©Greenpeace / Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert
The way forward A) Policy loophole The Korean government has taken a number of steps to illegal whaling and illegal trade of whale products in recent years, e.g. collecting DNA sample of all auctioned bycatch and issuing Cetacean Trade Certificate. Although these new regulations have so far been assessed as ineffective in implementation, this can be improved if the relevant authorities keep making efforts. While more push at implementation level is needed, there are loopholes in the regulation system that need to be closed in order to tackle the two main problems: high number of bycatch and significant level of illegal whaling. The current system provides local fishermen with incentives to have whale bycatch by giving ownership to the person who secures the dead whale first. It is likely to encourage fishermen either to regard a dead whale in their fishing nets as desirable or to disguise deliberate hunting as bycatch by any possible means. There is no way to distinguish whether a whale is genuinely bycaught or deliberately killed if, for example, a fisherman left a whale to die instead of releasing it when it is entangled. The current system is not only threatening whale stocks but also tempting innocent fishermen to become criminals. Disappearing Whales: Korea's Inconvenient Truth
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B) Recommendations ·The practice of giving dead whales to finders should be ended and dead whales should not be brought to shore. ·Financial incentives should be given to release whales alive when possible. ·There should be mandatory registration for whale meat restaurants so consumption can be better tracked. ·Given the high value of whale meat, penalties for illegal whaling should be increased to deter this sort of crime. ·All the cetacean species listed in CITES Appendix I or II should be formally protected by the Korean government.24 Conclusion Korea has a domestic law that bans whaling. Korea also has the responsibility to mitigate bycatch as a party to the IWC. However, it is letting these happen by not implementing its own law properly and by leaving the loopholes to be abused. The Korean government should strengthen the level of monitoring, control, and the surveillance in order to implement the relevant policy / law properly. If it cannot control illegal and unsustainable activities in its own water, what are the chances that it can control its own vessels in distant waters. Korea needs to put the utmost effort to save the oceans and marine ecosystem that are destroyed by overfishing due to lack of proper management of fishery. And the effort also needs to be made on the whales in Korea.
