In the fourth of the Star Trek movies, an alien craft visits Earth in the hope of an intergalactic singsong with the whales. The alien song is pretty loud, and gets louder as the ship waits impatiently for a response from the whales - a response that never arrives, because the whales have been hunted to extinction, probably for scientific purposes, by a few members of the global community.

The rest of the plot is no less far-fetched, involving time travel, kidnapping whales and William Shatner trying to act like a man 40 years younger. Surprisingly, this one garnered no Oscars.

The point about the movie is it is almost a prediction of what may happen soon if certain nations in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) are successful in their bid to resume commercial whaling. As of June 19, it was touch and go. According to the country tabling the motion (St Kitts and Nevis): "The moratorium, which was clearly intended as a temporary measure, is no longer necessary."

A funny thing: the IWC's 70 members include many countries that have no coastline or any obvious maritime links, such as Austria, Luxembourg, and Mongolia. One hopes that these countries, with no need to carry out whaling, would block any attempts by more powerful countries, such as Japan, to resume it.

Japan is already whaling on a small scale for "scientific testing" (whale meat taste-testing in expensive sushi bars, perhaps). It has been suggested that the richer members of the IWC are buying votes of many of the poorer members, who do not necessarily want to carry out whaling but could do with an injection of foreign cash.

I know it screams of hypocrisy to protect one animal or group of animals because we have a fondness for them: whales, pandas, gorillas and dolphins for example. But the point about whaling is, we almost hunted many species to extinction in the 20th century, but the Save the Whale campaign was a great success, catching the imagination of people around the world and helping to raise awareness of many environmental issues. Now the International Fund for Welfare spokesperson is quoted as saying that the current attempt to revert to whaling is a "wake-up call" for countries that claim they care for whales.

Maybe we need to have a rethink: we cannot save every species that is endangered. But we should maintain the policies of saving what we can, or the consequences could be dire.

Do we really want to rely on William Shatner and the Star Trek crew to save the human race in the 23rd century?

Source: Guardian Unlimited