In a warehouse-like
hall in a hotel on the island of Jersey
in the English Channel, several hundred
people have gathered this week for the
annual meeting of the International Whaling
Commission.
This is my first time
at one of these meetings, and it’s a bit
of an eye-opener.
The International Whaling
Commission (IWC) is an odd beast. And it’s
a full ten years since the meeting last
set foot on UK soil. So there are some hopes
that this year’s meeting will be useful,
but there are also a lot of worries that
the IWC is so mired with difficulties that
progress might well be elusive.
Sixty-odd years ago
the IWC was set up as effectively a ‘whalers’
club’, where governments would get together
to regulate the world’s whaling industry.
In many ways that was ground-breaking stuff,
and at that time countries like the UK,
US, Argentina, Russia and many others were
happily hunting whales for commercial reasons.
Fast forward a few decades and things are
very different. We know now that the 20th
century saw the wholesale destruction of
most of the world’s large whale species
because of relentless commercial whaling.
And we now live in what appears a very different
world. There is a moratorium on commercial
whaling, and it is illegal for the most
part, to trade in many whale products. Most
countries have moved from being whale hunters
to be whale protectors, reflecting the widespread
public view that whales are worth more to
us alive than they are dead. Tourists now
embrace a different way of shooting whales
- with their cameras.
But at the same time
the amount of threats we humans pose to
whales has increased beyond belief - climate
change, fishing nets, plastic pollution,
ship strikes, and oil and gas extraction
are just a few of the dangers today’s whales
face. With so much else to focus on, one
cannot help but wonder why the IWC spends
quite so much of its time engaged in entrenched
battles for and against the continued commercial
whaling, that happens through loopholes
and political defiance, with little chance
to move forward on that issue, let alone
address the other problems.
Then there’s the strangeness
of the IWC and how its meetings and membership
is allowed to work, as exposed last year
so ably by London's Sunday Times.
Which brings us back
to this year’s meeting.
There are a few things
on the table to be discussed like the proposal
to create a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary,
and there are some big question marks over
who will actually turn up to participate
(today’s meeting opened with the news that
some 21 Member countries have not paid their
dues and are unable to vote, even if they
do attend…), and whether Japan’s early exit
from the Southern Ocean this year is the
beginning of the end of Antarctic whaling.
But the big news is
likely to be the humble proposal from the
UK’s own minister, Richard Benyon. I’m not
being dismissive, this is not an incendiary
idea designed to set the heather on fire,
it is a very practical suggestion on tidying
up how the IWC conducts itself. It, in itself,
might not be a guarantee to save any whales
this week, but what it is designed to do
is drag the outdated IWC into the real world,
so that it can operate in a transparent
and accountable way.
It’s about time, frankly.
Nowhere else would this even be being discussed,
but at the IWC the pro-whaling nations are
likely to put up a fight on even this issue,
preferring the dysfunctional status quo.
And in the midst of
this week’s meeting our Greenpeace Japan
colleagues Junichi and Toru (the ‘Tokyo
Two') will find out the result of their
appeal for being convicted for uncovering
embezzlement in the Japanese whaling industry.
We’ll let you know as soon as we have news.
Greenpeace Executive
Director Junichi Sato, one of the "Tokyo
Two," enters the High Court past a
banner which reads in Japanese 'We can not
concede our right to know', at the appeal
hearing in Sendai, Japan on 24 May. ©
Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert / Greenpeace
So we’ll be here all
week, letting you know what is happening,
and lobbying the politicians and country
representatives present to stand up for
the whales and what civil society expects
Maybe, just maybe, the
UK Minister will succeed in bringing the
IWC out of the dark ages. We will be doing
everything we can to make sure that happens.
Because only by reforming the way the IWC
works can we all get on with the job of
actually dealing with the threats our whale
populations face.
