Shameful - The Caribbean and whaling
caribbeannewsnow editorial
It was a shameful sight -- three Caribbean countries walking in obedience behind Japan, discarding even the appearance of independence.
Joji Morishitain, the Japanese representative to a meeting last week in Jersey of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), announced he was walking out of the meeting, and the delegates of the three Caribbean countries – St Kitts-Nevis, Grenada and St Lucia – dutifully joined him.
What was the walk out about? Latin American nations, led by Brazil and Argentina, had proposed the creation of a sanctuary for whales in the South Atlantic. Currently there are two such whale havens, one in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica and the other in the Indian Ocean. When it was obvious that a majority of countries supported the Latin American proposal, the Japanese staged the walk out so as undermine a consensus decision.
There was no legitimate reason for the Caribbean countries to join Japan. Not one of them is a whale-hunting nation. Nor do any of them derive any economic or dietary benefit from whale-killing. Further, by joining Japan, the Caribbean countries ruptured their relations with their Latin American neighbours, with whom they are associated in the Latin American and Caribbean Group in the United Nations system.
In the creation of the South Atlantic sanctuary, the Latin American countries would have viewed Caribbean countries as their natural allies, particularly as they place considerable importance in its establishment. Undoubtedly, there will be a price to pay for this sabotage by Caribbean countries of Latin American interests, however stonily silent the Latin Americans have been so far.
Brazil and Argentina – two of the biggest nations in Latin America and the Caribbean – may have forgiven the Caribbean countries for not supporting them if there was a direct Caribbean interest in rejecting the whale sanctuary proposal. But, there is no direct Caribbean interest in saying “no” to the sanctuary. Many Caribbean countries, including the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia, Dominica, Guadeloupe and Martinique operate healthy whale-watching businesses that have helped to diversify their tourism product, earn millions of dollars in foreign exchange and provide employment. A whale sanctuary is in their interest.
The blind walk-out by the three Caribbean countries, holding on to a Japanese kimono, reconfirmed an expose by the British Sunday Times newspaper last year that revealed Japan paying the accommodation and “expenses” of several delegates of Caribbean countries to the 2010 IWC meeting in Morocco.
Last week, a feisty Antiguan government minister employed evangelical zeal in opposing a resolution from European Union countries to stop some delegations (those that vote with Japan) from paying cash for their countries’ subscription to the IWC. The resolution was adopted despite the machinations of the Antigua minister, who played a supporting role to the representative of St Kitts-Nevis.
From now on, the IWC will only accept bank transfers directly from government accounts. This may well have the effect of stopping a few of these countries from attending the IWC meetings, unless Japan pays the money to the governments directly, proving what has been alleged all along.
Had the Antigua minister been present at the IWC meeting on the day the Japanese-led walk out was staged, undoubtedly there would have been a fourth Caribbean country in the procession.
The Caribbean delegates have returned to the Caribbean and given no account of why they opposed – albeit unsuccessfully – a resolution for transparency and accountability in paying the subscriptions of governments, and why they voted against their Latin American neighbours that wanted a South Atlantic whale sanctuary.
In the past, the Caribbean representatives to the IWC meetings have slavishly followed the Japanese line that whales devour fish stocks once they get to Caribbean waters, depriving Caribbean people of food. This claim has long been debunked as a falsehood, even though, as recently as last month, ministers from Antigua and St Lucia were repeating it parrot-fashion after a Japanese-organised meeting in St Lucia to prepare the participating Caribbean countries for last week’s IWC meeting in Jersey.
It is noteworthy that the government of Dominica, which was once part of the Japanese-kimono group, has held fast to a decision of its prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, to divorce his country from voting with Japan. Dominica sent no delegation to the IWC, maintaining its position that as the “nature isle of the Caribbean” it has a responsibility to its own reputation to sustain the marine life of its environment. The Skerrit government has won the respect and support of environmental and conservation organizations world-wide, whereas the other IWC-Caribbean countries are earning the odium of environmentalist organizations and the distrust of major governments, including those in Latin America.
The problem is that the world views the Caribbean as one area, and the actions of these four Caribbean countries, with a yen for Japan’s “kill-whale” position, are sullying the standing of other Caribbean countries that conduct their international business in their own interests.
We urge the governments of the majority of Caribbean nations to call the governments of these four countries to book on this issue in the interest of the region’s standing.
July 20, 2011
caribbeannewsnow editorial
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Showing posts with label whale-watching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whale-watching. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Friday, March 12, 2010
Harpooning Caribbean Tourism: Swallowing a dead rat
By Sir Ronald Sanders:
It’s the high seas equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Several Caribbean governments are harpooning their own sustainable tourism industry by supporting Japan’s ruthless campaign to continue killing whales.
