WDC Blog - From the Front Line

So here is how it all began.

It was a long time ago and God was in the final stages of assembling all the animals.

Working from a large pile of pre-assembled organs and limbs, She had carefully constructed the land mammals using a similar plan for each (with some small modifications): four legs (some short, some long), two eyes (various shades), two ears (some powerful, some less so), a range of noses, tails and other attributes, and a variety of decorations (hair, stripes, scales and so forth) and brain sizes.

Then She turned to the marine animals. She quickly realized that they did not need legs. Instead she made the fish stream-lined and finned, and able to quickly cut through the dense medium of the water (something she had made earlier and which she liked so much that she filled most of the planet with it).

She briefly experimented with the whales but, after a while, took their little legs away too. They really were not needed in the watery world.

Finally, when God had almost finished, She stopped to review what she had made, but realized that there remained a pile of parts that she had not used. Many legs were left over. So she took these and using groups of five she made the star-fishes, the sea-stars and, rolling five legs into a tight ball and adding some left-over spines, she made the sea-urchins.

God looked at all that She had done, and thought that it was good. She had no idea that the difference She had made between the marine animals and the land ones would lead to so much trouble in the future.

Hundreds of millions of years passed. In the dawn of a new age, the human species (by now globally dominant and hugely destructive) was meeting to review the fate of some of the others, including several marine ones, and maybe it was the difference between the animals in the sea and the animals of the land that led to the differences in the ways that they decided they should be treated.

The meeting was the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES) and it met in Doha, in Qatar in March 2010, where a variety of issues were on a packed agenda. Here agreements could be reached to protect species from international trade, and foremost in these issues was the question of the Atlantic blue-fin tuna – a large, fast-moving and delicious species. The proposal came from Monaco and after almost no debate, was profoundly defeated by a vote of 68 to 20. (It would have needed the support of two-thirds of the nations attending the Doha conference to succeed).
In fact there were thirteen proposals for marine species protection at this CITES conference (more than ever before) and all ultimately failed.

There are various tuna species. These tasty fish ultimately find their way into many human meals, from sandwiches to sushi and expensive sashimi. In the last fifty or so years, 90% of the big predatory fish (including the tuna) have vanished from the seas; the seemingly insatiable human appetite for these animals has virtually wiped them out in a single human generation. The Bluefin tuna is so prized that it can sell for several hundred dollars a kilogramme and a single Bluefin weighing in at 262kg fetched a near-record 16.28mn yen ($175,000) at an auction at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market two months before the Doha meeting.

The proposal to protect them at the CITES conference was a last ditch stand to save them and Japan has been largely credited with blocking the proposal. Given Japan’s dependence on marine foods, its ability to corral the votes of many allied nations and its fierce opposition to protection for marine species, as evidenced by its actions concerning whales and whaling, this was not perhaps surprising.

The loosers at this particular CITES conference, in addition to the tuna, included the sharks and the corals. Perhaps even more surprising was that the polar bear proposal from the United States also failed. (The bear is very much an animal of the frozen sea, even if it has four legs, and maybe its honorary marine status helped to crash the trade ban proposal). Given the bear’s status as the most obvious and immediate victim of climate change, the failure of countries to agree to address the trade threat to its survival is all the more remarkable. This also bodes badly for other species which may have their survival truncated by climate change combined with international trade.

A few species did gain new protection: an endangered salamander from Iran and the Bolivian rhinoceros beetle were added to the lists of the protected. (Japan presumably has no interest in eating either in the immediate future.)  A proposal for a one-off sale of elephant ivory from Zambia and Tanzania was defeated and more action was called for to protect rhinoceroses, but these positive developments for the terrestrial animals stand in stark contrast to the thirteen defeated pro-conservation proposals.    

Perhaps God is looking down and wondering where She went wrong. Perhaps She is watching the tuna merchants hording the flesh of these increasingly expensive fishes in their freezers against the day when extinction will make their stores even more valuable and a tuna sandwich will become a luxury for the privileged few alone to nibble on.  

The CITES meeting and the recent IWC intersessional got me thinking today. What is Japan's and indeed others, overall strategy when it comes to marine species?

I was also asked today by a good friend of WDCS 'what is it that motivates Japan?'. Well in some cases it simply a Japanese custom, and I dont mean thr so-claimed custom of eating whale meat, but I mean the custom of 'dead man's shoes', or to be more correct in my language, the 'recently retired man's shoes'

However, if we wish to allocate a more sophisticated theory to the analysis, we could say that Japan, ably assisted by Iceland is in the business of rolling back years of international conventions and marine protection. Japan is systematically undermining and then gutting not just the world's fish stocks, but every marine regulatory convention that may affect its ability to buy and bully its way through the world's oceans.

If you wnat to see where whales will be in 20 years time, look no further than how the marine species fared at CITES this week.

