Post by LSDeep on May 2, 2006 17:38:06 GMT -5
Robert Sheppard began his career at the Montreal Star (may it rest in peace), spent 22 years at the Globe and Mail and was recently senior editor at Maclean's magazine. He has co-authored a book on the Canadian Constitution and writes on a variety of subjects.
It's not shaping up to be a great spring for the planet's largest mammals. Japan's whaling fleet – that would be its eight-vessel "scientific" whaling fleet – has just returned from the Antarctic with 863 mostly minke whales. That represents nearly double the number it killed last year, again in the name of science.
Meanwhile, Norway's much larger fleet of small whalers is currently out in the North Atlantic hunting a significantly larger quota this year of 1,052 minkes, one of the largest hunts in decades.
Throw in the more modest contribution from Iceland, the world's other whaling nation, and there is a good chance that just over 2,000 of these great whales, which are officially on the world's endangered list, will be taken this summer for their succulent meat and not much else.
The blubber is now too full of PCBs and other harmful industrial contaminants to have any real commercial value so it is usually just tossed back into the ocean.
Diplomatic protest
This unusually large harvest of minkes this year has not gone unnoticed. A group of 12 industrialized nations led by Britain, France and Germany went the unusual step of issuing a formal diplomatic protest against the Norwegian hunt.
They were brusquely turned aside. Norway argues, not without merit, that there are in excess of 100,000 minke whales in the North Atlantic alone and that the great beasts are on the endangered list mostly because international wrangling has prevented a proper accounting.
At the same time, Australia and New Zealand, both big anti-whalers, are doing their best to disrupt what they say is an attempted coup by Japan to stack the International Whaling Commission with like-minded members and so overturn the 20-year-old ban on commercial whaling.
The IWC is the 64-member world body that is meant to regulate whaling for whatever purpose. And the allegation here is that Japan has been using its foreign aid and other means to recruit approximately 14 new members to the IWC in recent years.
These new members are mostly small African and Caribbean nations without any real history of whaling (a couple don't even have a coastline), but who may be susceptible to Japan's desire to harvest, in a controlled way, this potentially large, untapped food source.
For their pains, mind you, they will have to sit through four weeks of often highly politicized IWC meetings and sub-group meetings to begin later this month at the Marriott Resort and Royal Beach Casino in St. Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies, where tourist operators say relaxation and rum punch are requisites on both islands.
Leaving aside the rum punch, you'd think that will all these international lines in the sea being drawn that Canada, a coastal nation with three ocean fronts and no shortage of whales – they are even starting to show up in serious number in Hudson Bay – would be right in the thick of it. You'd be wrong.
On the sidelines
Virtually alone among the developed nations of the world, Canada is not an active member of the IWC. In fact, even though we usually send someone to its meetings as an observer, we are probably as close to being as anti-IWC nation as you can find.
This is highly unusual. If there is an international meeting on any subject anywhere in the world Canada is usually there. But when it comes to the IWC we have turned aside repeated entreaties even by close allies like the U.S. to join and help them try to keep a lid on commercial whaling.
The history here is that Canada quit the IWC in 1982 as it was adopting its moratorium on commercial whaling (the full ban went into effect four years later) and also attempting to regulate the number of whales that could be hunted by aboriginal groups.
At the time Canada's Inuit in the eastern Arctic wanted to resume hunting bowheads, but the IWC saw this particular group of whales (there were only about 500 of them in that part of the world) as endangered and would not go along.
The politics here was that the Canadian Constitution had just been patriated through an arduous 18-month political battle and the northern Inuit had been among the Trudeau government's most loyal native allies in that fight.
As part of a promise to them, the Trudeau government withdrew from the IWC, banned commercial whaling in its territorial waters, and set its own quotas for aboriginal whaling. Subsequent Canadian governments have stayed true to that promise ever since.
Traditional hunting
Is it a good bargain? Canadian Inuit have not been what you would call conspicuous whalers. Between 1982 and 1996 they only took one bowhead from the eastern Arctic. By contrast, Alaskan Inuit in the western Arctic, where there are many more of these big beasts, were averaging 50 a year.
