WDC Blog - From the Front Line

George Monbiot writing in the UK's Guardian Newspaper has looked at the issue of the ongoing drive to delve further and further into the deeper oceans in search of oil and gas. He writes a challenging piece on the UK Government's approach to exploring in the deeper offshore parts of the world. 

Interesting and worth a read.

Last week, a special committee in Iceland's parliament, the Althingi, voted  to indict four politicians for their roles in the Icelandic economic crash. Among the four that the committee recommended for indictment is former Minister of Finance Arni Mathiesen, who was in office when the three leading Icelandic banks collapsed within weeks of each other in October 2008.

But for those of us concerned about whales, Mr. Mathiesen is equally "notorious" for his previous role in government, as a key player in the Althingi's pro-whaling faction.

As Fisheries Minister from 1999 to 2005, Mathiesen created a well-financed government campaign to promote Iceland's view that whales should be hunted. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent in the US and UK to hire public relations/lobbying firms,  to try to convince people that whaling is acceptable. It was during his tenure as Minister of Fisheries that Iceland began its scientific whaling program in 2003, the precursor to its current commercial whale hunt.  

By training, Mathiesen is a vet, who graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1983.  From 1994 to 1999, he sat on the board of the Icelandic Council for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.  So how can a person with a background in veterinary science, who is apparently against animal suffering, morph into a pro-whaling Fisheries Minister… and then morph even further into Finance Minister?

A look at Mathiesen's CV gives some clues.  He has been closely linked to the fishing industry from the beginning of his career. He managed a fish farming company, and served as a member of the government board overseeing aquaculture loans from 1990 to 1994.  During his tenure as Finance Minister, the Icelandic national banks issued millions in loans to the fishing industry -- including to companies linked to the Hvalur fin whaling company.

Fishing and whaling are deeply embedded in both the psyche and the power structure in Iceland, cutting across party lines. The current Finance Minister of Iceland, a member of the Left Green party, worked with the whaling industry in the summer of 1980 while a student on holiday.  He opted to keep whaling quotas in place in 2009 when he, too, briefly served as Fisheries Minister.

Whales have been caught up in the current debate over Iceland's accession to the EU, with both pro- and anti EU proponents using them as a symbol.  Unfortunately, the slaughter is far from symbolic, and more fin whales have been killed in 2010 than in any year since 1985.

If you are worried about whaling in Iceland, keep a close watch on how the country handles the indictment of the former ministers, including Mr. Mathiesen.  Depending on the outcome, and if it is business as usual, the whales should seriously consider altering their migratory routes to avoid being caught (literally) in the messy tangle of Iceland's politics.

A few days ago the Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun published an article by the last New Zealand IWC Commissioner Sir Geoffrey Palmer arguing that the IWC and Japan had missed the opportunity to resume endorsed commercial coastal whaling.

A rebuttal of the article has been prepared by Dr. Sidney Holt who has been involved in the debate over whaling for some fifty years. We reproduce here his piece, 'A Commentary on Deals, Compromises and Capitulations Regarding Whaling' in its full form at the link below. Its a pertinent summary of what happened at the IWC and a challenge to all those who would seek the resumption of commercial whaling. Happy reading.

Traditionally conservation scientists have viewed animal welfare with a bit of indifference. Animal welfare has been seen as the territory of the hippy animal rights activists, rather than a serious science that can help protect our planet. But that needs to change.

The Compassionate Conservation conference held in Oxford last week discussed how to make conservation better. After all, our planet has never before faced such enormous biodiversity loss. And the answer could be that conservation needs to become compassionate. It’s time to bring animal welfare out from the cold and join it with conservation science to create an attitude of really caring for the animal inhabitants of this planet.

You might think this is obvious stuff but it’s not as commonplace as you think. Seals are still hot-iron branded (a painful process where the scars can take up to a year to heal) to allow population research that might reveal an urgent conservation need. Hamsters are bred with the sole purpose of training endangered captive ferrets how to hunt so that they can be reintroduced to the wild. Kangaroos are inhumanely killed because they are considered 'pests'.

How can conservation move people to care about animals if conservation itself is not carried out in the most compassionate way? We need to think differently and be smarter about the way we practice conservation.

So what does this mean for dolphins and whales? Well a common reason for keeping these animals in captivity is that they are teaching people about the need to conserve them. But how can we really get across how amazing these creatures are and the need to protect them when all we see are bored, frustrated, stressed animals in a concrete puddle? Or worse, animals performing circus style tricks and making us laugh by splashing us with water? Conservation needs to be about caring for all individuals and not subjecting a few to cruelty in what might be a misguided effort to help protect the majority. If conservation is going to succeed it needs to lead from the front – treat all animals with the respect and care that we want to see for the whole species.


To find out more about the conference have a look here - presentations will be uploaded soon!

Its a regular thing at IWC meetings that somebody representing whaling interests trots out the statement that anyone that opposes whaling is a 'racist'. Its an attempt to polarize the debate away from the issues and into the sphere of vitriol. We spend a lot of time trying to be careful about what we says, unpicking all our statements to make sure these people who would deflect the debate, cannot stretch anything we say in such a way as to support their crusade.

What's so pathetic of these attacks is that many of the world's anti-whaling campaigners are also fervent advocates against injustices against humans as well as standing up against the brutality of whaling.

Its seems that this is not quite the same for the pro-whalers. Makoto Sakurai, founder and leader of Japanese right-wing group Zaitokukai, advocates the use of force against Australia to secure Japanese whaling rights in the Southern Ocean. His party has grown to over 10,000 members, becoming largest and loudest in a new ultra-nationalist movement that marshals its forces online, and is known as the “Net Far Right”.

But it appears that extremist views are not limited to the right wing. Ichiro Ozawa, the former secretary-general of Japan's ruling Democratic Party, dismissed the American people as “simple-minded”. The 68-year-old  politician, who resigned as the second most important official in the ruling party in June after coming under fire for campaign finance scandals, reportedly said: “I don’t like British people,” before commenting that he liked the way the British prisoners of war marched in the film, 'The Bridge on the River Kwai'.

And is it important that the ex-secretary general of Japan's DP says? Well yes, as he is now running for leader of his party and, therefore, prime minister thanks to the party's majority in the Japanese lower house. The election is on the 14th September.

If Mr. Ozawa wins can expect a continued nationalist diatribe from Japan on whaling? Japan's negotiators and diplomats may not have any freedom to negotiate on its whaling, and anyway Ozawa regards the west (anyone who is not Japanese one suggests) as societies that are at a 'dead end'.

So don't hold your breath for the whales.