Richard Black, BBC News 26 Jun 08;
The first vote at this year's International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting has resulted in defeat for Greenland's request to expand its hunt.
Many countries were unconvinced that Greenlanders need the extra meat that catching 10 humpbacks would provide, and believe the hunt is too commercial.
A Greenland delegate said the decision would deprive its indigenous Inuit communities of much needed whale meat.
The EU's decision to vote as a bloc on the issue drew harsh criticism.
"I deeply regret that the IWC was not able to fulfil its obligations when all its requirements were met by Greenland," said Amalie Jessen from Greenland's fisheries ministry.
"I feel those opposing our proposal just wanted to find new excuses not to award humpbacks; and I anticipate that when we bring the proposal back in a year's time, they will have prepared other excuses."
Top trade
Aboriginal or subsistence whaling is designed to allow indigenous communities with a documented nutritional and cultural need for whale meat to hunt, under quotas approved by IWC scientists.
Many delegations were not convinced that Greenland - or Denmark, which speaks for its Arctic territory within the IWC - had made the case that its people needed more whale meat.
And a report issued last week by the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) report raised questions over whether the hunt was too commercial.
Investigators found that about 25% of the meat was sold commercially, often through supermarkets.
"There's general acceptance that a limited amount of trade and sale in aboriginal hunts is acceptable," WSPA's marine mammals programme manager Claire Bass told BBC News.
"But really it's the volume and scale of trade in Greenlandic hunts that is simply not appropriate, and also the profit that's being made by third parties such as supermarkets and a private company that's processing the whales."
The IWC's scientific committee had concluded that taking 10 humpbacks each year would be sustainable. And a number of countries used this judgement to weigh in with some harsh words on Greenland's side.
"Am I to understand that in the spirit of saving money, the EU is proposing that we liquidate the (IWC) scientific committee?" asked Russia's IWC commissioner Valentin Ilyashenko.
"A bloc has been created, all scientific arguments are useless... and the interests of countries here are divided by political motives."
Russia is home to the largest aboriginal hunt in the world, in Chukotka, and would be keen to pre-empt anything that might curtail that operation.
The US also voted on Greenland's side. Safeguarding the hunt of its Alaskan Inuit is a key domestic priority.
Greenland's claim to be acting solely on the basis of science and need was somewhat undermined by its offer to forego some of its annual fin whale quota if the humpback proposal went through.
Progress block
For the first time at IWC meetings, the EU had decided to formulate an agreed position and vote on it en bloc, as it does in other environmental treaty organisations.
On this occasion Denmark was excused, as it speaks for Greenland.
South Korea described the EU bloc vote as "interference with the legitimate process of this organisation and the due process of law".
A number of Caribbean speakers picked up the theme.
"We are seeing a group of countries, knowing perfectly well that they have the numbers to create confusion in our commission, is attempting to deny the human rights of a group of indigenous people," said Daven Joseph, a member of the St Kitts and Nevis delegation.
"At a time when the world is witnessing food shortages, we are seeing a small group of countries that are purporting to be world leaders depriving marginal peoples of the right to eat."
Japan too declared its support for the Greenland bid.
But environmental NGOs accused Japan and its Caribbean allies of hypocrisy, referring back to their blocking of quotas for subsistence whaling at the 2002 IWC meeting in Shimonoseki.
"Japan's intervention, saying how unfair and sad it was that the EU and others would not support a humpback quota for Greenland, can only be viewed as either a complete loss of memory or they are so cynical as to not remember their own actions in Shimonoseki," said Patricia Forkan, president of Humane Society International.
For seasoned IWC observers, the debate marked a return to the bitter tones of the past, after three days when the new spirit of conciliation has kept a lid on the fundamental divisions that endure.
Delegates had decided not to have any votes unless absolutely necessary, and this was the first time consensus could not be reached.
But the spat is not likely to affect the biggest material issue facing the commission - whether a compromise deal can be found between hunting and anti-hunting nations - though it does demonstrate that the inflammable nature of the whaling issue is very far from being dowsed.
Greenland bid to raise whale hunt quota fails
Simon Gardner, Yahoo News 27 Jun 08;
Anti-whale catching nations on Thursday thwarted a bid by Greenland to raise its annual aboriginal whale hunting quota by 10 humpbacks, deeply polarizing pro and anti-whaling lobbies.
Member nations at the annual International Whaling Commission, IWC, meeting held in Santiago voted against the proposal, despite the fact that the body's scientific committee endorsed it, with some countries unconvinced that Greenland's aboriginal population needs more whale meat.
A moratorium on commercial whaling was introduced in 1986, but Japan continues to catch hundreds of whales each year citing scientific research, while Norway and Iceland continue to hunt whales in defiance of the non-binding ban.
Aboriginals in Greenland, Russia and Alaska are granted special concessions to continue catching whales for subsistence purposes, and conservationists say they are concerned by claims that some whale meat is being sold commercially in Greenland supermarkets.
"Greenland's claims that its aboriginal subsistence whaling is not commercial is an absolute sham," Wendy Elliott, a zoologist who manages the species program of global conservation organization WWF, told Reuters after the vote.
"Greenland does not need any more whales. Greenland's not even using the full quotas that it has."
Humpback whales are considered a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Global whale stock data is patchy, and much of it outdated, but the IWC estimates there are around 65,000 humpback whales in the western and northern Atlantic, Southern Hemisphere and Pacific.
Greenland already has an IWC quota to catch 212 minke whales, 19 fin whales and 2 bowhead whales each year, but says they are not enough.
MUSCLE-FLEXING EXERCISE?
Some saw Greenland's bid as a muscle-flexing exercise by pro-whaling nations spearheaded by world No.1 whaler Japan, Norway and Iceland at the meeting, which had steered clear of confrontational issues until Thursday.
"We are extremely relieved to know that the humpback whales are safe from hunting in European waters," said Sue Fisher of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
"The adoption of this flawed proposal from Greenland would have set a terrible precedent for allowing commercial elements in aboriginal subsistence hunting."
Greenland, which is a self-governing province of Denmark, has vowed to push for the quota increase again next year.
The vote result drew angry responses from a host of nations who back whaling -- including by some nations which don't even hunt whales themselves.
"We are in the middle of a world food crisis," said Daven Joseph, assistant commissioner for St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, which does not catch whales. "The people of Greenland have very little as far as sustenance is concerned."
"I do believe the vote against Greenland pursuing the hunt for the 10 humpback whales is a violation of the human rights of the people of Greenland," he added, accusing the no camp of voting on emotional and political grounds, taking a "colonial posture" and of using food as a weapon.
(Editing by Sandra Maler)