I wish I had more convoluted and more elegant theory, but that's it. They don't agree with any form of controls on the exploitation of marine species. I could argue that they are fearful of what will happen when China and others start to fish on an industrial scale like Japan already does, and therefore they are in an oceanic land grab.

I would like to to speculate that the internal bureaucratic systems in Japan have locked them into this suicidal death plunge. But in many ways its simple. They want no fetters to hold them back, and the new deal on whaling is just that. It has no teeth, it cannot hold them to their 'promises' and simply opens the  door to them to unravel the IWC conservation measures of the last 25 years.

The last few years have witnessed some interesting twists and turns in the international wildlife conservation and protection field. With the outcomes of the  Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting this week, it seem the economics of foreign affairs is winning - that a polar bear skin is worth more to Governments than protecting wildlife where they live.

A couple of days ago, someone from Greenland involved in the whaling debate accused WDCS of being ‘food fascists’. This was in response to a news piece on Iceland and illegal exports of whale products, and was likely a result of our campaign asking for Greenland’s whaling be subject to international controls, rather than the ‘free for all’ they seem to want.  I can imagine the term “fascist” was thrown with some venom.  But rational parties campaigning for, or against, an issue should choose their words carefully.  Otherwise, the language no longer serves the cause for which one fights; it is simply becomes the rhetoric of a zealot.  
 
For most people the concept of fascism forbids openness in political systems; it does not allow for opposing views to be heard and it supports the use of violence to ensure that the single view is upheld - all concepts that WDCS abhors.  In fact, it is openness and accountability for the Greenland whaling proposal that we seek. 
 
I actually think the ‘pro-commercialization’ interests in Greenlandic whaling have a right to make their case. I just don’t agree with them.  I think Greenland’s interests are better served by pursuing a responsible Aboriginal or truly Indigenous Subsistence Whaling approach hand-in-hand with the world community through the IWC. But I also believe they have the right to make their case for anything they wish to call for. I also believe I have the right to make a case to oppose them. That’s democracy.
 

So when I wrote in "Whats in your Bacon?" I really thought that my first choice 'The Icelandic export statistics are wrong' was the most ridiculous suggestion, simply because Iceland is a rather smart and well run country when it comes to that kind of thing. Seems that Iceland is saying that someone slipped up.

Whilst there is an increasing amount of evidence that whale products are not good for your health, it seems that the proponents of the whaling industry are 'blind' to the evidence. It’s a bit like the tobacco industry over the last fifty years ‘being unaware’ that cigarettes could be deleterious to ones health.

We know that in the Faroes, whilst state medical authorities have said 'don't eat cetaceans!' the population just can't stop, and some 310 animals were killed and eaten in 2009.

Regular readers will know that WDCS has been championing the position that the UK and other European countries as Members of the European Union should be free to vote independently rather than abstain when it comes to international environmental agreements where no consensus can be reached. 

Well having been told that the EU would bind every country to abstain on whaling, so assisting the resumption of commercial whaling if Denmark blocks consensus (Please see previous entry to see what Denmark appears to believe about whaling) we have the UK breaking ranks at the CITES meeting where the EU was unable to reach consensus on blue fin tuna.

Come on UK, that's the spirit. Stand up for our environment and what the British people want.

On a sad note the Blue fin tuna proposal to restrict trade was defeated at CITES. Opposition to the listing was led by that great bastion of marine conservation, Japan.

In the Caribbean, we hear reports that a humpback was killed by the whaler of Bequia.

Personally I don’t think that the Danes would be so stupid to feed whale products to their pigs, especially with all the EU regulations after BSE. But what of the people involved in whaling? They knew that it would be illegal to export to the EU. Who is culpable?

Fishmeal is sometimes given to weaners in pig raising around the world including in Danish Bacon. So here are my hopes, in some sort of reluctant order;
1. The Icelandic export statistics are wrong (little chance me thinks).
2. The Danes rejected it, - sorry both export attempts (but see 3 below).
3. The Danes re-exported the products and they didn’t get into the country and the EU. However, why were there two exports?
    a. The original small load (well 775kg) looks like a test to me, followed by the full delivery (22 tonnes) two months later?
    b. That there were two exports makes me think that at least the first might have been successful, else why make the attempt at the second export?
4. If it got into the country, it was used for feeding mink on fur farms. This is what the Soviets used to do in the last century. Maybe the Danes have returned to that most repugnant of practices, supporting the killing of whales to maintain their fur industry.
5. It was used in fertilizer. Good grief, what was it used for? I for one don’t want to eat any products that it was used on. Does this mean Europe will end up boycotting all Danish food products?

Until the Danish Government stops supporting whaling and answers what the heck happened with these potential imports I think it might get interesting. We shall have to see.

