|
|
|
03 March 2008 Small signs of a whaling compromise [Keyword: whaling ]
Listening to some of the delegates talk, it was hard to understand how and why whaling has become the hotly disputed issue it undoubtedly is. "Whaling is a trivial issue," said one.
"The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has been meeting every year for 25 years and you've made no progress?" wondered another, clearly with little first-hand experience of the dysfunctional annual IWC summits.
As we listened, we looked at the senior Japanese fisheries officials sitting next to representatives of environmental groups and wondered; perhaps something is possible here.
The incentives for both sides to sort out the impasse appear obvious.
Under a global moratorium on hunting, more than 2,000 whales are hunted each year; hardly a triumph for conservation, never mind logic.
Meanwhile, Japanese, Norwegian and Icelandic whalers find themselves excoriated for doing something that is quite legal under international law; hardly an ideal situation for them either.
Then we listened to the news coming in from the Antarctic of the annual stand-off between Greenpeace and Japan's scientific whaling fleet, and wondered whether we were cocooned in some kind of alternative reality, and whether any meeting of minds was possible.
Useful steers
The scene was a seminar in Tokyo organised recently by the Pew Charitable Trusts, a US-based think-tank.
Desperate to avoid the name-calling and personal abuse that bedevils IWC meetings, Pew was highly selective in its invitations.
Assembled in the hall were delegates from pro- and anti-whaling governments, environmental groups, Japanese MPs, and - most usefully - people who have successfully steered other international negotiations through stormy waters, and could cut through the accumulated layers of historical mistrust and vitriol.
The hall held hardly any journalists, with their thirst for daily blood and hyperbole, and the meeting progressed under the Chatham House rule where the identity of speakers cannot be revealed outside the chamber without their permission, allowing a freedom to speak constructively which seems impossible at the IWC summits.
Pew believes compromise is desirable and possible. Yet a previous symposium it organised in New York had produced, among other intriguing and provocative ideas, the notion that the current stalemate actually suits everybody rather well.
It allows Japan's Fisheries Agency, for example, to posture as a defender of Japanese interests every time that Greenpeace or the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society obstructs the Antarctic hunt.
On the other side, anti-whaling politicians condemn the "slaughter", environmental NGOs accordingly shower them in green praise (in return for which NGO leaders get to sit on national delegations), and western journalists write the easy stories their publics appear to want, again with the word "slaughter" and the bravery of their politicians featuring prominently.
So could the second Pew gathering find a way through? Would there be signs that we might ever see a day when countries such as Australia, Brazil or the UK could approve a small measure of heavily-regulated Japanese commercial hunting, for example, perhaps in exchange for a reform of scientific whaling?
Having removed humpbacks from this season's Antarctic hunt, might Japanese delegates indicate a willingness to consider downscaling further, perhaps removing the endangered fin whale as well?
Could any of the "outsiders" show the IWC the route to a compromise that has so far proven elusive?
'Geriatric treaty'
Juan Mayr chaired the UN talks that led eventually to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosecurity - essentially, a rulebook for the international movement of genetically modified organisms.
Other speakers criticised the IWC and the whaling convention (IRCW) that it administers as relics of a bygone age: "a geriatric fisheries treaty" was one unflattering description of the 1946 agreement.
More recent international environmental treaties such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species defer to the ICRW; yet it lacks the ability to regulate issues that threaten to bring some whales to extinction, such as bycatch, the accidental (or "accidental on purpose") snaring of whales in fishing nets.
The convention allows countries that do not like certain resolutions simply to opt out of them. It lacks any way of resolving disputes.
But does the main fault lie with the convention itself, or with the way the warring factions interpret it?
While it clearly allows Japan to decide how many whales to include in its scientific hunt, did the treaty's architects intend annual scientific catches of anything like 1,000 animals? Does Japan's hunting make a mockery of the clause?
The convention's core aim is to manage whaling sustainably; so when stocks of some species are reasonably robust, does the anti-whaling bloc break its spirit by maintaining the blanket global moratorium?
