Author - CEO

National Geographic online is suggesting some promoters of a compromise deal with Japan on commercial whaling believe that Japan is finally willing to come to the table and negotiate.

But just who should they be talking to?

It would appear that it's the Fisheries Agency (FA) who have the almost exclusive power to decide on Japanese whaling policy - it would appear that even the prime minister can rarely intrude upon it's 'turf'. In Japan it appears the 'bureaucratic-political' decision making model still holds sway, (as it has doen for many years); so no elected individual minister or elected grouping are willing to take decisions to change policy without the agreement of the bureaucrats of the FA. And where does the FA get its money for its whaling campaign that takes its civil servants around the globe (I understand the Caribbean is very piopular)? - from the annual revenues that so-called 'scientific whaling' produces!

Japan has never seen the IWC as a negotiating forum; it has always approached it as combat, creating as many barriers to discussions as they can.

So why should they (if one could work out who 'they' are) negotiate? 'They' have no interest in changing the status quo and certainly no interest in reducing their budgets inflated by Japanese tax payers 'donations'.

Negotiate!, - Japan's Fisheries Agency - dream on I say!

In the life of being an NGO we have just reached the stage where WDCS's websites, in all their guises, are about ten years old. We shall be putting the various databases that we hold onto the various expressions of the site including ten years of news stories and features that we have accumulated.over that time. So bear with us and keep coming back and we shall be delivering more and more for you as soon as we can

In the meantime, going back to the news stories of April 1998 I came across this story about the pressure Norway was putting on Iceland to resume commercial whaling. And why were Norway so keen? Well it seems they wanted to take the international pressure off themselves and onto Iceland; and looking at what has happend since, it would seem Norway's strategy has been highly successful!

This is what was said all those years ago on the 27th April 1998

The Icelandic Government has, over the last week, been considering a proposal to resume commercial whaling. The initial proposal is believed to have consisted of a programme to unilaterally grant a scientific whaling permit. On 24 April, Icelandic TV reported that the Icelandic Government had decided at its cabinet meeting that whaling would NOT be resumed this summer. Icelandic TV stated that the reason given was that Norway is developing a new type of harpoon and it will not be ready until late this summer (1998). As a result, Iceland will not consider a proposal submitted to the Icelandic Government to catch 100 minke whales under a scientific permit.

The Icelandic Government, whilst coming under vocal pressure from a minority of pro-whalers within Iceland to start whaling for commercial gain, has also come under substantial pressure from Norwegian authorities keen to see Iceland resume whaling in order to alleviate the international pressure that currently falls on Norway. Norwegian authorities know that Iceland would draw considerable pressure away from Norway - the last official commercial whaler in the northern hemisphere.

Iceland is not a member of the International Whaling Commission, having left in 1992. Iceland ceased whaling in 1989.

Japan carries out so-called 'scientific whaling', and the results of this studious 'research', apart from ending up on the dinner plate, tends to be peer-reviewed by scientists within the same Japanese Government departments, and is published in only a few 'select' places.

So what does this research amount to? It would seem that the proponents of killing thousands of whales have been carrying out 'bizarre' tests to cross whales with cows..

It would seem that Australian Government officials have catalogued a series of 'very strange' tests being carried out – including attempts by Japanese whalers to produce test-tube hybrid calves that were conducted in a bid to justify Japan's slaughter 'for research'.

They also accused the government scientists of injecting minke whale sperm into cow eggs and implanting minke cells into cow and pig cells.  Australian environment minister Peter Garrett said: 'I challenge anyone to look at this research and say it's necessary.'

So a 'scientific' hunting program that the IWC says is unnecessary and now a series of experiments Dr Frankinstein would have been proud of. As the old saying goes, ...there is nothing like good science, and this is nothing like good science.....

I write this travelling on a train back from London. In fact, I am travelling home to the South West of the UK via a circuitous route round some delightful southern stations and train lines because, believe it or not, the rail company that services Chippenham (where WDCS UK is based) charges over one hundred pounds to travel the 100 odd miles into London and the 100 miles back. Going south and making a few changes (through some beautiful countryside by the way) is just £26 today. It’s a little longer, but you usually can get a seat and, today, I have even got a table and can work and write.

But whilst I often complain about our overpriced railways in the UK, I simply illustrated it on this occasion because it gives me the time to write this for the WDCS blog. I wanted to pick up on something Lindsay wrote a few weeks back about the role of the ngos, government and conservation.

Someone recently suggested to me something about the IWC that got me thinking - and then got me worried. The person, who shall remain nameless, suggested that the IWC would be a better place if countries were allowed to get on with their decisions in private, and that non-governmental organisations should possibly not be allowed access (or at least limited in their access) to the civil servants that were involved in whaling negotiations. The argument (espoused previously by some pro-whaling interests) goes something like, ‘the civil servants will get on with the job much better if left alone and not hassled by the ngos’.

I am not sure if the individual extends this  analysis to other areas such as journalism, when considering who should be excluded, but doesn’t the concept of accountability and transparency go to the heart of the issue here?

