IWC 60 - Last Day.

IWC Day 5 – the final hurdles: No one wants the IWC and what is that whale meat doing there?

A small sandy brown dog is soundly asleep in its nest of ivy as we make our way past, onwards to the last day of IWC 60. There is frost on the ground elsewhere and he (or she) is perhaps a little warmer wrapped in the leaves. The brown river still flows swiftly and the snowy Andes are in soft focus behind the smog. As we walk, the WDCS Whaling lead talks excitedly to the WDCS Science lead about her future plans… but we will not detail them here.

Outside the main meeting hall, the Japanese commissioner can be seen studying the table of literature provided by NGOs. He selects a few items and then heads to his seat.

Others are doing likewise gluiding across the room nodding to others and seeking their flags. The phrase ‘last day, thank goodness’ and similar can be heard from many lips. Many delegates are already towing their luggage around.

The Chair starts by saying that we now approach the day that many of you have been waiting for about 30 days …. There is some nodding from the people still here who also attended the scientific committee way back at the beginning of the month.

The Secretary of the Commission, Dr Nicky Grandy, now takes us through the report of the Finance and Admin Committee. Here issues such as translations costs and the IWC website are discussed.

The issue of the recognition of French and Spanish as working languages is detailed. There seems to have been no consensus on this issue earlier and it was referred to a private commissioners’ meeting.

There is some discussion of food security. St Vincent and the Grenadines speaks to this and says that his whalers are chastised because they use too modern techniques but they are a small island state and they are charged a lot of money to be a party to the IWC. They only have very little commercial aspect to their hunt.

Cameroon and others are worried about costs too.

We move on – others issues come and go, including the possible relocation of the IWC Secretariat presently based in Cambridge, UK. They have decided to stay put.

We move on to the costs of separating the Scientific Committee from the Commission meeting (so this would not be a one month block of meetings with very little time for the commission to study the Committee’s report). This matter remains to be resolved.

Other matters wander by… then we come to the location of the next meeting – Madeira and a nice video is shown to us. The Portuguese Commissioner talks us through the video which features many cetaceans and unusually the voice of a dolphin can now be heard echoing around the meeting room itself. We wonder what it would say to us if it knew its words were being broadcast….

“Please be kind, we are friends, not food… we like you… why do you treat us this way?�

Maybe.

The Portuguese Commissioner now takes us gently to the Casino in Madeira – apparently we will have meetings rooms in there (that will be interesting) and, he adds, there are many hotels in the capital and no need for transport. He also stresses the beauty of the interior of the island and that there will be many lovely walks.

[The scribe assumes that the meeting rooms will meet the usual standards – absolutely no windows, flock wallpaper, chandeliers and a style that could be anywhere in the world. ]

We move to a list of next year’s meetings, the UK Commissioner, Richard Cowan, thanks the Secretary for responding to the request from his minister and scheduling a welfare-related meeting.

Awkwardly it now transpires that no one has offered to host the IWC meeting after Madeira. The Chair implores the gathered parties to offer to host. No one does.

The Secretary says the IWC does not have enough money to run a meeting unless someone offers to host it. [Pause – tumbleweed blows through…. ].[Did you miss the tumbleweed?]

[Still no one offers.]

The membership of the IWC Advisory Committee now comes up Cote D’Ivoire and Costa Rica are now new members, replacing Cameroon and Chile.

The Chair moves to close the meeting but the UK asks for the floor. He speaks in, he says, in the spirit of openness and conciliation. We have heard unconfirmed reports of trade in whale meat from Iceland and Norway to Japan. He knows that they hold reservations under CITES, so this is not illegal. He asks if import and export permits have been issued. This is a matter that many of us attach great importance to us.

[Is it getting hot in here again.]

Iceland responds mildly that trade is not within IWC Competence. We can discuss this bilaterally with any parties.

No one else asks for the floor.

The Chair starts to close. He thanks Nicky and Greg. There is applause. He thanks Cheri who will now be working with him on the future of the IWC. He says goodbye to the Commissioner for Argentina who is retiring. He thanks the Commissioners. He is sorry that we had to have a vote but ‘that’s life’.

New Zealand thanks the Chairman for his leadership – this is a courageous enterprise. Changing the culture of this organization is a difficult process – it can be one step forward and then one step back.

India expresses its sincere thanks to Chile and the Chairman.

Chile says that Chile has been honoured to host the IWC and that they have enjoyed their time in our city and then he too speaks of the Chairman’s leadership. He thanks Nicky, Bernard and the whole team.

More applause and then we are done.

Delegates scurry across the floor to shake hands or hug (there is a surprising amount of hugging going on)– more photos are taken and within 2-3 minutes the very efficient Secretariat have taken away all the flags and name plates before they get nicked.

A working group on the future of the IWC breaks out a little later in another room behind firmly closed door.

A little later, sometime after the meeting has finished, we are sitting in the lobby when the protestors who have previously been kept far away rush up the front door and blockage it - 'Save the Whale' they are shouting.

Indeed.

Finally More Thank yous but this time from the WDCS team in Chile.

As usual, as we close here from the 60^th IWC meeting in Santiago, Chile, we would like to say thank you to a number of people and institutions:

We would like to thank the hard-working UK delegation for staying resolute and providing leadership to the EU – and others- under the difficult circumstances that we found here.

We would like to thank valiant Luxembourg for its support.

Portugal, Germany, New Zealand , Austria, Germany, Argentina and all the Latin countries – you were all great. Thank you so much.

Thanks to those that stepped up to support the climate change workshop.

Similarly, to all who worked hard in the Scientific Committee – especially those still here 4 weeks later – muchos gracias.

The people of Chile were kind and very hospitable. We felt very welcome here. We are pleased that out visit coincided with a wine festival in the City and for anyone coming to Santiago we strongly recommend the leafy district of Providencia – especially its vegetarian restaurants and small hotels (and in particulat the Villafrancha Petit Hotel- to you.

We salute our sister NGOs, especially this year WSPA, WWF, the Danish Society for the Protection of Marine Mammals, Ocean Care and HSI (Kitty we missed you greatly) for their hard work here and beyond.

We thank the IWC secretariat for their courtesy and help.

We wish the street dogs that amused us, kept us company and sometimes even let us cross the roads with them, good health and a mild winter.

To our many readers, thank you for your support and messages of encouragement and to Finns for Whales, the ‘emergency biscuit’ was most welcome.

The ‘dog blog’ scribe thanks his editor for her patience and finally we dedicate all these words and anything good that we did here to Lisa.