Richard Black BBC News 14 Jul 11;
The International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual meeting has closed after a tense final day when relations between opposing blocs came close to collapse.
Latin American nations attempted to force a vote on a proposal to create a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic.
Pro-whaling countries walked out, but eventually it was decided to shelve any vote until next year's meeting.
Environment groups said the delays and wrangling meant important issues for whale conservation were neglected.
But a number of nations pledged new funding for research on small cetaceans, some of which are severely threatened.
Earlier in the meeting, governments agreed new regulations designed to prevent "cash for votes" scandals that have plagued the IWC in the past, and passed a resolution censuring the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for putting safety at risk during its annual missions to counter Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean.
But the sanctuary issue threatened to derail the entire session.
"Whale species and populations from the Southern Atlantic oceanic basin were amongst the ones that suffered the most due to commercial whaling on a large scale," Roxana Schteinbarg, from the Argentina-based Institute for the Conservation of Whales, told delegates.
"Fifty-four species live in the waters where the sanctuary is proposed - it is therefore appropriate that the protection of these species in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary be extended and complemented in the reproduction areas in the Atlantic Southern basin."
The 14-strong Buenos Aires bloc of nations knew it did not command the three-quarters majority needed to win, but remained determined to put it to the test.
"We didn't come here to win the sanctuary on the vote, but we wanted to put it to a vote - we believe our conservation agenda cannot be put forward, be stressed, be highlighted, be defended in some issues without a vote," said Brazil's commissioner Marcus Henrique Paranagua.
"Why not vote on things that are controversial?"
Voting with feet
The pro-whaling bloc said this could herald a return to the fractious days of the past, and walked out in an attempt to bring the meeting below the quorum needed for votes to count.
"We fear that the fact of voting will probably damage the very good atmosphere we have established, and might trigger a landslide of many votes for next year which might disrupt the progress we have made," said Japan's alternate (or deputy) commissioner Joji Morishita.
"This was not a hostile move to the Latin American countries - our effort is to try to save this organisation, and it turned out ok."
The good atmosphere, he added, had survived a "very difficult day".
Critics, however, said the pro-whaling countries had tried to hold the commission to ransom by their walkout.
Explosive meeting
The compromise eventually hammered out, after private discussions lasting nearly nine hours, asks countries to strive to reach consensus during the coming year.
If that proves impossible, next year's meeting will start with a vote on the South Atlantic Sanctuary.
That could prove a particular concern for the US, which will be aiming at that meeting, in Panama, to secure renewed quotas for its indigenous hunters.
US commissioner Monica Medina agreed the potential vote "put a hand-grenade" under next year's meeting.
"I'm more than a little concerned - we've made good progress on improving the IWC's governance and that's a good thing," she said.
"But as long as we choose to continue fighting, all of the IWC's members will lose; and the world's whales deserve better."
The US played a leading role in the two-year "peace process" that attempted to build a major compromise deal between the various parties, and which collapsed at last year's meeting.
Missing in action
Huge delays during the four days of talks meant that many items on the agenda pertinent to the health of whales and other cetaceans did not get discussed.
How to prevent whales from being killed by collisions with ships, how to reduce floating debris and how to tackle the growth of noise in the oceans were among the issues that received no discussion.
"Acrimony is often the enemy of conservation - in this case, it meant that a critical meeting on whales failed to address the greatest threats they face," said Wendy Elliott, head of environment group WWF's delegation.
"Several whale and dolphin species are in crisis - teetering on the brink of extinction - and conservation must be front and foremost at next year's IWC meeting, for the sake of the whales and the commission."
The research programmes of the cash-strapped commission received something of a boost with France, Italy and several non-governmental groups pledging a total of about £80,000 ($130,000) for small cetaceans, which include the critically endangered Mexican vaquita.
True to form, global whaling forum ends on sour note
Anthony Lucas AFP Yahoo News 15 Jul 11;
The global forum charged with both protecting and overseeing the hunting of whales ended a four-day session Thursday with a walkout by pro-whaling nations in order to block a vote on the creation of a new sanctuary.
The 63rd annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), in other words, ended true to form.
"You can only conclude that this Commission -- which, despite a moratorium, does not have a mandate to stop the large-scale hunting still going on -- is genuinely dysfunctional," said Frederic Briand, head of Monaco's delegation.
"Since the moratorium was put in place in 1986, more than 33,000 whales have been killed," he told AFP as the 89-nation body adjourned for another year.
A significant number of the giant sea mammals are also killed through so-called "by-catch" and ship collisions.
The one modicum of progress achieved here was the adoption by consensus on Wednesday of a British plan to discourage influence peddling by changing the way member nations pay their dues.
Under the old rules, members could pay subscription fees -- ranging from a few thousand to more than 100,000 dollars (euros) -- by cash or cheque, a practice that fuelled allegations of corruption.
The IWC was rocked last year by accusations in the British press that Japan used cash and development aid to "buy" votes from Caribbean and African nations.
Japan, which denied the charges, is one of three countries along with Norway and Iceland that practice large-scale whaling despite the moratorium, collectively taking more than 1,000 whales annually in recent years.
Such payments must now be made by bank transfer, as is done in other international organisations.
Some anti-whaling delegates and environmental groups took a "glass-half-full" approach to the outcome.
"The Commission, despite the recurrent standoff between pro-hunting and pro-conservation nations, is taking small steps in the right direction," said Sigrid Luber, president of Ocean Care, an advocacy group.
Luber said the new measure should make it easier "for delegates to express their own opinions."
Progress was also made towards recognizing the conservation status of dozens of smaller cetaceans -- an order grouping 80-odd whales, dolphins and porpoises -- and not just the 15 giant sea mammals currently covered by the IWC.
