Page - July 18, 2007
Conservation-minded countries made a spectacular comeback at this year's International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting. Last year, Japan had garnered enough support to pass a resolution calling the whaling moratorium invalid, but this year conservationists enjoyed the majority.
BIG BLUE MARCH: Just prior to the IWC meeting, people took to the streets in more than 50 locations around the world for the Big Blue March, voicing their support for the world's whales, and calling for an end to commercial whaling.
Their numbers were greatly bolstered by Croatia, Greece, Cyprus
and a few of Japan's supporters changed sides. And despite the IWC
being over for the year, Uruguay has just announced its intention
to join the fight for the whales at the next meeting.
With such good numbers, you'd have expected great things to
happen, but in reality, the IWC is truly stuck. Although a number
of significant resolutions were passed to protect whales, there
remains a gulf as wide as the Southern Ocean between the pro and
anti whaling lobbies and the Japanese scientific whaling programme
will still go ahead this summer.
The meeting began with a request by the Japanese government to
act civilly, but soon saw accusations of "hate votes", the refusal
of pro-whaling countries to participate in votes they didn't like
the look of, threats to walk away from the whole process and an
almost total failure of all members to consider in detail the real
threats to whales and dolphins.
Greenpeace has long been pushing for the IWC to be modernised so
it's a relevant institution for addressing the threats to our
oceans and whales in the 21st century. And the one bright spark in
the week of meetings was consensus that the IWC cannot remain in
its current state. A special meeting to discuss how to move this
forward was agreed.
We just have to make makes sure the Commission ensures the pace
of modernisation outstrips that of extinction.
Alongside the efforts to modernize the IWC, our work in Japan to
inform and engage the public on this issue (and indications that
public opinion is slowly shifting) will continue to be the best
chance we have to bring commercial whaling to an end.