SES no.104; Preface

Whales are an informal grouping within the infraorder Cetacea, comprising about 85 species or subspecies such as the blue whale, sperm whale, small beluga, harbor porpoise, and many more.Humans have used whales for many purposes, most notably as food and industrial resources.Human-whale relationships have varied both regionally and historically.In Japan, for example, dolphins have been caught for at least the last 5,000 years; in Alaska and Siberia, whale hunts by the Iupiat/Yupiit may have begun as early as 3,000 to 2,500 years ago.From medieval times until the 20th century, the people of Europe, North America, and elsewhere have hunted whales for food, lamp fuel, lubricants, and other purposes.However, at the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, the Secretary-General of the conference argued that the environment could not be protected without saving whales.This argument was supported by many governments, including that of the United States, and environmental NGOs.At the conference, most of the participant countries adopted anti-whaling positions, no longer accepting whales as commercial resources.Thus, the conference was a symbolic turning point in the history of humans' relationship with whales, despite a moratorium on commercial whaling not being approved at the general meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) that same year.In 1982, the IWC amended the Schedule to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), an international agreement concerning the use and protection of large whales: Moratorium was imposed on the catching of 13 species of large whales, beginning in 1986.Following this amendment, the government of Japan suspended commercial whaling in Antarctic waters in March 1987 and off the coast of Japan in March of the following year.Since that time, neither pro-nor anti-whaling countries have obtained the three-fourths majority required to amend the Schedule.Commercial whaling remained a highly contentious issue at the annual IWC meetings.Since the late 20th century, the political trends in the whaling issue have been influenced by international environment and animal protection NGOs campaigning globally against commercial and other whaling activities; as a result of their efforts to change the relationship between human and whales, whales have become targets for protection and preservation, not just targets for exploitation.Diverse whaling activities have continued in many places.Whaling has continued among several indigenous groups in Russia, the United States, Greenland, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines under the name of "Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling" under the IWC, and it has continued among several indigenous and local groups in Canada and Indonesia outside the IWC system.Many local and indigenous groups worldwide have also engaged in dolphin and porpoise hunting, which is not controlled by the IWC.Japan carried out research whaling until June, 2019, and Norway and Iceland resumed commercial whaling with several conditions under IWC rules.At the same time, international environment

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