Number 1, 24 June 1996
Coverage of the
International Whaling Commission's
1996 Annual Meeting
June 23-28, Aberdeen, Scotland
About ECO
Several nations are expressing astonishment
that the Norwegian government
has on its official delegation Steinar Bastesen, the notorious
whaler who
has been implicated in whale meat smuggling.
The outspoken head of the Norwegian Whalers' Association--he once
boasted
that "I'm going to eat whale meat until I puke"--has
regularly embarrassed
Norway with his antics. Three years ago, for example, his company,
Bastesen
Fishing Corp., was caught red-handed shipping 2.9 metric tons
of whale meat
to Japan via South Korea in boxes labelled "frozen prawns."
And Norwegian
news media report he may be implicated in another smuggling scandal
earlier
this year when six tons of whale meat -- this time in boxes marked
"frozen
mackerel" -- were smuggled from Norway to Japan.
This second smuggling attempt was a little more sophisticated
than the
first. That one failed when one of the "frozen prawns"
cartons broke open
at Oslo airport and a customs inspector found inside bloody meat
rather
than pink prawns. When the latest illegal whale meat shipment
was found in
Yokohama last April, the slabs of whale meat were carefully covered
with
frozen mackerel, apparently to avoid a repeat of the case of the
observant
inspector and the damaged carton.
Although the smugglers are getting a bit smarter--the whale meat
got all
the way to Japan this time, even passing through Germany, Vietnam
and
Taiwan on the way--Japanese authorities are apparently even smarter.
It
doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that shipping a cheap
fish like
mackerel half way around the world via several ships and ports
is
suspicious. The shipping costs alone exceeded the value of the
10 tons of
mackerel listed in the bill of lading.
All this stupidity and illegality raises questions about another
player in
this mystery: the Norwegian government. Why hasn't the government
gotten to
the bottom of this smuggling scandal? Is it too difficult to identify
who
in Norway violated Norwegian, Japanese and international laws?
A Bastesen
associate, Willy Nilsen, has been directly implicated in both
smuggling
cases. Is the government unable to police the mountain of stored
meat and
blubber that has virtually no value in Norway but would fetch
tens of
millions of dollars in Japan?
Is Norwegian prime minister Gro Brundtland so beholden politically
to the
defiant fishing villages of Nordland that she has allowed Steinar
Bastesen
to be the dictator of Norway's policy of outlaw whaling and tolerance
of
smuggling?
Rainforest people in Brazil and drought-hit
Ethiopians will suffer to
protect Norwegian whaling if the officials of Moskenes county
have their
way. Geir Wulff-Nilsen, a former leader of the High North Alliance,
and now
mayor of the Moskenes Municipal Council, is leading a campaign
to stop
participation of several coastal counties in the 1996 edition
of a
television fund-raising event which raises money for good causes,
especially in the developing world. Last year the Nordland area,
of which
Moskenes is a part, raised a record 7 million kronor; this year
the
donations are slated to go to environmental causes.
Ten percent of the money will be used for environmental projects
in Norway,
fifteen percent for projects in Eastern Europe--including safe
storage of
nuclear waste on Russia's Kola peninsula. The other three quarters
will be
used in different countries in Asia, Africa and South America.
Protection
of rainforest in Brazil and providing food to people in famine-stricken
areas of Ethiopia are two of the projects. But funding for these
projects
is now being held hostage over a dispute about whaling.
The funds for the projects are to be administered by five Norwegian
environmental groups: Naturvernforbundet (Friends of the Earth),
Fremtiden
i vaare hender, Regnskogsfondet (the Rainforest Foundation), Utvikings
Foundet (the Development Fund), and WWF Verdens Natureford. Only
WWF has
a position against the ongoing whaling, and they have specified
that all of
the funds they administer will go directly to the projects. None
will be
used in any connection with whales or whaling.