A group of International Whaling Commission (IWC) nations meeting from March 2 to 4 in Florida is reported to have considered recommending to the full membership that Japan, Iceland and Norway be allowed to hunt whales despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan, in particular, would no longer have to pretend that, in killing thousands of whales every year, it is doing so for “scientific” purposes.
Japan does not deny that meat from slaughtered whales ends up in restaurants and shops.
As this commentary is being written a shipment of whale meat is being transported by ship from Iceland to Japan in an expensive and backward step to resuscitate trade in whale meat. Twenty-six nations condemned Iceland last October for expanding commercial whaling, pointing out that it brings little benefit to Iceland’s economy and great harm to its tourism industry.
Caribbean countries have nothing to gain if the proposal from the IWC’s small working group is adopted by the wider membership. Voting for it would certainly adversely affect the Caribbean’s brand of itself as environmentally friendly, and harm the growing whale-watching aspect of its tourism industry.
A study by a group of Australian economists placed whale-watching as a US$2.1 billion global industry in 2008. In the Caribbean and Central American whale-watching is growing at a rate of 12.8%, three times more than the growth rate of the global tourism industry (4.2%). Countries in the region now earn more than US$54 million from whale-watching as part of their tourism product, while earnings from whaling are practically zero.
Despite this, members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and Suriname have routinely supported Japan’s efforts in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to slaughter whales every year in defiance of the international prohibition.
Significantly, an international meeting in Martinique from 18 to 21 February on “Sustainable ‘blue’ tourism in the Caribbean” strongly urged Caribbean governments “to give their full support and encouragement to whale-watching activities as a valid and sustainable means of protecting marine mammal populations and creating jobs, earning foreign exchange and providing sustainable livelihoods for fishermen and local coastal communities” . In making this call, the participants – the majority of whom were from the Caribbean – recalled that in 2008, the Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit took the “principled position” to withdraw his Government's support for whaling at the IWC as being “incompatible” with Dominica's brand as a “Nature Isle”. They called on the leaders of other OECS countries to join him.
The stand-off at the IWC between whale killing by Japan and its supportive small states, and whale conservation by countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, India, the United States, South Africa, Germany and Australia, has dragged-on for some time. Last year, the small working group was established to try to bring an end to the impasse. Many hoped that the group’s work would result in strong proposals to ensure that IWC rules are fully respected and implemented, and that whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale sanctuary would be phased out swiftly.
However, it appears that the small group has been coerced into entertaining a different kind of discussion – one in which Japan will be allowed to violate the rules the IWC itself has set and to ignore sanctuaries that have been established. One of the members of the group said that nations must “swallow a dead rat”.
Experts from around the world are deeply troubled by the proposals emerging from the group. The proposals include:
· No provisions to ensure that the existing ban on international
trade in whale products is respected;
· Authorizing the killing of sperm whales.
· Continued whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary;
· Weakening of the IWC as a rule making and regulatory international body, encouraging unrestrained actions by individual nations.
Many governments have gotten away with supporting Japan because their publics are not fully aware that, apart from a small number of indigenous communities in the world, only an elite group in Japan consistently eat whale meat.
In the Caribbean, Japanese Associations have paid for the production and broadcast of television programmes which falsely promote whale-killing as a beneficial activity because whales eat fish in Caribbean waters depriving the local population of fish. This claim has been proven, scientifically, to be untrue.
Evidence of the abhorrence of whale killing and its adverse effect on the world’s biodiversity is the fact that an Oscar was recently awarded to “The Cove” - a documentary film depicting the grisly slaughter of dolphins by Japanese in a cove in south-western Japan.
Kevin Rudd, Australia’s prime minister, last month threatened to take action against Japan at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its Antarctic whale hunt. And, in New Zealand, the foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, Chris Carter, has called on the government to join Australia in taking Japan to the ICJ.
But, Japan remains determined in its stance, not only on whaling but on fisheries generally. Indeed, Japan is so obdurate that it has stated categorically that it will “opt out” of its obligation to stop importing Atlantic bluefin tuna if members of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species vote this month to add the fish to the treaty’s list of most-protected species. In other words, Japan will only respect those international rules that suit it.
Japan’s stance is bad news for small countries which depend, for their own survival, on international rules and respect for them within the UN framework.
Japan has helped to make rules that are imposed on small states – rules with which small countries been forced to comply or be punished. Among these are the regulatory and tax information requirements of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
If the proposals of the small working group are permitted by governments to proceed, Japan, Iceland and Norway will have a free hand, and Japan will no longer need to lure the support of small Caribbean countries in the IWC.
In June, the IWC will hold its annual meeting in Morocco. That’s the time that the OECS and Suriname governments should join the government of Dominica in taking a principled position that upholds their own interest.
March 12, 2010
caribbeannetnews
It’s the high seas equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Several Caribbean governments are harpooning their own sustainable tourism industry by supporting Japan’s ruthless campaign to continue killing whales.