We have unelected civil servants (some of whom I think are very good by the way) who are accountable to elected officials, but can operate with quite some freedom at these meetings of the IWC. So should they be allowed to operate away from the prying eyes of the public? Because that’s what excluding such scrutiny means, - away from the eyes of the public those who wish to decide in secret should be allowed to ‘trade’ issues. The US Government for instance is always thrown into turmoil when it’s attempting to get IWC approval for its indigenous people’s hunt of Bowhead. The US tends to ‘wobble’ in its opposition to commercial whaling at such times and ends up being under enormous pressure to offer the commercial whalers concessions if they do not oppose the quota. The pro-whalers, of course, know this game and use the opportunity to their advantage.

Well call me old fashioned, but I happen to be a democrat in, I hope, the purest sense (and non-political sense) of the word, and I believe that the role of NGOs is to act as an expression of will of a part of the population (those with an interest in the subject at hand) to ensure that governments and unelected civil servants are doing what the public want. Before any one says NGOs are unelected, that’s true, but we are ‘elected’ every time someone decides to trust us with the resources to do the job we do.

So to propose that NGOs should be excluded (as I say, something pro-whaling interests have often suggested) cuts to the heart of how democracy works. NGOs not only help governments with the raw and processed information they require to decide their positions in a complex environment, but also NGOs act as the force for accountability that all officialdom should be held to. I believe that different people can have a duality of views about an issue, but please don’t tell me that conservation is served by secrecy and closed room deals. Its not democracy in action and it certainly is not what drives any pursuit of truth.

In a few days time, the member countries of the IWC will be meeting just outside London in the UK to discuss the future of the IWC. There is a battle between those who would see a future of renewed and legalised whale killing and those who would see a future for whale conservation, and a group of countries and that just want the problems to go away.

This group of countries (and some others I have to tell you) want a compromise that appears to 'make the problem go away'. Their proposals do not end whaling, and some of us think that they will actually open the doors for a  lot more whaling in the future.

I am not saying we are getting old, but these things do seem to repeat themselves, especially when countries seem to forget the lessons of the past.

The following letter appeared in the April 1998 edition of the science magazine 'Nature'. I don't have to point out that the arguments are the same all over again. However, for those who missed it the first time around, here is what WDCS said at the time;

Whither Whaling

Mark Simmonds and Christopher Stroud,Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, Alexander House, James St. West, Bath BA1 2BT

Some parties to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) met in Antigua from 3-5 February to consider a plan to end, its supporters suggested, the existing 'stalemate between pro- and anti-whalers. Despite the 'moratorium' on commercial whaling agreed in 1982, Japan still takes whales under the guise of 'scientific research' and Norway continues to hunt using a formal objection to the moratorium. Their combined annual take is over 1,000 minke whales.

The whalers were invited to phase-out their ongoing whaling and agree to an international trade ban. In exchange, they were offered IWC-endorsed quotas in their domestic waters. The rationale for such a compromise has been outlined elsewhere (1,2) but many conservation groups were concerned that the deal would end the moratorium, strongly signaling that commercial whaling was again internationally approved. However, although the issue remains on the agenda for the IWC meeting in May (3) it seems that the whalers themselves have rejected the compromise. Arguments that 'coastal whaling communities' deserved quotas to alleviate hardship were apparently displaced by their desire for widespread whaling and trade, clarifying their motives as purely commercial.

The IWC Scientific Committee is making 'assessment' of whale stocks, leading to theoretical quotas for various species; theory that is already made reality by Norway for North Atlantic whales. Scientific support for sustainable utilisation also influences the Convention in Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). At its last meeting, those in favour of removing existing trade restrictions on minke whales were only narrowly defeated.

However, commercial whaling meets no pressing human need and, however good the modeling, subjects whale populations to unnecessary risk. Baleen whales are long-lived marine predators with relatively low reproductive capacity and which, typically, make long annual migrations. They may be especially vulnerable to environmental perturbations (4).

Furthermore, an emphasis on lethal sustainable use, may of itself help to generate new markets and trade. This is already the case for caimans (5) and now elephants, following the recent CITES decision to resume trade - witnessed by increased in poaching (6 Similarly, several Caribbean states announced in Antigua their wish to start whaling and, on February 26th, three humpback whales were harpooned by 'aboriginal' whalers of Bequia, Grenadines. (The calf was struck first and used alive to lure its mother; whilst the third animal, a male escort, was struck and lost).

Suzuki recently commented 'how can we be so arrogant as to assume that we can manage the likes of wild fish, whole communities of organisms... or atmospheric layers, I ....suggest that we temper our enthusiasm with some humility about how far we have come' (7).

We call for the establishment of a global whale sanctuary - to protect whales from direct takes in all maritime waters - and seek the support of the scientific community in this endeavor.

1. Gambell, R. in Whales, seals, fish and man (eds. Blix, A. S., Walløe, L. and Ulltang, ?.) 699-708 (Elsevier Science B.V. 1995).

2. Knauss, J. A. Ocean Development & International Law 28: 79-87 (1997)

3. IWC press release: IWC Chairman's Consultation with Commissioners - Antigua, 3-5 February 1998.

4. Simmonds, M. P. & Hutchinson, J. D. The Conservation of Whales and Dolphins - Science & Practice (Wiley, Chicester, 1996).

5. Brazaitis, P., Watanabe, M. E. & Amato, G. Scientific American 278(3):70-76 (1998)

6. Anon. BBC Wildlife 15(10): 23 (1997)

7. Suzuki, D. The Ecologist 28(1): 7 (1998)