“Accusations of vote buying are part of a campaign of threats and intimidation by extremist NGOs against Caribbean nations that have supported the principle of sustainable use of all marine resources including whales,” said the briefing note. “No one should be surprised that nations dependant on the resources of the sea would vote in a similar manner to Japan in the IWC.”
Acting Chair Liverpool has long declared himself as a supporter of whaling. As Antigua and Barbuda’s IWC Commissioner at the 2005 meeting in South Korea, he argued that some IWC members of lack respect for cultural traditions and fail to accept the position of coastal communities and small island states to utilize whales for food.
“It is no secret that communities in countries like St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Norway, Iceland, Greenland and Japan have been hunting and eating whales for generations,” Liverpool said then. “This failure on the part of some developing countries to support the proposal by Japan for small type coastal whaling is about ‘big countries’ trying to direct, dictate and determine how people in smaller countries should live.”
However, support for whaling is eroding in some IWC governments, including IWC Chairman Maquieira’s own government, Chile. Two Chilean senators have requested Maquieira resignation because, they said, his “unbalanced role is affecting the international image of Chile by supporting the resumption of commercial whaling”.
“This position is totally against the Policy of State of Chile, openly committed to the protection and non-lethal use of whales,” said Senators Guido Girardi of the Party for Democracy and Juan Pablo Letelier of the Socialist Party. They say Maquieira’s position shows “a lack of coordination” with that of Chile’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Alfredo Moreno, who recently stated that the position of Ambassador Maquieira does not represent the official position of the Chilean government.
Some nations named in the Sunday Times as targets of Japan’s vote-buying bribes denied the accusations. On Wednesday, the Pacific island nation of Kiribati “strongly” denied the allegation. The Marshall Islands foreign minister accused the newspaper of “falsifying” and “distorting” information. The Marshall Islands’ vote at the International Whaling Commission “is not for sale”, Foreign Minister John Silk said in a statement Wednesday.
The Marshalls Foreign Ministry acknowledged its “long-standing diplomatic relationship with Japan”, and confirmed it “has received tremendous bilateral assistance from Japan through grants, trainings, economic development projects”, including a new $8 million fish market and a $4 million solar energy project.
In the Pacific island nation of Palau, President Johnson Toribiong said earlier this month that he is “reconsidering” his country’s vote in favor of Japanese whaling. His statement prompted Japan’s Ambassador to Palau to inform Toribiong that a special envoy will be visiting Palau “to educate me on the Japanese policies and scientific research”.
And on June 16, the German parliament declared that in order for Iceland to be granted membership in the European Union, it must abolish its whaling industry.
Monica Medina, the U.S. IWC Commissioner and the Commerce Department’s principal deputy under secretary for oceans and atmosphere, takes the position that the proposal needs improvement.
At a May 27 briefing at the U.S. State Department, held jointly with Maquieira, she said, “We, the U.S., agree with his assessment that the IWC is fundamentally broken and must be fixed.” “The goal of the United States in this process has been, and will continue to be, to conserve whales,” said Medina. “The administration recognizes that there are significant benefits outlined in the proposal that has been put forward by the chair and vice chair of the commission. And we will continue to work with them on the proposal, but we don’t believe it’s in a place where we can accept it yet.”
Medina said the United States continues to support the moratorium. “In fact, one of the key elements of the proposal that makes it possible for us to even consider it is that the moratorium would not be lifted or waived, changed or amended.”
Yet, she also said, “The essence of this agreement would be recognizing that some whaling has been able to continue in the face of a moratorium. And the idea would be to cap that whaling and to get it under the IWC’s control so that it can be monitored.”
Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett said, “Australia will not be voting for a bad deal for whales and I will be prepared to work as long and as hard as necessary to ensure that the moratorium on commercial whaling does not end up in tatters on the Commission floor.”
“A bad deal driven through the Commission on a split vote is unlikely to achieve reform or a reconciliation between IWC members,” Garrett said. “We will be working closely with conservation-minded countries, including countries from Europe and Latin America, New Zealand, the United States and others, to achieve an outcome that genuinely improves protection for whales globally.”
Japan’s position is that, “the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling is about properly managing the whaling industry, that is, regulating catch quotas at levels so that whale stocks will not be threatened. The Convention is not about protecting all whales irrespective of their abundance,” the Institute of Cetacean Research said in its briefing note.
“Japan’s objective is to resume sustainable whaling for abundant species under international control including science-based harvest quota and effective enforcement measures,” the ICR said. “At the same time we are committed to conservation and the protection of endangered species. This is the purpose of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling.”
Click here for previous Environment News Service (ENS) coverage of the 2010 International Whaling Commission meeting.
