Arrests As International Whaling Commission Fails To Protect Whales

Fif­teen peo­ple were arrest­ed by police at a meet­ing of the Inter­na­tion­al Whal­ing Com­mis­sion (IWC), held this year in San­ti­a­go, Chile. The pro­test­ers were sup­pos­ed­ly try­ing to ‘storm’ the meet­ing but oth­er reports state that the mere pres­ence of peo­ple in front of the meet­ing’s venue was seen as a ‘secu­ri­ty threat’.

The IWC meets annu­al­ly to reg­u­late the whal­ing indus­try and make deci­sions on con­ser­va­tion of whale pop­u­la­tions. So far the meet­ing has­n’t reached any agree­ments and the com­mis­sion con­tin­ues to be strong­ly dev­id­ed between the pro- and anti-whal­ing nations. Skye Bor­toli, an activist from Teens Against Whal­ing described the meet­ing this year as ‘pathet­ic’, say­ing “this body will be known in the future as a small group of eco­log­i­cal­ly arro­gant peo­ple who are con­demn­ing the world’s whales to agony and obliv­ion for pet­ty pol­i­tics and a few lousy bucks.”

Relat­ed Audio: Sea Shep­herd Cap­tain Paul Wat­son Talks in Lon­don | Inter­view With Not­ting­ham Activist On Return From Whale Sav­ing Mis­sion

Relat­ed Newswire: Ice­land Defies Mora­to­ri­um On Com­mer­cial Whal­ing — Whale Hunt Start­ed | Nor­way Starts Whale Hunt­ing Sea­son

Pre­vi­ous Fea­tures: Armed Cana­di­an Coast Guard Storms Con­ser­va­tion Ves­sel | Not­ting­ham Activist Returns From Whale Sav­ing Mis­sion In Antar­ti­ca | Injured Among Sea Shep­herd Crew As Japan­ese Mil­i­tary Open Fire | Activists Held Hostage By Japan­ese Whalers In South­ern Ocean

Links: IWC offi­cial web­site | Wikipedia on IWC | Teens Against Whal­ing | Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety | Green­peace | San­ti­a­go Indy­media | Indy­media Ocean Defence

This year, like many a year before, the IWC fails to make progress in their pro­tec­tion of whales. Japan and oth­er pro-whal­ing nations push for a par­tial lift­ing of the ban on com­mer­cial whal­ing. Also, the US (which has been involved with Japan’s whal­ing indus­try) has been push­ing for the reg­u­la­tion of ‘sci­en­tif­ic whal­ing’, some­thing which con­ser­va­tions argue would only legit­imize an already ille­gal activ­i­ty. Japan uses the ‘sci­en­tif­ic research’ as a smoke­screen for their ille­gal com­mer­cial whal­ing prac­tices.

There has been a debate about whether Green­land should be allowed a big­ger quo­ta of whales for their hunt and dis­cus­sions are ongo­ing about Japan’s hunt in the South­ern Ocean. It has been report­ed that the ear­li­est the IWC might come to some kind of agree­ment is by next year’s meet­ing, which is to be held in Madeira, Por­tu­gal. The com­mis­sion con­tin­ues to be strong­ly divid­ed between pro-whal­ing (Japan, Den­mark, Nor­way, Ice­land) and anti-whal­ing (Aus­tralia, Unit­ed King­dom, New Zealand, South Africa) nations.

Cap­tain Paul Wat­son, from the Sea Shep­herd Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, did man­age to get into the hotel this year. He nor­mal­ly nev­er makes it inside as the Sea Shep­herd is the only organ­i­sa­tion offi­cial­ly banned from attend­ing IWC meet­ings. Paul, like Skye Bor­toli, isn’t impressed with the state of affairs at this year’s meet­ing: “There were many things that could come out of this meet­ing. Japan could with­draw from the IWC and become a rene­gade whal­ing nation along with their part­ners in con­ser­va­tion crime Nor­way and Ice­land. Or a com­pro­mise may be bro­kered that will allow the Japan­ese to with­draw from the South­ern Ocean with­out los­ing face or third­ly, and most like­ly, noth­ing will come out of this meet­ing at all. From the way things are going so far it looks like Sea Shep­herd will be return­ing to the South­ern Ocean to once again enforce the reg­u­la­tions that the IWC and the nations of the world refuse to uphold. Oh well, I come to these meet­ings with no expec­ta­tions hop­ing to be pleas­ant­ly sur­prised. After more than three decades I am still wait­ing.”

Green­peace was also present in Chile, with a dom­i­nant pres­ence among the var­i­ous anti-whal­ing NGO’s and con­ser­va­tion­ists. Dave writes on the Green­peace blog: “We hope some­thing good comes out of these meet­ings, and that the com­mis­sion trans­forms itself into a body that pro­tects the whales and not the whalers. While com­mis­sion­ers sit in rooms talk­ing, whales are still dying in the South­ern Ocean and around the world from com­mer­cial whal­ing, ship strikes, sonar-relat­ed deaths, net­ting and pol­lu­tion, amongst oth­er human-induced haz­ards.”

On a pos­i­tive note, Chile, the host of this year’s meet­ing has declared a per­ma­nent ban on whal­ing in its waters. Speak­ing at a for­mer whale pro­cess­ing plant that Chile closed in 1967, Pres­i­dent Michelle Bachelet said she sent a bill to Con­gress propos­ing a whale sanc­tu­ary along Chile’s coast­line and declared the whale a nation­al mon­u­ment.

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