The beautiful island of St Kitts in the West Indies
is hosting the 58th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission
(IWC) between 24 May and 20 June 2006. But this year it will not be just the
tropical climate that is generating heat in the islands. The battle to save the
whale will reach a crescendo with this meeting promising to be unlike any
other, because, for the first time since commercial whaling was banned,
pro-whaling countries will probably hold the majority of votes. Japan has
threatened to use their majority to overturn vital conservation measures and is
expected to push forward in pursuit of its commercial whaling ambitions.
This comes at a time when Japan’s market for whale meat is
diminishing rapidly, despite the new species and thousands of tonnes of extra
meat that its expanded so called ‘scientific hunts’ will yield this
year.
Although many governments strongly oppose Norway, Iceland and
Japan’s whaling in defiance of the ban, a growing number of developing
countries who have recently joined the IWC support their efforts to overturn
the ban on commercial whaling. The accession in the last twelve months of
Cameroon, the Gambia, Nauru and Togo, and in the last few days Cambodia and the
Marshall Islands, suggests that the pro-whaling nations have finally secured
the majority of votes.
With the majority of votes, the pro-whaling
nations will be able to adopt several measures that could bring a resumption of
whaling significantly closer, and utterly disrupt the meeting. Indeed, Japan
and its allies have indicated that they intend to use this opportunity to
re-interpret the mandate of the IWC away from conservation and welfare and back
to its focus in the 1940s of ‘regulating’ hunting. The decades that
followed the second world war was a time of horrendous bloodshed across the
oceans as thousands upon thousands of whales were slaughtered to feed the
commercial desires of the whalers.
WDCS fears that the pro-whaling
nations may use this opportunity to attack, or even repeal decades of important
resolutions and decisions on conservation and welfare issues. Japan has already
stated that it intends to remove all discussion of issues relating to dolphins,
porpoises and small whales. Japan also proposes to introduce secret voting, so
that the world cannot see who is voting against whale conservation and welfare.
Over the coming days WDCS will bring you further information on the
IWC and the strategy of the whalers. We shall also be letting you know what you
can do to help. After two weeks of scientific meetings, our full team is now in
St Kitts preparing for the first of the political meetings tomorrow. In the
weeks and months to come we’ll need to move forward to expand the debate
and increase our ability to continue the fight.
Please don’t let
the oceans run red again, join with us in fighting this ‘crime against
nature’.