But Wulff-Nilsen is demanding that WWF Norway make a statement
that they
are not opposed to whaling as a condition for his supporting the
fundraising event. He is quoted in the newspaper Lofotposten saying
"...if
WWF opposes whaling we will have problems in supporting fundraising...".
High North Alliance secretary Georg Blichfeldt has been active
in
circulating copies of letters from WWF Norway to Moskenes and
calling
attention to what he describes as "new signals" in relation
to WWF's
whaling policy contained in these letters.
Ironically, as the pro-whaling campaigners pile pressure on the
WWF, the
whaling business itself is faltering. Lack of demand for whale
meat in
Norway means that much of this year's catch could find no buyers,
and the
Fish Sales Association has had to step in with subsides. The whalers
are
now demanding to be allowed to export their products to Japan
in the hope
of cashing in on its lucrative market for whale meat.
The chairwoman of the fundraising event in the Nordland area has
urged
Moskenes county officials to leave the whaling issue alone and
support the
positive projects being proposed. "I have never heard about
anybody who has
boycotted the TV fundraising before," she said in the same
Lofotposten
article. "Therefore I hope that Moskenes county stops these
narrow
protests."
The claims of the whalers to be an oppressed minority look increasingly
hollow as these people, thriving businessmen in one of the richest
countries in the world, use some of the world's poorest people
as pawns in
their efforts to expand their business.
Rising opposition to whaling within the
Makah Indian Tribe threatens to
sink the scheme being promoted by the undemocratic Tribal Council
and the
U.S. government.
Seven elders of the Makah Tribe published an open letter last
week
attacking the decision-making behind the whaling proposal. "The
whale hunt
and other important issues were never brought to the people for
a vote, or
simple notification," the elders stated. "We believe
the hunt is only for
the money. They can't say 'traditional, spiritual and subsistence'
in the
same breath when no training is going on, just talk."
Alberta Thompson, one of the anti-whaling elders, has come to
the IWC
meeting to explain the case of the elders and most of the Makah
tribe. "Our
Tribal Council did not tell the Makah people that they were thinking
of
going whaling," she states. "We want a referendum on
a return to whaling."
Thompson, 72, points out that the Tribal Council submitted its
whaling
proposal to the U.S. government in a letter dated May 5 1995.
A Council
representative attended last year's IWC meeting in Ireland and
announced
the intention to begin whaling in 1996. It was only last September
that the
Tribal Council brought the issue up on the Makah Reservation.
An "advisory
" poll was taken with little notice or debate. The vote of
76 in favor and
28 against comprised only 5 percent of the tribal population.
The vote was
not a representative sample.
Isabel Ides, at 96 the oldest Makah, is the only tribal member
who
remembers the last whale hunt around 1910. She signed the elders'
petition
against whaling because "nobody knows how to eat it anymore.
Nobody knows
how to hunt it anymore. There is no need for this."
Her grandson, Frank, speaking for the younger generation, attacked
the
Tribal Council. "They say the request to hunt whales is for
food and
culture. They just want to hunt to make money. They are going
to force this
on the tribe just like they forced the new whiting (fishery) industry
on
us. We don't like it. The Tribal Council is not representing us."
Whales and dolphins face new threats in the modern world, less
visible, but
just as deadly as the explosive harpoon.
Research by environmental groups warns of an impending environmental
catastrophe facing whales and dolphins. This research shows that
the
survival of whales and dolphins--and a host of other marine wildlife--is
threatened by the combined onslaught of pollution, over-fishing,
ozone
depletion and now, for the first time, climate change.
The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
written
by more than 2000 scientists, approved by the United Nations and
endorsed
by many governments, has declared that the Earth is getting warmer
and that
humans are to blame. The consensus reached by these scientists
is
impressive and their predictions are frightening.
The IPCC has predicted that average global
temperatures will increase by
1.5-4.0 degrees Celsius during the next century - a rate of warming
greater
than any seen in the last 10,000 years. Sea levels will rise between
15 and
95cm, with a best guess at 50cm. This is four or five times the
rate of
rise witnessed over the past century. Climate change will fundamentally
alter the underwater world, robbing cetaceans of vital habitat.
