Tue, 22 Jun 2010 7:56a.m.
By Bridget Vercoe
This year’s International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting opened this morning (21 June) in sunny Agadir, Morocco with the usual fanfare of traditional entertainment – a Moroccan folklore dance troop clad in traditional attire.
What was to follow was a far cry from “usual”. To our surprise and disappointment the meeting was adjourned within hours of starting to allow Governments to hold a day and a half of private, closed door meetings to discuss a proposal which, if passed would allow Japan, Norway and Iceland to cruelly slaughter thousands of whales.
This essentially means organisations like the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) along with the world’s media have been shut out of the process. As you can imagine we are extremely disappointed by the IWC’s complete lack of transparency over this negotiation process. I, like many others, have travelled half way around the world at great expense to attend this meeting. For the IWC to exclude civil society in this manner, especially with no prior warning, is completely unacceptable. NGOs like WSPA are here trying to represent the view of millions of people worldwide who are opposed to commercial whaling and do not want this cruel practice legitimised.
Fortunately the New Zealand delegation is doing its best to keep us in the loop. Foreign Minister, Hon. Murray McCully, has been holding regular meetings with Greenpeace, Pew and ourselves and has promised to continue to do so throughout the week.
The New Zealand Government will over the next couple of days be meeting with other governments in the hope of convincing them to support a deal which would see a phase out of whaling by Japan in the Southern Ocean and an end to the trade of all whale products. Whilst I applaud this intention, I hope the New Zealand victory will not be achieved at the expense of whaling in the Northern Hemisphere.
Fishermen slaughter a Baird's Beaked whale at Wada Port, Japan (Getty Images)
Critically, far from improving on the current situation, the proposal as it currently stands would legitimise an expansion of commercial whaling by Iceland and Norway in the North Atlantic as well as legitimising Japan’s coastal whaling operations.
New Zealanders are in our view fundamentally opposed to whaling wherever it takes place. I wonder how many of us would be happy to see our Government support a proposal which would herald a return to commercial whaling anywhere in the world?
All will be revealed on Wednesday morning (Moroccan time) when the meeting reconvenes and we are allowed back in the room. Here’s hoping the final outcome will support the whales, rather than the whalers.