WDC Blog - From the Front Line

It seems that two sides of the argument are in town today. That's Brussels, when I say town by the way. Over in one part the Norwegians were over to talk fisheries with the EU Parliament, where I understand that they were questioned on whaling and subsidies by the press. Good for the Belgian press I say.

Whilst in another part of town, WDCS was meeting with the EU Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Janez Potočnik, who kindly took receipt of a 200,000 postcard petition against commercial whaling collected by WDCS, in cooperation with our pan-European educational initiative partners, Merlin Entertainments (SEA LIFE) Limited.

This petition consists of names of European citizens from all over the European Union and is a reflection of their continued and absolute opposition to commercial whaling. It also reflects their expectations that their representatives in their national Governments and the European Union should be seeking to ensure that no quotas are agreed for any commercial whaling, in any form, at the current, or any future, annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

WDCS explained to Mr. Potočnik that people of Europe believe that the current IWC Chairman’s Proposal should be rejected and that the members of the EU should take a united stand to uphold EU law requiring the strict protection of whales. It seems that he already knew as whilst we delivered 200,000 cards, he had been receiving them directly for months from all over Europe.

We reminded him that the Commission on behalf of the EU in its press release (IP/08/200) dated Brussels, 08 February 2008 had promised the people of Europe that,

‘If whaling is only banned in EU waters but not everywhere else in the world then such a ban can have only a limited effect on the well-being of whale species. This is why the international ban on commercial whaling must stay and why all EU Member States party to the IWC must oppose any move seeking to lift it. We need to move towards more international protection of whales rather than less.' .

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

So Denmark is bracketed by the EU on one side and its potential commercial whalers in the Faroes on the other. Greenland is already sliding into localized commercial whaling, but the Faroese had kept their noses out of this debate for some time.

Just to make the point, they went out and killed some whales, despite heath warnings not to do so.

So Denmark sits in the EU Council meeting and bleats on about having to defend Greenland’s rights, whilst abdicating EU rights.

Also, the Commission seems to be forgetting about EU law to protect whales and is seeking to avoid the humiliation of another CITES rather than seeking to do the right thing by the whales. This is about whales, not about internal processes and bureaucrats power bases.

And where are Ireland and a few others? Many people may have forgotten the role played by Ireland in years gone by in trying to create a new form of compromise in the IWC. I hope that they don’t think they have to live up to that legacy, and should concentrate on fighting this deal.

So as accusations of bribery circulate (again) Japan and her allies set themselves up to take advantage of the EU’s failure to get its act together.

Yes, there will be consequences. Those countries and institutions that fail to fight for the whales, and start tripping up over the concept of the ‘sustainability of whales’ should look carefully at what the people of Europe require of them, rather than what is politically expedient for a group of bureaucrats

Further to our comments on the pollution issue in whale products we note that Mattilsynet, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority has continued the advisory for pregnant and nursing women against eating whale meat “due to high levels of mercury that the meat can contain”.  The same is true for seal meat “from the Vestisen area”.  (see http://matportalen.no/Emner/Gravide )

 

The Health Directorate has also produced a brochure (http://www.helsedirektoratet.no/vp/multimedia/archive/00118/Gravid_118459a.pdf

Seems that the issue is hopefully getting through to the public - lets see what the reaction will be