In the summer of 1996, the Inuit hunted two bowheads. That earned them the condemnation of the IWC and only reinforced Canada's resolve to stay out of that body altogether.
The upshot, though, is that while much of the world is cranking up for a highly emotional debate over whaling, and while our big waterways are home to ever-varying numbers of different species of whales (some endangered, some not – most chock-full of industrial toxins), Canada's voice is not being heard on the international stage.
Of course, given that the IWC is one of the world's most obtuse and maddeningly bureaucratic of international agencies, with a penchant for long meetings in scenic locales, maybe this is a good thing.
But it probably doesn't help Canada's environmental reputation that we are seen as a nation that clubs baby seals and also turns its back on the whales, even if that is not an entirely fair portrayal.
An emotional issue
Whaling is a clearly a hot-button issue, like the seal hunt but in this case imbued with the excesses of a century and more ago when the biggest of the species were driven nearly to extinction by relentless hunting.
In Norway, the parliamentary vote to increase this year's quota was a rare unanimous one – an indication of its us-against-the-world attitude. Its politicians and biologists argue this is a sustainable hunt, in small eco-friendly boats, that takes no more than one per cent of the local minke herd.
In Japan, it is said that whale meat is revered, particularly among older Japanese who credit whaling the now almost extinct fin whale with staving off hunger during the later years of the World War II. But there have been persistent reports that tonnes of whale meat are languishing in Japanese freezers because it is expensive and because the younger generation is not accustomed to it. So the Japanese are trying to introduce whale as a lunch meat in some schools.
Japan gets its minkes from the southern Arctic through an IWC loophole that allows for scientific research. This "research," however, has allowed Japan to take almost 9,000 mostly minke whales since the whaling ban was introduced in 1986, with the meat being turned over to commercial food operations after the research so as not to waste it.
Are minkes endangered? Not if you believe Norway's numbers, or Japan's for that matter. But they are still technically at least on the threatened species list because for years the IWC hasn't been able to do a count to satisfy all its members.
As for the St. Kitt's meeting, Japan looks to have a slim majority of the 64 voting nations on its side (if all show up), which should at least ensure a month of interesting floor fights. But the rules appear to require a 75 per cent majority to overturn the ban on commercial whaling. Canada's voice may be needed yet.
It's not shaping up to be a great spring for the planet's largest mammals. Japan's whaling fleet – that would be its eight-vessel "scientific" whaling fleet – has just returned from the Antarctic with 863 mostly minke whales. That represents nearly double the number it killed last year, again in the name of science.
Meanwhile, Norway's much larger fleet of small whalers is currently out in the North Atlantic hunting a significantly larger quota this year of 1,052 minkes, one of the largest hunts in decades.
Throw in the more modest contribution from Iceland, the world's other whaling nation, and there is a good chance that just over 2,000 of these great whales, which are officially on the world's endangered list, will be taken this summer for their succulent meat and not much else.
The blubber is now too full of PCBs and other harmful industrial contaminants to have any real commercial value so it is usually just tossed back into the ocean.
Diplomatic protest
This unusually large harvest of minkes this year has not gone unnoticed. A group of 12 industrialized nations led by Britain, France and Germany went the unusual step of issuing a formal diplomatic protest against the Norwegian hunt.
They were brusquely turned aside. Norway argues, not without merit, that there are in excess of 100,000 minke whales in the North Atlantic alone and that the great beasts are on the endangered list mostly because international wrangling has prevented a proper accounting.
At the same time, Australia and New Zealand, both big anti-whalers, are doing their best to disrupt what they say is an attempted coup by Japan to stack the International Whaling Commission with like-minded members and so overturn the 20-year-old ban on commercial whaling.
The IWC is the 64-member world body that is meant to regulate whaling for whatever purpose. And the allegation here is that Japan has been using its foreign aid and other means to recruit approximately 14 new members to the IWC in recent years.
These new members are mostly small African and Caribbean nations without any real history of whaling (a couple don't even have a coastline), but who may be susceptible to Japan's desire to harvest, in a controlled way, this potentially large, untapped food source.
