By Kitty Block
St. Kitts, West Indies—As commissioners spent much of the final day at the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting focused on administrative matters, delegations and observers spent their time figuring out how to stop the pro-whaling contingent from exercising its will at next year's important meeting in Alaska.
The tension over next year's annual meeting started to build even before the final gavel fell on this year's—particularly after IWC members elected United States Commissioner William Hogarth as chair and Japan Commissioner Minoru Morimoto as vice chair for next May's gathering in Anchorage, Alaska. Outgoing chair Hendrik Fischer called the pairing, with remarkable understatement, an "interesting collaboration."
Reporters peppered Hogarth with questions during an impromptu press conference after the annual meeting wrapped here. The new chair admitted that "Japan has made it clear that something has to be done next year" or that the island nation may "blow up" the U.S. bowhead whale quota, which the United States desperately wants for Alaskan Eskimos.
The implication, as more than one observer has noted, is that Japan may hold the bowhead quota hostage unless the United States and other conservation-leaning countries allow the Japanese to begin coastal whaling, which the IWC has denied for years. All the aboriginal whaling quotas will be renewed at next year's annual meeting; each quota requires a three-quarters majority for approval, and neither the pro-whaling nor the anti-whaling bloc has that kind of support.
Hogarth said he plans to stand firm against Japan's newfound majority on the IWC, even though he'll need some of their support for the bowhead quota. "We don't think we should be held hostage (over the bowhead quota)," he said. "We won't cut any deals." Hogarth said that the United States will also work to break the stalemate over the Revised Management Scheme, a plan to monitor and regulate whaling should the commercial moratorium be lifted. "We'll work toward a solution," he said, "even if, in the end, we may not be able to vote for it."
Despite Hogarth's tough talk, few are relying only on the United States and other conservation-minded nations to hold the line against Japan's aggressively pro-whaling stance. Commissioners and non-governmental organizations are already marshalling their resources to keep the focus of next year's meeting on conservation, not killing whales. NGOs began reaching out to constituents, asking them to contact their respective governments to show their support for whale-conservation measures. Conservation-oriented commissioners will begin lobbying other like-minded countries to join the IWC to bring the organization back in line with public opinion, which is overwhelmingly anti-whaling.
"People are saying this year's IWC meeting should be a wake up call, a reminder that the whales are not saved yet," said Humane Society International President Patricia Forkan. "But really this is more of a call to action. Everyone needs to remind their governments that the general public is adamantly, unquestionably against whaling. The organization that regulates international whaling needs to reflect this public opinion, not reflect the tiny minority that wants to keep slaughtering these animals."
At this year's annual meeting, conservationists scored far more victories than they had expected to prior to the gathering. They had feared for the worst; they feared that Japan had secured a clear majority and was prepared to make radical changes to the organization founded in 1946.
But Japan came up short in several early votes critical to the pro-whaling nation. Japan lost votes on casting secret ballots, on deleting the agenda item on small cetaceans, on eliminating the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, and on its request for a minke whale quota for coastal Japanese communities. The country's lone victory, however, was significant: It managed to bully through the St. Kitts and Nevis Declaration, a non-binding resolution that declares the commercial moratorium is "no longer necessary" and that the IWC is about "managing whaling."
"The fact that Japan secured no victory of real consequence and lost all the votes that mattered says a lot about the country's 'majority'," said HSI's Forkan. "It says that, despite all of Japan's manipulations, the country still can't muster a solid majority until all of its lock-step allies show up at the meeting and pay their dues. This is a soft, weak majority that conservationists need to dilute with more strong-willed, anti-whaling countries."
Random spoutings from the IWC meeting:
• A request from St. Kitts and Nevis for financial assistance to help defray the costs of hosting this year's IWC meeting failed to garner a simply majority from commissioners and did not pass. On the last day of the meeting, St. Kitts and Nevis Commissioner Cedric Liburd made an impassioned plea for an emergency allocation of £200,000 (about US$368,000) to cover unexpectedly high facility rental fees, equipment costs and transportation expenses. When commissioners agreed to hold their meeting on St. Kitts in 2004, the island nation, Liburd said, had a stronger economy. Since then, the St. Kitts sugar industry had collapsed, oil prices have skyrocketed and financial relief from the European Union has not materialized. A representative with the Russian Federation called the situation a "crisis" for St. Kitts.
But other members respectfully noted that such a financial allocation could lower the IWC's cash reserves to dangerous levels and set a poor precedent. Others commissioners pointed out that host nations have always agreed to cover extra costs, particularly given that the budget allotted by the IWC never covers all meeting expenses. Australian Commissioner Conall O'Connell said it was his understanding that the cash reserve, from which the money would be taken, is need to "buffet the (IWC) organization against shock, not buffet member organizations against shock." The final vote was 30 for, 30 against, and four abstentions.
After the vote, the United States reiterated its offer to give U.S. $30,000 to St. Kitts to cover meeting expenses, and then asked other countries to follow suit. During the lunch break, Liburd said that South Africa had agreed to help.
• A delegation of French-speaking countries, from Benin to Togo, submitted a resolution to translate all commission documents into the language that, they say, is the primary one for one-quarter of IWC members. Spain quickly piggybacked on the idea and asked to include Spanish translations as well, and before you knew it, most of the morning was spent arguing about whether the commission could afford such services – or whether such services were even necessary. The commissioner from Denmark, for one, had "difficulty seeing why French and Spanish speakers should have the advantage" over his country which has to stumble through English even though Denmark has three official languages.
In the end, commissioners decided on a compromise for the vast French and Spanish delegations. They approved a resolution to translate some documents, not all, into French and Spanish for the 2007 meeting, then asked the Secretariat's office to "investigate the possibility of recognizing French and Spanish as working languages of the Commission."
• St. Kitts and Nevis Commissioner Cedric Liburd reported that island police on Tuesday morning arrested "about 10 persons" from Greenpeace after the activists, without permission, anchored their boat in the waters near the Marriott Resort and came ashore with placards that they placed in the sand. "Once again, it shows disrespect for the government and people of St. Kitts and Nevis," Liburd said. St. Kitts had earlier refused to allow a Greenpeace ship entry into the country; it was the same ship that had collided with a Japanese whaling boat in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in January.
• Commissioners had many kind words, even a parting gift, for outgoing chair Hendrik Fischer of Denmark. Fischer was not only stepping down as chair, but retiring from public service for good. He noted that there is something "unique about this organization," one in which commissioners could be "very angry toward one another." But at the same time, he also thought the vigorous, good-old-fashioned debate was the organization's strength.
