I'm speaking as a big A anthropologist not as a little a archaeologist when I talk about being a hypocrite in that I make my living off of people who actively hunt whales and seals. I also partake in festivals, parties and ceremonies that are deeply intertwined with whaling culture.

The irony of your position is that if whaling wasn't restricted by many nations, the people you study would have lost their livelihood many years ago because the whales would be extinct. They depend on the anti-whalers as much as they depend on the whales. If you took the next logical step and decided that everyone should have the right to kill whales, then your position would quickly eliminate the culture you want to protect.

This isn't my position at all. I support the moratorium on whaling and all the good that it has done. I do however think that soon we we will be at a place where we can start thinking about different ways to begin sustainably hunting non-threatened species again.

But I don't think any serious anti-whaling conservationists are talking about unilaterally imposing rules on indigenous people anyway.

I don't think so either, although I've had this said to be from people who work within Sea Sheppard but I don't take their comments to be representative of the whole organization.

Surely you don't oppose their right to sign a treaty if they decide its in their best interests. It would be win for both sides, and a win for whales. The only losers would be the anthropologists.

I don't but they won't. The Inuit depend on whales to a different degree throughout the arctic so they amount that they are hunting differs, but over all the consensus is that it is a negligible amount. Plus the Inuit themselves ARE very interested in keeping whale stocks healthy (and let's be honest: they were never the reason whale populations were dipping, that was large-scale commercial hunting). This is why they participate in conservation research and are invested in knowing the limits that they can hunt every year. They aren't stupid and understand the need to be careful but they are not going to let the government or anyone else tell them what they can and cannot hunt on their own land. Colonialism tends to breed suspicion. They can and do work with scientists themselves to develop plans for conservation.

The only losers would be the anthropologists.

Nah. That implies that were are interested in keeping cultures static so we can study relics of the past. Anthropologists are interested in culture and people in general so we study the modern inuit and their changing lives, contested spaces and culture now as much as early ethnographers did in the past.