Others also point out that the moratorium, while flouted by the trio of hunting nations, has helped many species inch back from the brink of extinction.
"The majority of whale stocks are moving in the right direction, often at a pace of five to 10 percent per year," noted French scientist Vincent Ridoux, a member of the Commission's scientific committee.
"That is a direct result of the ban on commercial hunting," he said.
But on Thursday, the deep-seated divide that pulls this body apart surfaced again when Japan led a walk-out of pro-whaling nations to insure that a vote to create a sanctuary in the South Atlantic -- spearheaded by Brazil and Argentina -- would fail to muster the necessary quorum.
Currently there are two such whale havens, one in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, and the other in the Indian Ocean.
Japan carries out an annual hunt during the southern hemisphere summer in Antarctic waters, and said this week it planned to return next season despite vows from anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd to disrupt the hunt.
In February, Japan recalled its Antarctic fleet a month ahead of schedule with only one fifth of its planned catch, citing interference from Sea Shepherd's vessels.
A bid to boost the voice and access of non-governmental organisations in the IWC's proceedings also failed.
"I know some of us would have liked to go further, particularly on the issue of observer and civil society participation," said Richard Pullen, the head of Britain's delegation.
"But negotiations mean compromise."
Anti-whaling group to launch action in Faroes
Anthony Lucas AFP Yahoo News 14 Jul 11;
Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd said Thursday it will erect a "wall of sound" in the sea to deter the killing of hundreds of pilot whales in shallow coves along the Faroe Islands, a Danish territory.
Using two ships and a helicopter, the US-based activists will start their operation on Friday, Sea Shepherd's founder Paul Watson said at the close of a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
"We intend to deploy acoustic devices to lay down a wall of sound in the path of the migrating whales to prevent them from approaching the islands," he said.
"Some of the devices are floating, some are dragged behind a ship and some are sunk in the ocean," he told AFP.
Earlier this year, Watson launched an aggressive -- and, from his viewpoint, successful -- campaign against Japanese whalers operating in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica.
Japan recalled its fleet in February, a month ahead of schedule with only one fifth of its planned catch, citing interference from Sea Shepherd's vessels.
The IWC has banned all types of commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Japan conducts its hunt there under the guise of "scientific research", setting self-determined quotas averaging about 1,000 whales each year over the last five years.
In the Faroes, Sea Shepherd will mobilise its flag ship Steve Irwin and a fast-interceptor vessel donated by the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, an animal rights group founded by the former French actress.
Baptised Operation Ferocious Isles, the campaign will last two months.
"We don't wish to dialogue about the obscenity, we wish to stop it," said Locky Maclean, captain of the interceptor, the Brigitte Bardot.
"The rights of these whales to live takes precedence over the 'rights' of the Faroese to murder them," he said in a statement.
Whaling in the Faroes stetches back to the earliest Norse settlements more than 1,000 years ago, and community-organised hunts date to at least the 16th century.
Most Faroese consider the annual hunt -- in which the three-to-six metre sea mammals are driven by a flotilla of small boats into a bay or the mouth of a fjord -- as an integral part of their culture and history.
Sea Shepherd has intervened several times before in the Faroes with patrols, in 1985, 1986 and again in 2000.
But this is the first time they will attempt to prevent the whales from entering the bays where the killing historically takes place.
Watson compared the Faroes whale hunt to the slaughter of dolphins that occurs each year near the Japanese village of Taiji, highlighted in the Academy Award-winning documentary The Cove.
The Faroe Islands, home to around 48,000 people, have been an autonomous Danish province since 1948. The archipelago is situated between Norway, Iceland and Scotland in the North Atlantic ocean.
Pilot whales, which feed primarily on squid, have a distinct, rounded head with a very slight beak. Males weigh up to three tonnes, twice as much as females.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species does not list the status of the pilot whale due to lack of data.
But long-finned pilot whales -- the kind hunted in the Faroes -- are generally thought to number in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps as many as one million.
Watch whales, then eat them
AFP Yahoo News 15 Jul 11;
Watching and hunting whales "work perfectly together" in a look-and-cook combo of tourism and gastronomy, Iceland's Whale Commissioner said Thursday at the global whaling forum.
"Many of the tourists that go on whale watching tours go to restaurants afterwards to taste whale meat," said Tomas Heider, speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of the International Whaling Commission in the British Channel Islands.
"I think it is a very good proof of the compatibility of the two," he said, countering arguments that the contested practice of hunting the giant sea mammals drives away whale watching revenue.
Many countries in the 89-nation IWC, especially in South America, argue that potential income from tourism far outstrips the value of commercial whaling, and that the two do not mix well.
But in Iceland, Heider insists, the industries feed off each other.
"Even though we have been increasing our whaling in recent years, the tourists are streaming in numbers to Iceland and going to whale watching tours like never before," he said. "It works perfectly together."
Like Norway, Iceland practices commercial whaling, invoking a much criticised option within IWC rules to exempt itself from a 1986 moratorium on industrial-scale hunting.
Iceland takes both fin and minke whales, and has significantly increased the number of each species captured.
After not hunting fin for nearly two decades, Icelandic fishermen killed about 125 in 2009 and 150 last year. For minke whales, the number has jumped from an average of about 40 per year during the early 2000s, to between 60 and 80.
Iceland says whale populations in the North Atlantic are abundant enough to withstand these numbers.
A study published last year in the peer-reviewed journal Marine Policy said that whale tourism generated more than two billion dollars (1.4 billion euros) in 2009 and is on track to increase by about 10 percent a year.
