As narwhal exports increase, CITES threatens to ban international trade

Narwhal hunters in Nunavut and Greenland may soon face an international ban on the sale of narwhal tusks and things made of narwhal ivory.

That’s because delegates at a recent meeting of CITES in Geneva, Switzerland began debate last month on a total import-export ban on narwhal products.

The hunting of narwhals in Canada and Greenland has “increased since 1995 to unsustainable levels,” says a document tabled at the meeting.

“International trade in narwhal products has also increased and changed in focus, from whole tusks to a high volume of carvings and pieces of tusk, making it harder to assess the real impact of the trade on the species.”

CITES, or the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, is an international watchdog group that sets controls on the cross-border sale of threatened species.

The representative of the European region kicked off the debate by recommending that CITES’ animals committee immediately start a trade review of narwhal products.

The European document says narwhal hunting has increased in West Greenland and Canada since CITES’ last trade review in 1995.

Even making reasonable allowances for struck and lost animals, it says death rates due to hunting by Nunavut and Greenland “certainly exceeded 1,000 annually through the 1990s and could have been as high as 1,500.”

The document also criticizes the way Nunavut and Greenland have set their allowable catches for narwhal.

While Nunavut has had quotas in place for years, the document doesn’t agree with how hunting limits are set.

Greenland adopted its first hunting regulations for beluga and narwhal hunts only in 2004, but its legal quota of 300 narwhal that year was still above the catch of 135 recommended by marine biologists.

But Greenland says CITES has it all wrong. In its response to the recommendation calling for a review of the narwhal trade, Greenland says “international trade is not the main incentive for narwhal hunting.”

“A stop for international trade is unlikely to have any effect on the level of exploitation,” it says, because “the trade in tusks and carvings does not drive the hunt” and “no export permits are given to fish plants to export narwhal meat, blubber or mattak.”

Greenland says CITES is overstepping its mandate, because CITES is supposed to control trade only when species are threatened by the trade itself.

“The hunt in Greenland is a subsistence hunt with the tusk as a surplus product and the only part occasionally traded internationally. The rest of the animal is used domestically for food both for people and dogs and hunting.”

Greenland says its hunting of narwhals has not increased, but rather decreased. The overall decline in the narwhal population is correct, Greenland says, and they say they are already acting to conserve the stock.

Greenland’s environment department says Greenland will improve its export system for narwhal.

Greenland also says the selling of tusks even makes the hunt more sustainable, because it encourages hunters to kill tusk-bearing males rather than females. And Greenland says an import-export ban might lead to the hunting of more females and a depletion of the stock.

And Greenland says that craft products can be made either from old parts of narwhals, such as bones found on beaches, or from animal parts made and exported years after the whale was killed.

Greenland says trade appears to be increasing because it’s now easier for people in Greenland to get export permits.

It also says there is continuing confusion between items made from narwhal teeth and tusks.

Narwhal tusks have been valued for their purported medicinal properties as well as for crafts, jewellery and ornaments. Since 1995, Canada and Greenland have exported 2,082 tusks, 5,379 kilos of meat, 1,716 narwhal teeth or tusks and 3,342 carvings.

Canada’s annual average export of tusks rose from 79 tusks to 122 by 2002.

Narwhal meat and blubber is sold locally, Greenland says, or sent to the 12,000 Greenlanders living in Denmark – patients, students, and temporary residents.

“On average it gives a nice but a small whale steak once a year per person during the mentioned period. In this circumstance you cannot talk about trade or commercial trade when the amount is so small and limited to a specific group,” Greenland says.

A document prepared by Dr. Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen from the Greenlandic Institute of Natural Resources, also argues that there is no need for a trade review of narwhal because Greenland has taken moves to reduce the narwhal harvest.