room for political action. From the point of view of ``holding the dam'', the minority statement must be regarded as a success since the IWC is still dragging its feet on implementing a management regime based on the RMP. As far as the IWC is concerned, the moratorium on commercial whaling is still in force. 3.3. Long-term effects on harvest and ecosystem of unduly expanded uncertainty The Whaling Commission is indeed international. In international negotiations consensual knowledge is more important than advanced knowledge. Regulatory actions, such as reducing quotas from a stable level which the industry has adapted to, or implementing a management regime with non-zero quotas where there earlier was a moratorium, are vetoed more easily the more uncertainty that surrounds the knowledge.
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According to Underdahl (1989), ``substantial uncertainty . . . may serve as the political equivalent to live ammunition in the hands of actors opposed to (new) regulatory measures''. The history of whaling is characterised by enormous ¯uctuations. The slow population dynamics of whale stocks and the potential for high pro®ts in whaling, even when stocks are depleted, were the main contributing factors for these ¯uctuations in the past. In recent years, the weight of the popular mood in Western society with whales almost regarded as sacrosanct (Butterworth, 1992) has been the decisive factor. In the last 50 years, with whaling managed by IWC and based on scienti®c ®ndings, another factor contributing to large ¯uctuations is the tendency to have uncertainty expanded out of reasons. This was done both in the era of excessive whaling in the 1950s and in the recent era of protection. The excessive Antarctic whaling was undoubtedly prolonged by the politics of the Netherlands. This politics was facilitated by the Dutch member of the Scienti®c Committee, who prevented a clear scienti®c message to come through. The prolonged excessive whaling had two effects on long-term management. Stocks were brought down to low or dangerously low levels, resulting in long recovery times if rebuilding at all is possible. The other main effect of the earlier excessive whaling is the tremendous swing in sentiments in the western world. The Netherlands is again an interesting case. From being the most aggressive exploiter, the Dutcharenowamongthemostaggressiveprotectionists. The swing towards protectionism resulted in the moratorium decision in 1982. Currently, commercial minke whaling is carried out by Norway with a current take of some 600 whales. Japan takes some 400 minke whales under special permit (see below). Aboriginal people catch bowhead whales (Alaska), grey whales (Siberia and Washington State, US), minke, humpback and ®n whales (Greenland) and humpback whales (Caribbean) for subsistence. The present very limited whaling is under political pressure, and with the present sentiments in the in¯uential countries, it is not unlikely that whaling will be reduced rather than expanded in the near future. Minke whales are abundant in the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean. Many depleted stocks of other whale species are reported to be recovering at encouraging rates (Best, 1993). The resource basis for
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whaling is thus broader than to support present exploitation, and it is expanding. The present period must be characterised by a very low degree of utilisation. A drastic down scaling was necessary after the previous period of excessive whaling. The present period of very low degree of utilisation has, however, been lasting longer than necessary from a resource point of view. The period of near complete and indiscriminate protectionism was prolonged by the non-adoption of the RMP in 1991. The lack of scienti®c consensus in 1991 was important for the non-implementation policy we have experienced, and it eroded the in¯uence of science to such a degree that the Commission neglected the unanimous recommendation from the Scienti®c Committee in 1993. The overly expanded uncertainty in 1991 is thus a decisive factor in the prolongation of the present protectionism period. How long the current period of extremely low degree of utilisation of whales will last is hard to say. Demand for whale meat does not seem to go away in countries like Japan, Korea, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and USA. Aboriginal peoples in North America (the Makah Indians in Washington State) and Siberia have, in fact, been pressing for expanded whaling. Global demand for food in general, and meat and fat taken from mammals in particular is increasing, since the world population is expanding, and the per capita demand is increasing. With increasing dif®culties in meeting these demands from ®sheries, aquaculture and agriculture, it seems likely that global potential demand for whale meat and blubber will remain substantial and actually increase. With recovering stocks, the economic potential in whaling is likely to increase. Whale meat and blubber (whale bacon) are highly valued in the Japanese market place. The supply of these products comes largely from the 300 minke whales taken annually in Antarctica and the 100 minke whales from the North Paci®c taken under special permit issued by Japan for the purpose of scienti®c research (see International Whaling Commission (1998) for a discussion of the scienti®c merits of this research and of the political issues involved). The supply of whale products to the Japanese market is very limited, and the prices are extremely high. The Norwegian consumer values whale meat, which is currently often used in restaurants and in