Several years ago, on a bright cold morning in Kaikoura I took a very memorable whale watching trip with some IWC colleagues. Much optimism filled the air as the snow capped mountains pierced the blue sky and we anticipated the delights of the New Zealand coastline. We were very lucky. It was a special day in every way. We started the journey out to the deep sea-canyon water where the sperm whales are found, escorted by a typically exuberant group of dusky dolphins. We then saw several sperms whales. We watched them quietly whilst they gathered their breath and rested at the surface between dives. Along the way we also saw New Zealand fur seals, albatross and, as we neared the shore on our return, Hector’s dolphins. When the Hector’s dolphins came into view, the captain let the engine idle, allowing the passengers to take in the vista of mountains and sea, birds and marine mammals. Then, as if to make the point, although none needed making, over the PA system he put on the song ‘What a Wonderful World’ by Louis Armstrong . This was a bright and optimistic time. A sense of positive change for whales was palpable.

New Zealander’s (Kiwi’s) are know for their practical approach – the ‘number eight-wire’ mentality – but also for taking a bold principled stance on issues such as disarmament, nuclear power, human rights issues and of course, traditionally, on whaling.

How then, in a matter of a few short years from this memorable day in Kaikoura, where anything seemed possible, do we find ourselves in a situation where the New Zealand government is now countenancing a compromise on whaling. Where has all the passion gone? Is it simple exhaustion? Has the war of attrition with the whaling fraternity finally worn down some of the whales’ staunchest allies?

Some suggest that there is something more sinister at play; that international relations with the USA and Japan are overshadowing the views of the person on the street in New Zealand, that these views are being lost in the mire of trying to help secure a longer-term aboriginal whaling quota for the USA.

But I still hold out some hope that isn’t the case. The Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully said that he is going to ask New Zealanders what they think before NZ officials would be permitted to vote on any deal on whaling – although quite how he is going to do this is yet to be revealed. Does he plan to hold a referendum? It seems unlikely, and rather unnecessary, since polls on the issue demonstrate, irrefutably, that the majority of Kiwi’s are fundamentally opposed to commercial whaling.

The theory of the New Zealand deal makers appears to have its foundations in good intentions. The objective, the proponents argue, is an overall reduction in the number of whales killed. The argument seems to be that we are at a crunch point within the IWC and that a way to make a deal with the whalers, but Japan specifically, must be found, otherwise the whalers will leave the Commission and form regional management bodies that will ‘manage’ whales under regulations that the conservation-minded nations would be unable to influence.

But these threats are not new. In fact, such threats have been echoing around the halls of the IWC meetings for over a decade and there remains a great debate about the political and legal ramifications of such a move by Japan and its allies.

Do the deal makers really believe that the deal that is on the table is ‘do-able’? That the whaling nations can be trusted to act in ‘good faith’? What precedent for good governance of global resources would be set by rewarding endless infringements of the IWC rules by granting coastal quotas?

In talking about a potential compromise on whale killing – even with the objective of reducing the number of whales killed overall (something which is far from guaranteed by the current deal, and most certainly not in the long-term) – the NZ Government has created an expectation that under the right circumstances NZ would vote for a compromise. What this diplomatic shimmy fails to recognise is a point of principle. This principle is fundamental to the people of New Zealand – they do not approve of commercial whaling.

So where to now New Zealand? There is time for recovery from this incongruous position, but the government will need to act quickly and decisively to reassure its public that this administration still believes that protecting whales remains an important part of what it means to be a Kiwi.

Meanwhile, whales go about their business in all corners of the oceans.

And I think to myself…. What a Wonderful World.

In a follow up to my recent post on the issue of climate degradation I noted two features in this week's New Scientist Magazine that i thought might interest you.

Firstly, further evidence is coming to light that methane is being released from under the Arctic Ocean. Alaskan based scientists have discovered over 100 hot-spots where methane is leaking from seabed permafrost to form areas of seawater at eight times the level of expected dilution in surrounding Arctic waters. Estimates suggest that 7 million tonnnes are being released a year at the moment, but as the Arctic warms up this could accelerate, contributing to rapid climate degradation.

At the same time three US states, Texas, Louisiana and South Dakota, have told their schools that they have to teach climate change scepticism. In the land of the 'First Amendment' it appears that states can decide what science is relevant, and what is not, and dance closely with the Constitution to insist that a political view is promoted in schools. So, whilst UK schools can debate the issue, with all points of view able to be discussed by enquiring students based on the evidence they can find; in South Dakota the state legislature has decided that the science is 'unresolved' and is 'complicated and prejudiced'. The legislature bill also says that climate change debate is 'political'.

These phrases from our state governments are political in their own right and I charge that they challenge the fundamental concept of Freedom of Speech. How can our legislators, local, state, federal or inter-governmental, insist that the science is 'prejudiced' unless they have already decided it is 'prejudiced' against what they wish students and young people to believe.

I for one thought the USA was founded on the right to oppose tyranny; but the modern tyranny of thought control over our children is maybe of more concern than any British musket ever could be.

Stop telling us what to believe, and let us decide ourselves.