Japanese students learn about the ocean in a project helping university researchers to recover the bones of an endangered gray whale in Chiba that died in 2016.
After IWC68, the institution must adapt to include member countries deeply divided in their views toward living marine resources and values of sustainable use.
Overall, in IWC68 the process intended to produce fairness under Western standards was incapable of meeting the needs of developing countries.
The IWC68 financial crisis highlights the IWC’s reduced priority for scientific decision making and raises concerns among pro-sustainable use nations.
The resumption of commercial whaling was not Japan’s only policy goal at IWC68. Another policy goal was to uphold and promote the principle of sustainable use.
In practice the IWC has already abandoned the management of whale resources and whaling, and the Western worldview caused this situation.
Not the whaling moratorium, but the defense and promotion of the general principle of sustainable use is the important policy issue for many countries.
Abe’s legacy included overseeing a dramatic shift in Japan’s whaling policy, from the decision to withdraw from the IWC to the restart of commercial whaling.
Artwork made from the baleen of whales has been an integral part of the culture of whaling communities in Japan and around the world, and some examples are introduced here.
The use of the Asuka drone allows researchers to identify whales even in the midst of ice floes, where research vessels are unable to go.