private parties, while it earlier was regarded as cheap and not particularly festive food. Blubber is, however, not valued as a diet item in Norway. In recent years, blubber has been stockpiled in the hope that it again can be exported to Japan. In the summer of 1995, the price of blubber rose by a factor of nearly 700, from 11 ùre to 70 crowns per kilogram when it was rumoured that Norway would issue an export license. This price increase re¯ects the strength of the demand of whale products in the global market place, and the potential pro®ts that can be made. Holt (1992) hoped to keep the moratorium on commercial whaling at least until the year 2000. Later, the dam against whaling should, he hoped, be held by ethical arguments. Science would then not have much of a place in the management of whales. But will ethics be suf®cient to protect whales, in the same way as Hindu ethics protect the sacrosanct cows? It is not implausible that in the coming decades, ethos in USA, EU, Australia and New Zealand will swing back from caring almost religiously for whales. With science demoralised since it has little in¯uence, and possibly side tracked from management since it no longer is needed when management is based on ethical arguments, it is not obvious that science will be able to suf®ciently and quickly re-establish itself as a basis for management if a new period of exploitation is entered. We might then again experience a period of unsustainable whaling, possibly with new scientists employing the method of uncertainty maximisation, resulting in insuf®cient regulation and prolonged excessive utilisation. The overly expansion of uncertainty that we have seen on two occasions in the advice on whaling is then not only alien to science (National Academy of Sciences, 1992; Schweder, 2000), but might have great negative effects on the long-term management of whales. In the short run, the current distortion might lead to cautious management. But in the long run I fear that the effect of expanding uncertainty for the purpose of keeping the moratorium in place could create social volatility that could lead to management that is far from optimal. Excessive ¯uctuations as those experienced in whale management are de®nitely sub-optimal with respect to long-term yields. Schweder and Hagen (1999) ®nd that the more variability there is in stock abundance around a long-term mean, the smaller the average yearly catch. This is borne out in simulations,
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and it follows theoretically when the production curve is convex as in the Pella Tomlinson model. More important than this, excessive ¯uctuations in management can produce large ¯uctuations in stock abundance with increased likelihood of severe stock depletion in the long run. Protectionism might seem precautionary in the short run, but with management based on popular mood in secular societies, there is hardly any guarantee that the period of protectionism will last very long. This is particularly true since the popular sentiments against whaling are largely based on the conception that whales are threatened by depletion and extinction, as re¯ected by all species of great whales, including the abundant minke whale, being listed by CITES. This understanding is contrary to the relevant science, as can be seen from the Reports of the Scienti®c Committee of the IWC. With antiwhaling sentiments based neither on religion (in the usual sense of the word) nor science, the question is when they will give way for indifference, possibly paving the way for a new period of over-utilisation. The International Whaling Convention from 1946 mandates the regulation of whaling to be based on scienti®c ®ndings. However, if science is demoralised by not being listened to, or eroded from the inside by misconduct in the form of uncertainty distortion or otherwise, it is less likely that science can function properly as the necessary check and balancing force for management. The Convention, on which IWC is founded, also mandates IWC to ``provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry''. Aron et al. (2000) argue that IWC is dysfunctional and even verging on extinction since it upholds its policy against commercial whaling in spite of its ability to regulate whaling according to the Convention by implementing the RMP. Continued political dysfunctionality in the management of whaling certainly contributes to the potential for long-term volatility in whaling, which is inef®cient from a utilitarian point of view and conservationally dangerous. Acknowledgements A pre-runner of this paper was prepared while visiting the secretariat of the International Whaling
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Commission. Thanks are due to Ray Gambell and Greg Donovan at the IWC, and to Ray Beverton, Richard Laws, Ed Miles, Tim Smith, Oran Young and others, who all have read earlier versions of the paper and given me help and encouragement. References Anderson, R.M., Beverton, R.J.H., Semb-Johansson, A., Wallùe, L., 1987. The state of the Northeast Atlantic minke whale stock. Report of the Group of Scientists Appointed by the Norwegian Government to Review the Basis for Norway's Harvesting of Minke Whales. ékoforsk, As, Norway. Aron, W., Burke, W., Freeman, M.M.R., 2000. The whaling issue. Mar. Policy 24, 179±191. Best, P.B., 1993. Increase rates in severely depleted stocks of baleen whales. ICES J. Mar. Sci. 50, 169±186. Butterworth, D.S., 1992. Science and sentimentality. Nature 357, 532±534. Cooke, J.G., 1995. The International Whaling Commission's revised management procedure as an example of a new approach to fishery management. In: Blix, A.S., Wallùe, L., Ulltang, é. (Eds.), Whales, Seals, Fish and Man. Elsevier, Amsterdam. Day, D., 1992. The Whale War. Grafton, London, pp. 115±116. FAO, 1995. The precautionary approach in fisheries. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 350/1. Gulland, J., 1988. The end of whaling. New Scientist 120, 42±47. Holt, S.J., 1988. The state of the Northeast Atlantic minke whale stock: a critique. In: Paper Presented to the Scientific Committee (IWC/SC/40/Mi1), International Whaling Commission. A Revised Version of the Paper Commenting only on the ``Scientific Aspects of the Report'' was Published in Rep. Int. Whaling Commission 39, 213±218. Holt, S.J., 1992. Animal protection and environmentalism: science. In: Ryder, R.D. (Ed.), Animal Welfare and the Environment. Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., London, 216 pp. International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, 1946. International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, Washington, DC. International Whaling Commission, 1983±1999. Report of the International Whaling Commission (the annual reports of the IWC are referred to by year; references are to the Report of the Scientific Committee when not otherwise indicated in the text). National Academy of Sciences, 1992. Responsible Science Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process, Vol. 1. National Academy Press, Washington, DC. Ruud, J., 1952. Modern whaling and its prospects. FAO Fisheries Bulletin No. 5. Also published in The Norwegian Whaling Gazette 41 (12). Schweder, T., 2000. Distortion of uncertainty in science: Antarctic fin whales in the 1950s. J. Int. Wildl. Law and Policy 3, 73±92. Schweder, T., Hagen, G.S., 1999. A note on the cost of instability in whale management. J. Cetacean Res. Mgmt. 1, 137±140. Underdahl, A., 1989. The politics of science in international resource management: a summary. In: Andresen, S., éstereng, W. (Eds.), International Resource Management. Belhaven Press.