WDC Blog - From the Front Line

Here we go. The countries are now presenting their arguments for their resolutions.

Japan has been lobbying hard in the corridors and over coffee (and I can assure you a fourteen year old can lobby excellently), but have not been able to persuade the other countries that its proposal to lock the IWC into accepting a road map to lift the moratorium in 2012.

This is a diplomatic trick often used by countries to get an agreement accepted 'but not immediately.' The students were far too astute and repudiated Japan and the vote went down 60% against and 40% for, and so was defeated.

The next vote was just as rich in debate but this time it was for an application for Bowheads whales for the US Alaskan Inuit peoples.

This is a group of peoples that have been reliant on whaling for a number of animals for thousands of years. Most years when the US brings such a proposal the IWC members grant the quota.

However, in the last few years Japan has been holding the US quota request for ransom and applying pressure to get its own demands by holding the US hostage in threatening to zero their quota.

The students here did not use quite those techniques, but they did question the US robustly on its application asking questions about how much of the hunt is 'commercial' in trade in whale ivory?; how many people really need the meat?; What other animals and foods could the Inuit eat?

After a challenging debate, the US won its vote with 60% in favour of granting the quota, 20% against, and 20% abstaining.

We then come to the really tricky vote. Iceland had proposed a quota for itself, but wants to change its application from Commercial whaling to Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling (ASW).

The request from Iceland was for ten humpback whales. This was met with incredulity by Norway, who accused Iceland of abandoning its whaling heritage. Australia and others were suspicious of this move and the questions become tougher and tougher.

The normally quiet and dignified Icelandic delegation found themselves under enormous pressure. The initially quiet commissioner for Iceland slowly rose in volume and passion, rebutting all attacks and comments. A willingness to compromise varied back and for as the debate raged.

In the background Japan was seeking to influence the Icelandic vote to its own advantage. Sweden and the UK was unable to reach a consistent EU position and so the UK felt it had to absent itself from the vote.

The distinguished commissioner for Iceland

Eventually Iceland was able to persuade the delegates that it was being honest in giving up commercial whaling and offered to reduce its quota to 10 minkes under an aboriginal quota. The vote was 70% in favour.

For those of you who are followers of the real IWC, the EU discussions will ring all too true. Sweden are being particularly difficult in the 'real world' with respect to Greenland and its demands to open up its whaling. Sweden seems to believe that any request for an aboriginal quota should always be favoured in its totality. Maybe some colonial guilt there me thinks.

The day ended with a brilliant presentation from Mark Simmonds on the reality of whaling, which stimulated even more questions from the students.

WDCS would like to thank Sea Life for making this conference happen (Mark, Rob, Max and Paul, you know who you are - and don't forget the bicycles said they children as they left) . Also our thanks to WDCS's own Mark Simmonds for his inspiring guidance throughout the two days. As one person said, 'the whales could not do better if they had to pick a single champion to defend them'. Mark was ably assisted by Rob and Victoria (who refuses to let me publish a picture of her here )

Next we should thank the teachers and their supporters who helped the children prepare and engage in the conference. Their dedication was clearly evident in the enthusiasm shining through the children in their care. We take our hats off to you for your leadership and scholarly aptitude.

Our real and best of thanks also go to the students and teachers from all over the UK that attended the conference. The pupils were both inspiring and delightful in equal measure. If the future of whales is in their hands, then they are in good hands indeed.

We look forward to building upon this conference with an education initiative reaching out to all schools in the UK and even further afield. We shall let you know more as our thought develop.

So the real debate begins. Today following a presentation on the history of whaling the schools have taken the role of different countries that attend the IWC (International Whaling Commission).

The big difference is that the students are much more polite and articulate than some past meetings of the IWC that I remember.

The arguments are based on the arguments often offered at the IWC. Australia has just refuted Japan's argument that it needs to cull whales, noting that humans, fish and 'seabirds take more fish than whales do.

The sophistication and level of the arguments is incredibly high and now each country is putting forward the resolutions it wants to see voted through

Notre Dame High school have brought us the issue of climate change. Using a series of beautiful illustrations they have discussing how climate change will affect the Arctic relating the impacts to the realm of the Bowhead whale. Whilst the Norwegian Fisheries Association (Norges Fiskarlaget) is holding its annual meeting today in Trondheim to encourage whaling, this group of students is showing us the way that northern countries like the UK and Norway need to adapt rather than keep a stagnant industry alive whilst climate change affects their prey species and environment.

