Walking out on whales

A meeting of the International Whaling Commission ended in disarray on July 14, when Japan and its allies used the most basic of procedural maneuvers to kill a proposal to protect whales in the southern Atlantic: they walked out.

The turmoil at the gathering, the commission’s 63rd annual conference which began on July 11 on the Channel Island of Jersey, at one point left observers wondering if the strains on the organisation had left it dysfunctional, making compromise between the pro-and anti-whaling camps impossible. Brazil and Argentina had proposed the creation of a Southern Atlantic Whale Sanctuary, a vast expanse of ocean in which commercial whaling would be prohibited. Predictably, Japan, Norway and Iceland, the three nations that continue the practice, strongly opposed the measure.

When Brazil suggested that the measure come to a vote — a no-no in an organisation that tries to operate by consensus — delegates from the pro-whaling nations, joined by representatives of some African and Caribbean countries, decamped.

The remaining delegates were left scratching their heads. Did they have the necessary quorum to vote without the pro-whaling nations present? Would doing so lead to the collapse of the organisation?

So commissioners from all the 89 IWC member nations retired behind closed doors for hours of intense discussion, emerging late on July 14 evening to announce — you guessed it — the creation of a committee to study the question of what constitutes a quorum.

The issue of the whale sanctuary was put off until next summer, when the commission meets in Panama. “We’ve never been this badly deadlocked before, and I’m afraid that doesn’t bode well,” Monica Medina, the head of the United States delegation, said by telephone. Without greater cooperation among nations, she said, “we’ll fail the whales.”

A resolution more palatable to the commercial whaling nations might have been found if there had been more time, Medina said. But she acknowledged the destabilising fault lines in the organisation, saying: “Conservation countries will never agree to permit commercial and lethal scientific whaling, in my view.’’

While environmentalists were disappointed with the outcome of the sanctuary proposal, some saw a silver lining. “We may be seeing some of the final death throes of the commercial whaling industry,” Patrick Ramage, whale programme manager at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said. “They’re using any tactic they can to frustrate progress at the IWC.”

Several fears
Whales are threatened by much more than their value to humans as food. Pollution, sonar weaponry and ship strikes make the oceans less hospitable. Overfishing depletes their food supply and destabilises the marine food chain, while global warming can harm fragile ecosystems on which the mammals depend for food. Offshore oil and gas exploration and development are increasingly endangering critical habitats.

None of those issues were discussed, though they were on the agenda, because the confusion over the sanctuary proposal consumed most of the final day of the meeting. “We’re absolutely devastated,” Wendy Elliott, head of the WWF’s delegation to the meeting, said. “The most important threats to the whales were dropped from the agenda because of the acrimony over the sanctuary.” Japan and the other whaling countries don’t even have whaling operations in the South Atlantic, she said, “so it’s mystifying as to why they oppose it.”

The idea of whale sanctuaries is not new. There are already sanctuaries in the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean, around Antarctica. Japan gets around the Southern Ocean commercial whaling ban by killing whales for “scientific research.” The meat of those whales is then sold to consumers and in school lunches.

In the language of the commission, those in the pro-whaling camp are called the “sustainable whaling countries.” The other members who walked out, along with Japan, Norway and Iceland, were South Korea, Cambodia, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Gambia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Nauru, Mongolia, Mauritania, Guinea Bissau, Grenada, Kiribati, Morocco, Ghana, Palau, Togo, Tuvalu, Antigua and St. Lucia.

The United States and most of the 27 members of the European Union supported the South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary plan. While Japan has long been the most visible and vocal supporter of whale hunting, the United States has itself come under increasing criticism from the Latin American nations known as the Buenos Aires Group over its support for aboriginal subsistence whaling by native Alaskans, which some see as a fig leaf for maintaining the status quo for whaling nations.

Fight for aboriginal quota

The defense of native Alaskan rights leaves the United States vulnerable to political pressure because, like the other countries pursuing aboriginal subsistence whaling, it must seek approval from three-quarters of the IWC members every five years. The next time it must do so will be in 2012 in Panama. In a tit-for-tat move, Japan and its pro-whaling allies denied the United States quota request at the 2002 IWC conference in Shimonoseki, Japan, prompting a subsequent special meeting to secure the aboriginal quota.

But Washington has long sought to protect whales on the international stage, Ramage said. “A clear-eyed examination of the US effort, whether inside or outside the IWC,” shows “a consistent and clear commitment to whale conservation over many decades,” he said.

“The reality for the whales in the water and in this commission is much better with the United States in a position of leadership. That said, the US delegation is more focused on aboriginal subsistence whaling than any of the other issues in the forum.”

The meeting did yield one positive development: For years, some of the smaller nations in the commission, who must be up to date on their dues to vote, have been paying in cash at the meetings, a mode of operating that is hardly suited to the 21st century of instant money transfers. That has led to persistent allegations of corruption and vote-buying by pro-whaling nations. Last year, in a sting captured on video, The Sunday Times of London showed a Guinean official bargaining with a supposed IWC vote-buyer.

In response, a measure sponsored by European nations was adopted that will require dues to be paid by bank transfer from government accounts, increasing transparency.