With this amendment to the resolution, we would urge your early adoption of it, so it will be in time for the July 1985 IWC meeting. I thank you very much.

[Mr. Barstow's prepared statement follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DR. ROBBINS BARSTOW, VOLUNTEER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
CONNECTICUT CETACEAN SOCIETY

I am Robbins Barstow, the volunteer executive director of the
Connecticut Cetacean Society. We are a small, all-volunteer organ-
ization with only 300 dues-paying members and no regular office or
paid staff. Our headquarters are located in my home in Wethersfield,
Connecticut, but we have members all over the United States and vol-
unteer representatives in 13 foreign countries. Our publications are
circulated world-wide. I have attended as delegate or CCS observer
all of the last six Annual Meetings of the International Whaling
Commission, and I participate in all of the IWC Interagency Committee
meetings here in Washington. In 1983 the Connecticut Cetacean Society
was the initiator and coordinator of a Global Conference on the
Non-Consumptive Utilization of Cetacean Resources, held in Boston,
and commonly referred to as the "Whales Alive" Conference.

I wish to comment first on the exchange of letters between the
U.S. and Japanese governments with respect to Tokyo's compliance with
the IWC's ban on commercial whaling. My views on this bilateral
agreement were expressed in an article published in the Hartford
Courant on December 14, 1984, a reprint of which I have attached to
my written statement and which I would like to have included in the
record of this hearing.

Whales are unique. Unlike land animals, their living space does not fall within national boundaries. Their dwelling place is the global commons, the oceans of the world which do not belong to any one nation. Whales are not national resources to be exploited at will by any particular country. Whales are part of the common heritage of all humankind. As such they require collective custody.

The collective agency universally recognized as the appropriate international organization for the conservation, management, and study of whales in particular is the International Whaling Commission.

The Connecticut Cetacean Society opposes the November 1984 U.S.-Japanese agreement precisely because it directly abrogates key determinations made by the IWC. Two individual nations cannot be allowed to effectuate a separate, bilateral agreement contravening a collective IWC ruling. We must uphold the multi-national decisions of the IWC to maintain the integrity and even the survival of this body as the only organization capable of protecting and preserving the great whales of our planet on a global basis.

For this same reason, the Connecticut Cetacean Society strongly supports House Concurrent Resolution 54, introduced by Representatives Bonker and Yatron, with the support, we are proud to say, of our own Connecticut Congressman Sam Gejdenson. The United States must uphold and enforce with economic sanctions, if necessary, the moratorium on the commercial killing of whales to become fully effective in 1986, as overwhelmingly voted by representatives of the great majority of the peoples of the world at the IWC meeting in 1982.

In support of this position, I wish to submit to the Committee at this time, a set of petitions collected in recent months by the CCS and containing hundreds of signatures from all over the U.S. and from as far away as Australia, India, Argentina, and West Germany, urging the United States to uphold the IWC moratorium.

Finally, I wish to express an extremely serious concern in relation to the preparations of the U.S. government for this year's Annual Meeting of the IWC.

I have written an article entitled "Save the Whale: Save the IWC," published in the Connecticut Cetacean Society's small magazine, Whales Etcetera, which I would also like to have included in the record of this hearing. The article stresses the many functions and activities which must be carried out by the IWC even after the moratorium goes into effect.

We are at a crucial turning point in the history of the IWC and of the relationship between whales and humans. The world is finally declaring peace for the whales paz para las ballenas at least for a period of a few years.

The IWC now is more important than ever to maintain the collective, protective custody of all whales. It requires more support, not less support,

now that commercial killing is ending.

We need the IWC strong and viable to oversee the moratorium and to study the status of living whales throughout the world. To do this the IWC must continue to hold regular, annual meetings.

At the suggestion of the United States at last year's IWC meeting, a Working Group was set up on the "Future Activities of the IWC." This group met in Cambridge, UK, in February and has issued a preliminary report for consideration at the July 1985 IWC meeting in Bournemouth, UK. I think it is an excellent report, outlining at least ten, specific, major areas of future activity for the IWC. In the face of increasing financial difficulties, however, the report also lists several possible cost-saving reductions in services, including the holding of IWC meetings every other year instead of annually.

The Connecticut Cetacean Society is urging the United States government and non-governmental organizations to take the strongest possible stand in support of continuing annual meetings of the IWC. Too much can happen during a two-year period to disrupt or undermine the moratorium. It must be monitored and reported on annually. We must continue to focus the attention of the world at least once a year on the state of the whales. This can only be done through annual meetings of the IWC. We must not proclaim that keeping whales alive is less important than keeping them dead!

Mr. Chairman, the Connecticut Cetacean Society wishes to urge your Committee to amend House Concurrent Resolution 54 by adding the following provision as a further expression of the sense of the Congress:

"(5) to maintain the International Whaling Commission as a viable and effective organization for the conservation, management, and study of whales, particularly during the critical period while the moratorium comes into effect, the United States should support the continued holding of Annual IWC Meetings, and take appropriate action to assure requisite funding for such meetings."

Then we hope this Resolution will be adopted by the Congress well before the start of the 1985 IWC meeting on July 15. Thank you.

Mr. YATRON. Thank you, Mr. Barstow. I will take your proposed amendment and suggest it to the sponsor of the legislation.

Mr. BARSTOW. Thank you.

Mr. YATRON. Whoever would like to respond, what will be the long-term and short-term effects on whale populations if the United States-Japanese arrangement is allowed to stand? Mr. Plowden?

Mr. PLOWDEN. Mr. Chairman, I would say the best answer to that question is the very reason why the deal is bad. The scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission has reached a point where they say we cannot predict that. It has been obvious in times past that the hunting of sperm whales had depleted that population very seriously, and with the most recent analysis that has been going on, they basically have reached the conclusion that they cannot tell what impact the hunt is having on that population.

Given the criterion of how hunting is supposed to be allowed under the Commission's rules, that hunting should cease.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey [presiding]. Thank you. I have a couple of questions I would like to address, assuming the chairmanship for a moment.

Do any other nations have sanctions similar to those of the United States to enforce IWC decisions? And, if there are any, could you tell us what those nations are? These are sanctions similar to the Pelly amendment, the Packwood-Magnuson amendment. Mr. VAN NOTE. No, no other nations have any domestic regulations like that.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Is there any reason for that?

Mr. VAN NOTE. I believe it's probably because they haven't taken it upon themselves to try to make international treaties_work through unilateral action. It is rather unique to the United States in many ways, that we are trying to be the enforcer of international treaty obligations.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Do you see any possibilities of other nations, particularly with some of your organizations having representatives in those nations?

Mr. PLOWDEN. I would say there has been a move. In general, the European Economic Community has lagged behind the moves of the United States. The United States banned the importation of whale meat or whale products in general in 1972 and strengthened that to the Endangered Species Act in 1973. The European Economic Community took similar steps several years later.

We have had contacts with conservation groups from Germany, specifically, who are interested in having the German Parliament adopt analogous legislation to the Pelly amendment.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Would that be the Green party?
Mr. PLOWDEN. I believe so.

Mr. CHEATER. I would also say, speaking on behalf of Greenpeace, we are certainly interested in pursuing those types of approaches in other nations, particularly in Europe. We are also urging citizens worldwide to adopt their own sanctions against countries which defy IWC accords. In particular, we are urging citizens to boycott Japan Air Lines because of Japanese intransigence on the whaling issue. We have also been active in a boycott of Norwegian fish products because that nation has filed an objection to the IWC