Again the comments and questions from the students show an enormous understanding of this complex issue. Maybe we should be sending these guys to Copenhagen in December

This afternoon we have examined the issues of whale intelligence and biology, but now we have now moved onto an issue relevant to WDCS's current work, that of noise pollution. The London Academy have taken a brilliant approach to comparing the issue of noise as a threat to cetaceans by comparing threats to humans. They have used a number of loud noises to make us all jump out of our seats. And yet the noises they have used may be quieter than some noises that we expose dolphins and whales too!

The students have gone onto let us know that whales and dolphins primarily sense by sound and so their world can be made intolerable by human noise pollution.

After a rather delicious lunch (the two vegans had to wait for a few minutes), we are about to resume.

One issue that has come to light is the quality of information that is available for students today.

Do most students actually get their information from the web, or are there text books that they would use nowadays?    

The reality is that the web is an amazing tool, but almost anyone can publish just like I am doing now, but who regulates the information? Maybe there is a sort of market for information that finally winnows out the bad and allows the best and most accurate information to get through. Based on what I am seeing here it would seem that dedicated researchers as these students evidently are, will find the right information and that they are willing to question its legitimacy , so maybe there is hope in this information overload age.

PS I see the UK's Marine Bill is about to go into its final stages. You can find more out at the WDCS UK site.

I have just heard a fantastic presentation by the Islay High School on whale intelligence. Did you know that dolphin splay football? Well I do now and we even had a demonstration

Here is a great example of a group of young people who have been able to cut through the wealth of information that is out there and are able to select the best information to present. A great piece of work and something that our own Mark Simmonds is fascinated by. He is now telling the meeting all about how to test for intelligence. He has the students laughing and entranced by his questioning. The students are now suggesting ways that we may be able to measure intelligence.             

Human/dolphin football. Maybe the Scottish football team will do better now

As usual I am always stunned when students and young people present on the issue of cetaceans. Their knowledge and passion is amazing.

We started the day with a dedication of a Japanese lantern shrine commemorating the 40,000 whales that have died since 1984. That's some 30,000 since the moratorium in 1986, and Japan, Norway and Iceland are still killing whales despite the declining market for whale meat.

At the conference we have already had two presentations and I am already learning something new. As the day goes on I shall be struggling to keep up at this rate. We had an opening address from Alfreton Grange Arts College on the role of the IWC.

This was followed by Knightswood Secondary School on the issue of UK whaling history. Did you know that Dundee was a centre of British commercial whaling?

Tomorrow the debates begin and that will be really interesting. Forfar Academy gave us a  stunning presentation on the issue of modern commercial whaling. They made the arguments for and against whaling, making sure both sides of the debate was tackled. Their comments on whale intelligence and the rights and wrongs of commercial whaling verses the killing of species in modern industrial farming really made the conference sit up and tackle some difficult aspects of the issues before us.

The Coppice Performing Arts School tackled the issue of other forms of whaling including aboriginal subsistence whaling. I was particularly taken with the fact that they had surveyed their school colleagues on the issue of whaling.

I am currently in the Alton Towers resort with WDCS and Sea Life colleagues for the Junior Whaling Conference.

Schools from all over the UK are here to recreate the International Whaling Commission (IWC) over the next two days. We shall let you know how it goes. The accompanying photo shows two WDCS colleagues, Mark and Rob preparing for the coming days.

In the past few hours the news has spread through Australian and International media that the spill has been plugged. The company has said that a small fire remains on the rig, but ostensibly the immediate disaster is contained ... but it is far, far from over.

Oil and its toxic impacts will remain in the region for years to come. The animals who call this place home will be living with their impacts in their food chains and in themselves for an unknown amount of time.

As I write this I am reminded of news that came to the fore many years after the Exxon disaster had fallen from conscious minds.

Orca were photographed in oil after the 1989 ‘Exxon Valdez’ oil spill, but preliminary damage assessments did not definitively link mortalities to the spill and could not evaluate recovery.

2 separate orca populations were monitories 5 yr prior to and for 16 yr after the spill. The two populations suffered losses of 33 and 41%, respectively, in the year following the spill. Sixteen years after 1989, the first populations had not recovered to pre-spill numbers and its rate of increase was significantly less than that of other resident pods that were not associated with the spill. The second population, which lost 9 members following the spill, continued to decline. Although there may be other contributing factors, the loss of important individuals, including reproductive-age females, accelerated this population’s trajectory toward extinction.