For their pains, mind you, they will have to sit through four weeks of often highly politicized IWC meetings and sub-group meetings to begin later this month at the Marriott Resort and Royal Beach Casino in St. Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies, where tourist operators say relaxation and rum punch are requisites on both islands.
Leaving aside the rum punch, you'd think that will all these international lines in the sea being drawn that Canada, a coastal nation with three ocean fronts and no shortage of whales – they are even starting to show up in serious number in Hudson Bay – would be right in the thick of it. You'd be wrong.
On the sidelines
Virtually alone among the developed nations of the world, Canada is not an active member of the IWC. In fact, even though we usually send someone to its meetings as an observer, we are probably as close to being as anti-IWC nation as you can find.
This is highly unusual. If there is an international meeting on any subject anywhere in the world Canada is usually there. But when it comes to the IWC we have turned aside repeated entreaties even by close allies like the U.S. to join and help them try to keep a lid on commercial whaling.
The history here is that Canada quit the IWC in 1982 as it was adopting its moratorium on commercial whaling (the full ban went into effect four years later) and also attempting to regulate the number of whales that could be hunted by aboriginal groups.
At the time Canada's Inuit in the eastern Arctic wanted to resume hunting bowheads, but the IWC saw this particular group of whales (there were only about 500 of them in that part of the world) as endangered and would not go along.
The politics here was that the Canadian Constitution had just been patriated through an arduous 18-month political battle and the northern Inuit had been among the Trudeau government's most loyal native allies in that fight.
As part of a promise to them, the Trudeau government withdrew from the IWC, banned commercial whaling in its territorial waters, and set its own quotas for aboriginal whaling. Subsequent Canadian governments have stayed true to that promise ever since.
Traditional hunting
Is it a good bargain? Canadian Inuit have not been what you would call conspicuous whalers. Between 1982 and 1996 they only took one bowhead from the eastern Arctic. By contrast, Alaskan Inuit in the western Arctic, where there are many more of these big beasts, were averaging 50 a year.
In the summer of 1996, the Inuit hunted two bowheads. That earned them the condemnation of the IWC and only reinforced Canada's resolve to stay out of that body altogether.
The upshot, though, is that while much of the world is cranking up for a highly emotional debate over whaling, and while our big waterways are home to ever-varying numbers of different species of whales (some endangered, some not – most chock-full of industrial toxins), Canada's voice is not being heard on the international stage.
Of course, given that the IWC is one of the world's most obtuse and maddeningly bureaucratic of international agencies, with a penchant for long meetings in scenic locales, maybe this is a good thing.
But it probably doesn't help Canada's environmental reputation that we are seen as a nation that clubs baby seals and also turns its back on the whales, even if that is not an entirely fair portrayal.
An emotional issue
Whaling is a clearly a hot-button issue, like the seal hunt but in this case imbued with the excesses of a century and more ago when the biggest of the species were driven nearly to extinction by relentless hunting.
In Norway, the parliamentary vote to increase this year's quota was a rare unanimous one – an indication of its us-against-the-world attitude. Its politicians and biologists argue this is a sustainable hunt, in small eco-friendly boats, that takes no more than one per cent of the local minke herd.
In Japan, it is said that whale meat is revered, particularly among older Japanese who credit whaling the now almost extinct fin whale with staving off hunger during the later years of the World War II. But there have been persistent reports that tonnes of whale meat are languishing in Japanese freezers because it is expensive and because the younger generation is not accustomed to it. So the Japanese are trying to introduce whale as a lunch meat in some schools.
Japan gets its minkes from the southern Arctic through an IWC loophole that allows for scientific research. This "research," however, has allowed Japan to take almost 9,000 mostly minke whales since the whaling ban was introduced in 1986, with the meat being turned over to commercial food operations after the research so as not to waste it.
Are minkes endangered? Not if you believe Norway's numbers, or Japan's for that matter. But they are still technically at least on the threatened species list because for years the IWC hasn't been able to do a count to satisfy all its members.
As for the St. Kitt's meeting, Japan looks to have a slim majority of the 64 voting nations on its side (if all show up), which should at least ensure a month of interesting floor fights. But the rules appear to require a 75 per cent majority to overturn the ban on commercial whaling. Canada's voice may be needed yet.