The
availability of food will shift and change, water quality will
decline and
disease will be facilitated.
Climate change will:
1. decrease ice over both poles, drastically
lowering food supply and
habitat in these regions
2. shift cetacean food resources and habitats around the world
3. increase pollution
4. increase danger of disease
5. increase toxic algae blooms.
1. The Disappearing Polar Refuge
As temperatures rise, it is anticipated that we will see a reduction of
Arctic ice by around one-third and an extension of the ice-free season from
41 to 100 days.
As the North West passage and Russian North Sea Route become free of ice
for much of the year, the entire Arctic Ocean coastline will further open
up to shipping and extraction industries, particularly oil.
Furthermore, the melting ice will shrink the habitat of krill, the backbone
of the Antarctic ecosystem and exclusive food supply for many whale
species.
As the protective covering of the poles recedes, one of the last refuges
for cetaceans and other marine mammals will be opened for business and food
supplies will be diminished.
Ozone Depletion
At the same time as the ice is beginning to recede, polar food resources
are under threat from increased UV-B radiation entering through the ozone
hole. This radiation has been shown to reduce the phytoplankton growth by
up to 20%.
2. The Ocean Heart Stops
The circulation of the ocean's currents determines both the amount and
distribution of cetaceans' food supply.
But now the very heart of the oceanic circulation system is endangered, as
melting ice threatens to shut off the most powerful force driving the
ocean's currents cycling water from the surface to floor of the sea over
thousands of years. This will alter in unpredictable ways the entire
physical system of the marine environment which cetaceans depend on.
3. Increasing Pollution
As global warming leads to rising sea levels, increased coastal rain and
changes in circulation patterns, existing chronic pollution may become
catastrophic.
In coastal areas riverine input of nutrients, organochlorines and heavy
metals will increase due to increased rainfall. Coastal hazardous waste
sites and sewers will be overwashed, leaching toxins, sewage, bacteria and viruses into the seas. At the same time, wetlands, a natural filtering system of pollution, will be destroyed by a rising sea level.
4. Increasing Toxic Algae Blooms
Climate change will continue to increase the spread and proliferation of
red tides due to warmer water temperatures and greater nutrient loading of
coastal areas.
5. Increasing Disease
Climate change will increase the threat of novel and existing diseases by
augmenting the growth and spread of existing disease agents and increasing
their virulence. It will introduce new viruses, bacteria and parasites to
coastal areas, allow tropical viruses to spread northward as the oceans
warm and make cetaceans more susceptible to disease by increasing
environmental stress.
A Degree Too Much
Climate change will lead to volatile and unpredictable changes.
As
nutritional, habitat and health conditions worsen, mass moralities
of
cetaceans are expected to increase in sudden and unforeseen areas.
Already we are witness to such events. Soon we may see them threaten
the
very existence of some species.
In light of these new and disturbing findings the International
Whaling
Commission must ensure that the findings and recommendations of
the two
workshops on environmental threats to cetaceans (Bergen and Hawaii)
are
fully incorporated into the Scientific Committee and the Commission's
program of work.
Apparently Russian subsistence whalers
either like crunchy
whale meat, lack lead in their diet or need new glasses. Why else
would
hunters use 700 bullets, an assault rifle, plus an anti-tank gun
to finish
off a whale which even then manages to elude them for six hours?
We suggest
the hunters invest in satellite guided whale-o-cet missiles to
improve
their struck/loss and time to death rate.
The highly endangered Korean Gray Whale
is in an even more precarious
position thanks to aggressive whaling recently off the north coast
of
Japan. According to published reports, the Japanese whalers were
jubilant
over their good fortune. This gray whale population, protected
for decades,
was driven to the brink of extinction early this century. Unless
the
remaining Korean Grays are protected from hunting, this generation
of
whalers may easily complete the extermination.
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