While both sides might like the idea of re-writing the convention, one suspects they may have different re-writes in mind.
Boring ambition
As one of the Tokyo delegates said, compromise is only possible if "both sides give up the hope of absolute victory".
Some appeared to be willing to do so in return for the promise of an internationally-regulated, sustainable hunt, perhaps limited to national territorial waters, that would progress each year in what one delegate suggested should be a "boring" way, just as most fisheries do, without provoking daily headlines and international outrage.
There were hints from Japanese officials that a further downsizing of the Antarctic hunt might, perhaps, be offered one day.
Delegates from anti-whaling governments were a little less forthcoming about what they might offer in return, though seeming to realise they would, eventually, have to offer something.
Some, on the other hand, clearly viewed any notion of "compromise" with suspicion. One called the 1986 moratorium "the boldest step taken in environmental conservation during the 20th Century"; and several said the current situation, though not ideal, was the least worst option available.
Another observed that the moratorium had been initiated by the global community at the pioneering Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment in 1972; and it would be inappropriate to have the moratorium lifted by a body which includes a minority of the world's governments.
The Norwegian hunt, which rivals Japan's in the number of whales taken though not in the variety of species, was hardly discussed; but it would become a real issue if compromise talks started making progress.
And what of other countries that might want to resume whaling? Where might they fit in a new international treaty?
Source: bbc.co.uk
|
Similiar
Stories in the earthdive news database:
 |
04 February 2008: Reform call over Whaling Commission
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has failed to resolve the increasingly heated debate over Japan's whaling programme and needs to be thoroughly reformed, organisers of a conference on the dispute have said. |
 |
18 January 2008: Whaling pair 'leave Japan ship'
Two activists who boarded a Japanese whaling vessel have been handed to an Australian ship after a two-day Antarctic stand-off, officials say.
The ICR, which runs the whaling trip, said the men were "transferred safely" to an Australian Customs vessel. |
 |
10 October 2007: Whaling battle moves to YouTube
The Australian government has launched an anti-whaling message aimed at Japanese children on video-sharing internet site YouTube. |
 |
28 July 2007: Iceland whaling protest halted
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has pulled back from a bid to try to halt Iceland's controversial commercial whaling operations. The organisation had been planning to send its ship, Farley Mowat, north to Iceland... |
 |
28 May 2007: Conciliation talk at whaling meet
The annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) opens here shortly (1900 BST Monday) with a new spirit of conciliation in the air. |
 |
22 February 2007: Police investigate whaling collision
Forensic investigators from Australian Federal Police (AFP) are examining an anti-whaling vessel moored in Melbourne after it collided with a Japanese ship in Antarctic waters. |
 |
17 February 2007: Japanese whaling ship refusing tow
The crippled Japanese whaling ship Nisshin Maru which lost a crew member overboard in an accident last week is refusing offers from Greenpeace to tow it from the Ross Sea off Antarctica. |
 |
15 February 2007: Whaling ship on fire off Antarctica
A Japanese whaling ship on fire off the coast of Antarctica has sparked fears of an environmental disaster if the ship's 1,000 tonnes of fuel oil and chemicals leaks. The fire broke out on Thursday at about 5 a.m. New Zealand time on the black-hulled Nisshin Maru, the 8,000 ton flagship of the Japan whaling fleet. |
 |
27 December 2006: Japan slams anti-whaling activists
Japan has labelled a group of anti-whaling activists "eco-terrorists." The activists are aboard a ship in Hobart getting ready to disrupt Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean. |
|
|
| Previous
Year | Jan
| Feb |
Mar | Apr
| May |
Jun | Jul
| Aug |
Sep | Oct
| Nov |
Dec | Current |
| Get this as an RSS Feed |
Subscribe to this feed
You can subscribe to this RSS feed in a number of ways, including the following:
- Drag the orange RSS button into your News Reader
- Drag the URL of the RSS feed into your News Reader
- Cut and paste the URL of the RSS feed into your News Reader
|
|
|
|
