Whaling Commission's conservation vote a 'Pyrrhic victory'

Comment by EUGENE LAPOINTE*

The halls of Berlin reverberated to the echo of a Pyrrhic victory as the proponents of the so-called "Berlin initiative" staggered home to a 25-20 win. The triumph was empty because, as the vote reveals, it had served nothing so much as to demonstrate how deep is the chasm that now cuts the International Whaling Commission in half between the forces in support of, and opposed to, the sustainable use of wildlife resources.

Moreover, in securing this victory, the anti-sustainable use countries were obliged to place all of their cards on the table – gone was all the mealy-mouthing about the need to work on the Revised Management Scheme, addressing contamination in whale meat and blubber, etc. They were obliged, finally, to admit that their "conservation" agenda has truly nothing to do with conservation and everything to do with removing humankind from the natural world which surrounds it.

Many of the twenty sustainable use nations who voted against the initiative have averred that they will neither contribute to nor serve on the new, so-called "conservation committee". Their sentiments are admirable but will likely have little impact because the non-governmental organisations (NGOs)' funding to this new committee will speedily begin to flow and the heavier the flow the deeper and more thorough will be the debasement of the participants as they compete with each other for the new financial goodies that have come their way. Cash corrupts and no amount of shaming by non-participants will serve to discourage the members of the new committee from grovelling for an ever more bountiful flow of dollars, deutschmarks and degradation.

The anti-whaling nations' agenda was "conservation" pure and simple, with that term connoting the total removal of humankind from nature, with the latter serving as a look but do not touch theme park for urban Anglo-Saxons.

Now Iceland, Japan, Norway, etc. are obliged to admit that the thousands of air miles they accumulated to negotiate an RMS were all for naught – their fellow negotiators from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand never had any intention in the world of ever contemplating a return to cetacean exploitation, no matter how regulated or sustainable. So where does sustainable use go from here?

First and foremost, it goes from the IWC, whose lack of purpose has been left plain for all to see. The organisation has now, by a 25-20 vote, walked away from its own founding charter – the International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling – in order to transform itself into a wholly-owned NGO subsidiary.

Why would any sustainable use country elect to remain an IWC member under these circumstances? Why should they not simply shake the dust of the IWC from their feet and move on to establish a new, sustainable use organisation devoted to the principles enshrined in ICRW? If it wished, this new organisation could even adopt, as its founding document, the original ICRW text, a text which no longer merits the loyalty, or even the interest, of the IWC itself.

Such a dynamic new body, comprised of up to twenty new sustainable use states could quickly capitalise upon the many years of excellent work discharged by the IWC's Scientific Committee to devise and promulgate a new RMS and commence regulated, sustainable whaling.

The brave defenders of the global theme park will huff and puff, threatening economic sanctions against the sustainable use nations but it will amount to nothing but bluster. Europe's commitment to whale conservation is purely rhetorical and, in reality, there is not a single EU member willing to make the smallest financial sacrifice for any whale, endangered or not.

Greenpeace et al will urge the Bush Administration to implement the Pelly Amendment against Iceland, Japan, Norway, etc. but the US farm lobby will scan the list of countervailing sanctions cleared by the WTO and shiver – and when the farm lobby shivers, Democrats and Republicans alike catch a cold. Meanwhile, George W. Bush will ask exactly what a bunch of junior officials from the State and Commerce Departments did to make his very good friend Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan quite so upset.

* Eugene Lapointe is the president of the
IWMC World Conservation Trust (formerly the International Wildlife Management Consortium), which advocates the "sustainable" killing of whales.