Jan. 16, 2012 Every year, a group of anti-whaling nonprofit
organizations that includes Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd, and the
World Wildlife Fund spend, by conservative estimates, some $25
million on a variety of activities intended to end commercial
whaling. And every year, commercial whaling not only continues,
but grows. Under the current, largely unregulated system, the
number of whales harvested annually has doubled since the early
1990s, to about two thousand per year. Further, many populations
of large whales have been severely depleted and continue to be
threatened by commercial whaling. While protests, education,
lobbying and dangerous confrontations on the high seas have
saved some whales, the whaling industry shows no sign of
shutting down -- or slowing down. Now, an economist and two
marine scientists writing in the January 12 issue of the journal
Nature suggest a new strategy that they believe could save
whales by putting a price on them. In the article, "A market
approach to saving the whales," Chri