I’ll be hitting the road again soon, heading to Alaska for the International Whaling Commission Meeting – the place where decisions are made on whale hunting. In the run-up to the shennanigans there, we’re asking people to contact various foreign ministers around the world – the ones who, in some cases, need to get off the fence, or wake up to their voters needs. Countries like Ireland and the UK aren’t listed – cos they’re already behaving. The US is included because the IWC is being hosted there…
“The future of the whales will be decided in Anchorage, Alaska, in a couple of weeks time. We need you to make your voice heard once again. The key governments in the debate need to hear from you that you demand that the International Whaling Commission works to protect whales.”
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whales.greenpeace.org – get involved!
Governments emailed:
Antigua and Barbuda Belize Cameroon Cote D’ Ivoire Denmark Dominica Finland Grenada Guatemala Kenya Kiribati Marshall Islands Monaco Morocco Nauru Oman Palau Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Senegal Solomon Islands South Africa South Korea Sweden Switzerland Tuvalu United States of America
Hi daev,
Frankly I wonder if this year’s IWC meeting is actually that relevant. If it goes along the way the meetings have for the past quarter of a century I personally would not be surprised if a large portion of the membership exercises their rights under ICRW Article XI and quits it later this year. The other possibility to hope for is that Labor win the elections in Australia and decide to take the ICR or the Government of Japan to court over their whaling under ICRW Article VIII. That would provide a great outcome, although it might take a while. Another good one would be if a bloc of IWC nations took the IWC to court over it’s failure to fulfill it’s mandated purpose. International courts are funny things though, and I guess it’s easier to lose a case than it is to win one, especially with lots of money floating around like Greenpeace has.
Still, if the IWC meeting is of significance and not just another annual waste of time and energy, I’m curious as to how Greenpeace came up with that list of nations you have above. I recall that Shane suggested earlier this year that Switzerland had put aside “common sense” in favor of neutrality (oh how naughty of them), but some of your other selections were a surprise.
The Netherlands? Home to Greenpeace, and just recently gave permission to the Sea Shepherd organization to fly the Dutch flag when they go ramming their vessels into others on the high seas. Or have I got it backwards – is that why GP thinks they aren’t behaving?
Russia not on the list, where as St. Vincent and the Grenadines is? Both are whaling nations – both vote for whaling – the only difference between the two is that one is big, and the other is small, developing, and receiving official development assistance from Japan. Interesting criteria.
Finland? Sweden?
Belize “voted for the whales” last year (unfortunately their representative didn’t get a chance to speak at IWC 58 – would have been interesting to hear their position in words rather than just votes, after their representatives had previously spoken strongly in favor of sustainable use at previous IWC meetings). What’s your problem with them?
Monaco? South Africa?
South Korea? Another whale meat eating nation, and you want them to vote against commercial whaling. Given recent suggestions that prohibition is turning some to illegal hunting, isn’t it time to recognize that prohibition is as useless for whale meat as it is for other desired commodities?
Hey David.
Funny, while you were posting this last night, I was watching the movie Thank you for smoking. You remind me of the main character, a lobbyist for the tobacco industry.
There’s a line in it where he says:
“That’s the beauty of argument, if you argue correctly, you’re never wrong”, going on to say that if you argue correcty, it doesn’t matter whether you’re right or not – it just matters that you’ve proven the other person wrong.
Which I guess this is why you’re posting on blather.net, as it’s your job to do so, and to slyly carp on about Greenpeace’s money which comes from more than 2 million individual supporters worldwide.
2006 Annual report »
As for the above, I’m assuming that you’re choosing out of wilful ignorance to misunderstand the email action detailed above. Did you even click the link to read more about it?
The letter ends up with:
“I sincerely hope that as your representatives make their way to Anchorage, the positions they will take reflect the view of the people of your country and the world: to defend the whales and the oceans in which they live.”
This isn’t an attack on anti-whaling nations, any more than it’s an attack on pro-whaling nations. It’s an encouragement to foreign ministers – “do the right thing”.
Mea culpa: I posted the wrong list, the email didn’t go to the Netherlands after all.
If I see you at the IWC, I’ll make sure to come over and say hello…