The synchronous losses of unprecedented numbers of orca from 2 ecologically and genetically separate groups and the absence of other obvious perturbations strengthens the link between the mortalities and lack of recovery, and the ‘Exxon Valdez’ oil spill.

(Source: Matkin C, Saulitis E, Ellis G, Olesiuk P and Rice S, Ongoing population-level impacts on killer whales Orcinus orca following the ‘Exxon Valdez’ oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska, Marine Ecologic Progress Series, 356:269-281, 2008)

Much has transpired since the last blog entry. The spill, of course, continues to flow out into the marine environment and atmosphere (not forgetting that light crude and gas are both leaking), the Government’s rapid assessment has reported significant number of animals within the slick ... oh, and now the rig is on fire!

The company which runs the well, PTTEP Australasia, has told the media that the fire broke out as it made another attempt to plug a leak deep underwater at the Montara rig. Thankfully, no workers were onboard the rig when the fire started and workers on the West Triton relief rig, stationed 1.2 miles (2km) away, were safe from the enormous blaze.

By anyone’s standards this is now a major environmental disaster, and politicians are baying for blood. At the same time there has been another hit to the reputation of the oil and gas industry, with confirmation of a second gas leak in the Timor Sea. Without doubt the next week will focus on who is to blame, and less attention will be focused on the enormity of the tragedy.

But other more probing questions have also started to work their way in the quiet background of public discourse.

Ten weeks into the uncontrolled and continuing oil and gas spill from the Montara wellhead, with anywhere from 10 to 20 million litres of oil spilled into the ocean, the Rapid Assessment of the Impacts of the Montara Oil Leak on Birds, Cetaceans and Marine Reptiles has positively identified at least 4 species of cetaceans - 462 individuals (along with 23 species of birds, 2 species of turtles and 4 species of sea snakes).

Andrew Crook, on Crikey.com, has asked will Timor Sea oil slick be curtains for bluefin tuna? Good question really, given the tuna's status is already precarious after decades of over fishing and the spill is in the bluefin spawning grounds. Perhaps his question will spark some further investigation in other areas of the media

The impacts for most marine life in this region are likely to be huge, and on this note WDCS has once again made a public comment into the media sphere “We strongly concur with the assessment recommendations a four-five year minimum time frame for the long term monitoring of the impact to cetacean behavior and populations numbers as a result of the spill, and in truth we believe it should be more like a decade. The Monitoring Plan is silent on the duration of commitment the Government has secured from industry. For all we can determine, they may monitor for a year and then walk away. A renegotiated plan must extend monitoring for at least ten years.” Dr Mike Bossley, WDCS Australasian Managing Director.

“We still don’t see the commitment we expect from the Australian Government. If they were serious about mitigating the threats of oil spills they would immediately freeze all new oil and gas exploration applications; develop much stronger conditions and controls over all oil and gas rig and shipping activities including contingency plans before approvals are given; and identify and fully protect all whale and dolphin critical habitats in a network of marine sanctuaries before any oil and gas acreage is released again” Dr Bossley concluded.

As we drag ourselves towards the bad news that week 11 will certainly hold, it is difficult to stay optimistic about this sad an sorry affair. But, to end this blog with some heart, the wonderful campaigners with the Wilderness Society in Australia staged an oil spill protest on Friday 30th October. Volunteers gathered in a colorful action to protest against the oil spill and campaign for greater protection of our the marine life in this region (which we Australians call The Kimberly). Thank you TWS!

Every now and again emergent sciences will challenge preconceived ideas. Many environmentalists are rushing to support rapid development of offshore windfarms, but maybe without fully thinking about all the negative impacts on the marine environment. I am not against wind power, but I do believe it should be pursued responsibly and be subject to all relevant and appropriate assessments.

Now it seems that science brings GM and ocean conservation into a similar debate.

New Scientist Magazine reports this week that ...'a genetically modified soybean that produces oil containing omega-3 fatty acids - recommended for heart and brain health - could supplement fish as a source of these nutrients.

New Scientist goes onto say that Daniel Pauly, a fisheries specialist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, has welcomed the move. "Our stressed marine ecosystem would benefit from an alternative to fish oil as a source of omega-3s," he says.'

So at a time when the world's oceans are being subjected to massive over exploitation is the time right to accept GM modified soya that would mean a potential future for the world's fish, and in turn for many species of whale and dolphin? Your thoughts and views would be welcome on this complex subject.