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Save the whales: sell them
2003-06-25
Kendra Okonski & Carlo StagnaroWhat do Italian singer Andrea Bocelli, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and whales have in common? A television ad sponsored by IFAW, featuring Bocelli's "Time to Say Goodbye", presents a tear-jerking tale of whales "bidding the world farewell because 'Japan and Norway are whaling again'."

The ad aired in Germany, where IFAW and other groups successfully convinced the International Whaling Commission - meeting in Berlin this week - to adopt a resolution which turns the IWC into a preservationist organization, away from its original purpose of sustainable whale management.

The International Whaling Commission was formed in 1946 to manage whaling –whale stocks had declined from hundreds of thousands to mere thousands because whale oil was used for lamps before the advent of electricity. Many whale populations, such as the minke, have recovered completely and are now competing with other whale populations for food.

Environmental groups continue to raise a ruckus (and a lot of money) over the claim that whales are “bidding the world farewell”. This eco-alarmism has swayed many member nations of the IWC, which has become highly politicized. Norway, Japan, Iceland, and several indigenous tribes in Canada and Alaska have been the victims of their cultural imperialism.

The debate about endangered whales is fundamentally flawed. Whale scarcity is not caused by whale hunting - the real problem is that no one owns whales.

Think about it - environmental groups like Greenpeace and the International Fund for Animal Welfare are not fussing about chickens, cats, or canaries. These creatures benefit from domestication and ownership, but whales are still subject to the "tragedy of the commons". Whales have become the victims of a massive international skirmish between environmental groups, and nations with a cultural practice of whaling, because no one owns them.

Preserving endangered species is not rocket science. We should not rely on people's benevolence to ensure their survival. If we allowed people, businesses, communities, and environmental groups to own whales, then Greenpeace could buy up all the whales to protect them, and businesses could sell whale-watching or sell hunting rights or whale meat.

New technologies would assist in protecting the whales – a small, harmless antenna could be implanted in whales to track their movements by satellite. The whales might even be valuable enough to merit a boat which travels with them to protect them. The IWC could assign property rights to whales and auctioning them to the highest bidders. If poachers violated those rights, they would be subject to the same legal procedures and punishments as for other forms of theft, and the owner would be awarded compensation.

Regardless of whether the whales were kept alive or eaten, ownership would ensure that whales never go extinct. This is because markets harness the self-interest of individuals. Whale markets would be no different - they would be driven by prices and would be subject to the same incentives that drive creativity and innovation through our economy.

But environmental groups have been fundamentally opposed to markets for all charismatic megafauna species. Last November, a vicious battle ensued when the same environmental groups lobbied delegates to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species meeting in Santiago, Chile, to not allow five African nations to sell their ivory stocks from culled elephants. Those countries have successfully increased elephant numbers, but had the resolution not passed narrowly, they would have been punished by environmental groups for their successful conservation.

The stark reality is that banning whale hunting may in fact leave the world with fewer whales. By driving whale trade underground, the price for whales could increase massively, and more whales would be killed illegally and sold on the black market to eager whale meat connoisseurs in Japan, Norway and Iceland, and elsewhere.

Environmental groups refuse to consider the idea that wildlife should pay its way, because their fundamental belief is that endangered species have intrinsic value. It is unfathomable, to them, that nations or indigenous tribes should eat whales, much less own them.

This cultural imperialism is offensive – and at the IWC meeting this week, African and Asian nations should rally against it. No interest group or nation has the right to force whaling nations and tribes to relinquish their cultural heritage, or to punish African nations for successful conservation measures. They should join forces to ensure that whales, elephants and other species are subject to market forces, rather than the international politics of conservation driven by environmental groups.

JoshJackson:

Environmental groups refuse to consider the idea that wildlife should pay its way, because their fundamental belief is that endangered species have intrinsic value. It is unfathomable, to them, that nations or indigenous tribes should eat whales, much less own them.

The irony, of course, is that environmentalists are making an implicit property rights claim.

Intrinsic value is a conceit like altruism. Value is derived via relative comparison. Things have only extrinsic value. Without relative comparison, one has no metric, no primer, no context, no frame of reference from which to quantify value in any meaningful way.

JoshJackson:

The stark reality is that banning whale hunting may in fact leave the world with fewer whales. By driving whale trade underground, the price for whales could increase massively, and more whales would be killed illegally and sold on the black market to eager whale meat connoisseurs in Japan, Norway and Iceland, and elsewhere.

Just as it has in other similar cases, such as the drug trade. History shows that bans have the opposite desired effect.

I like that this article gives an alternative that makes sense.

That's such a brilliant and logical concept, equitable, practical and totally workable. I can't wait for this kind of thinking to get put into practice although I am unlikely to see it. Congratulations to whoever reasoned it out.

On another "environmental" topic, because my sister's partner is currently sailing in the South Pacific I found out about the Pacific Garbage Patch so I have been thinking of how a voluntaryistic society could deal with this kind of mess. I suppose it wouldn't really be an issue because so many people would be keen to invest some cash in creating a cleaner environment, and the work would be actually done, rather than being delegated to the caring hands of the Neopolitan Camorra, who, according to the recently (relatively) published "Gomorrah" by Roberto Saviano (who speaks largely from first hand experience), simply load our carefully recycled plastic trash into ships that are long past their scrapping date (and covered by plenty of insurance) and then accidentally sink them once they are well clear of countries in a position to complain - maybe around Somilia for example. Apparently it's cheaper than going through the motions of recycling. I strongly recommend Saviano's book for a fascinating insight into the way this remarkable organisation actually functions on a worldwide level. The film is pretty good too (more of a thriller actually), but the full story is only to be had from the book.