David @ Tokyo

The usual pre-IWC plenary anti-whaling propaganda has been flying thick and fast through the western media, with various groups whose web pages bear "donate now" banners issuing a range of statements vilifying the IWC's pro-sustainable use nations, particularly Japan, despite of everything that has been said and done in recent times.

It's almost as if these groups are rooting for noisy confrontations, rather than subdued and dignified proceedings...


The IWC's Conservation Mandate

One NGO representative recently repeated a suggestion that the pro-sustainable use camp would seek to "strip the IWC of its conservation mandate" were they to have enough votes to do so (a simple majority).

The suggestion is presumably in reference to the IWC's "Conservation Committee", controversially established in 2003, and feared by sustainable use advocates as being another ruse by the anti-sustainable use camp to subvert the IWC from it's dual mandate to "provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry" (ICRW).

New Zealand Prime Minister Clark has been employing similar rhetoric, suggesting that New Zealand's ultra-protectionist position is "for conservation", and anything else is not.

Indeed, the pro-sustainable use camp are most certainly for conservation - they simply believe that conservation is not inconsistent with conservative levels of consumptive utilisation.

Joji Morishita has clearly stated Japan's stance on the IWC Conservation Committee matter previously:

"The conservation committee, if it works, is not bad for us, actually. And as we said at the time, if they can include both sustainable use and the protection, we have no problem."

It's also a matter of record (see the IWC 59 meeting's Annotated Agenda) that Japan won't propose the deletion of the Conservation Committee, or other agenda items which Japan believes to be inappropriate:

"Japan indicated that in keeping with its attempt to reduce conflict within the IWC and as part of its efforts to normalise the organisation, it will not propose the deletion of these or any other agenda item at the 59th Annual Meeting"

The "Aboriginal subsistence" quota issue

Previously in 2002, the pro-sustainable use lobby tried a tactic of illustrating the USA's double standards on whaling by opposing the renewal of the Alaskan people's bowhead whale quota.

This issue has a long history - even in 1982 when the IWC agreed to a commercial whaling moratorium, bowhead quotas were still granted at a time when the stock was estimated to number only between 3,390 and 4,325. After the imposition of the moratorium, the IWC Scientific Committee later in 1990 estimated the Antarctic minke whale population at around 760,000. Still, the IWC was not prepared to permit the taking of even a single Antarctic minke whale.

In 2002, the pro-sustainable use bloc ultimately didn't get any concessions out of the US, and at a subsequent special meeting, quotas were granted anyway.

Still, NGO representatives and politicians have suggested that Japan may once again try to "blackmail" the USA into supporting Japan's coastal whaling permit request.

Once again, Joji Morishita on the issue:

"As long as (the science supports the bowhead hunt), we will just say yes to their proposal."

What the remainder of the pro-sustainable use nations decide to do is up to them. However, with the Tokyo normalization meeting calling for attempts to reduce conflict, and the fact that exposing the USA's double standards didn't gain the pro-sustainable use camp much sympathy in 2002, they too may not be such a big issue. I'm picking the decision to come down to a simple matter of the IWC Scientific Committee's advice on the stock.


While they are busy trying to stir up donating attracting publicity, I wonder if the fund-raising industry hasn't taken their eyes off the ball - if they actually care about it at all...

Labels: IWC 59, IWC Normalization