A group of International Whaling Commission (IWC) nations meeting from March 2 to 4 in Florida is reported to have considered recommending to the full membership that Japan, Iceland and Norway be allowed to hunt whales despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan, in particular, would no longer have to pretend that, in killing thousands of whales every year, it is doing so for “scientific” purposes.
Japan does not deny that meat from slaughtered whales ends up in restaurants and shops. As this commentary is being written a shipment of whale meat is being transported by ship from Iceland to Japan in an expensive and backward step to resuscitate trade in whale meat. Twenty-six nations condemned Iceland last October for expanding commercial whaling, pointing out that it brings little benefit to Iceland’s economy and great harm to its tourism industry.
Caribbean countries have nothing to gain if the proposal from the IWC’s small working group is adopted by the wider membership. Voting for it would certainly adversely affect the Caribbean’s brand of itself as environmentally friendly, and harm the growing whale-watching aspect of its tourism industry.
A study by a group of Australian economists placed whale-watching as a US$2.1 billion global industry in 2008. In the Caribbean and Central American whale-watching is growing at a rate of 12.8%, three times more than the growth rate of the global tourism industry (4.2%). Countries in the region now earn more than US$54 million from whale-watching as part of their tourism product, while earnings from whaling are practically zero.
Despite this, members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and Suriname have routinely supported Japan’s efforts in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to slaughter whales every year in defiance of the international prohibition.
Significantly, an international meeting in Martinique from 18 to 21 February on “Sustainable ‘blue’ tourism in the Caribbean” strongly urged Caribbean governments “to give their full support and encouragement to whale-watching activities as a valid and sustainable means of protecting marine mammal populations and creating jobs, earning foreign exchange and providing sustainable livelihoods for fishermen and local coastal communities” . In making this call, the participants – the majority of whom were from the Caribbean – recalled that in 2008, the Prime Minister of Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit took the “principled position” to withdraw his Government's support for whaling at the IWC as being “incompatible” with Dominica's brand as a “Nature Isle”. They called on the leaders of other OECS countries to join him.
The stand-off at the IWC between whale killing by Japan and its supportive small states, and whale conservation by countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, India, the United States, South Africa, Germany and Australia, has dragged-on for some time. Last year, the small working group was established to try to bring an end to the impasse. Many hoped that the group’s work would result in strong proposals to ensure that IWC rules are fully respected and implemented, and that whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale sanctuary would be phased out swiftly.
However, it appears that the small group has been coerced into entertaining a different kind of discussion – one in which Japan will be allowed to violate the rules the IWC itself has set and to ignore sanctuaries that have been established. One of the members of the group said that nations must “swallow a dead rat”.
Experts from around the world are deeply troubled by the proposals emerging from the group. The proposals include:
· No provisions to ensure that the existing ban on international
trade in whale products is respected;
· Authorizing the killing of sperm whales.
· Continued whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary;
· Weakening of the IWC as a rule making and regulatory international body, encouraging unrestrained actions by individual nations.
Many governments have gotten away with supporting Japan because their publics are not fully aware that, apart from a small number of indigenous communities in the world, only an elite group in Japan consistently eat whale meat.
In the Caribbean, Japanese Associations have paid for the production and broadcast of television programmes which falsely promote whale-killing as a beneficial activity because whales eat fish in Caribbean waters depriving the local population of fish. This claim has been proven, scientifically, to be untrue.
Evidence of the abhorrence of whale killing and its adverse effect on the world’s biodiversity is the fact that an Oscar was recently awarded to “The Cove” - a documentary film depicting the grisly slaughter of dolphins by Japanese in a cove in south-western Japan.
Kevin Rudd, Australia’s prime minister, last month threatened to take action against Japan at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its Antarctic whale hunt. And, in New Zealand, the foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Labour Party, Chris Carter, has called on the government to join Australia in taking Japan to the ICJ.
But, Japan remains determined in its stance, not only on whaling but on fisheries generally. Indeed, Japan is so obdurate that it has stated categorically that it will “opt out” of its obligation to stop importing Atlantic bluefin tuna if members of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species vote this month to add the fish to the treaty’s list of most-protected species. In other words, Japan will only respect those international rules that suit it.
Japan’s stance is bad news for small countries which depend, for their own survival, on international rules and respect for them within the UN framework.
Japan has helped to make rules that are imposed on small states – rules with which small countries been forced to comply or be punished. Among these are the regulatory and tax information requirements of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
If the proposals of the small working group are permitted by governments to proceed, Japan, Iceland and Norway will have a free hand, and Japan will no longer need to lure the support of small Caribbean countries in the IWC.
In June, the IWC will hold its annual meeting in Morocco. That’s the time that the OECS and Suriname governments should join the government of Dominica in taking a principled position that upholds their own interest.
March 12, 2010
caribbeannetnews
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