The Safety Net Preparing For A Rainy Day

By Tony Best

As if preparing for the proverbial rainy day, should the International Whaling Commission “remain a dysfunctional” body Several Caribbean nations are linking arms with “like-minded” countries to knit a “safety net,” just in case.

Just in case, the 80-member Commission now meeting in Santiago, Chile’s capital, fails to end what some of its members call a drift away from its original mandate to manage the world’s whale resources in an effective and sustainable manner over the long-haul.

At the center of the proposed “safety net” would be a new international organization that support some form of commercial whaling but under strict international management procedures.

At a meeting on the margins of the IWC’s 60th annual conference, some Caribbean nations threw their support behind the efforts of a working group of member-states now preparing for a possible long-term alternative to the IWC, should it continue to be moribund, unable to carry out the functions for which it was created in 1946, according to Vaughn Charles, St. Lucia’s Chief Fisheries Officer.

“We have the issue of the safety net which I think we can develop in the event that we need to move this organization forward and the dysfunctional attitude within the IWC continue. Then we can move to a system that would allow us to sustainably manage the marine resources,” Charles, St. Lucia’s Associate IWC Commissioner, explained. “Let’s face it we are part of an organization now that’s responsible for the management of cetacean resources. There’s no getting away from it, we will remain a part of the organization, IWC. But it is not doing what it was created to do. It’s not fulfilling its mandate and therefore we need to look beyond the IWC to allow us to exploit those resources that can sustain a harvest.”

Dan Goodman, a councilor in the information and social science division of the Institute of Cetacean Research in Tokyo and the driving force behind the “safety net”, told representatives of more than 25 European, Caribbean, African, Asian and Pacific countries attending the Commission’s conference that it was widely recognized, even by the IWC itself that it had become polarized, divided between anti-whaling countries and those which support the “sustainable use” of whale meat for food. It was therefore “unable to carry out its function to regulate whaling” in accordance with the provisions of 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, ICRW, he added.

“We consider that discussions about a possible new organization which will secure the dual purpose of the ICRW –management and control of whaling to achieve sustainable use of abundant species of whales and the protection and recovery of depleted and endangered species of whales -- are essential in the case of the failure of an initiative by the current Chairman of the IWC, Dr. William Hogarth, the U.S. Commissioner. In other words, a safety net is required to ensure that there is a management framework for the conservation and management of whale stocks in the absence of IWC functions.”

The Working Group studying the feasibility and operational structure of the safety net, including the proposed new organization consists of such countries as Iceland, Norway, Japan, Antigua & Barbuda, Cameroon, the Republic of Guinea, the Republic of Palau and St. Lucia, all of which were represented at a symposium in Tokyo in March. “The intention of the Working Group is to limit membership to those countries that support the sustainable consumptive use of whales,” Goodman said after the meeting.

Joanne Massiah, Antigua’s Minister of Agriculture, who like St. Lucia’s Chief Fisheries Officer spoke at the special session on the safety net but didn’t commit her country to membership in any new whaling body urged the Working Group to continue its study of the issues involved just in case the moves to normalize the IWC failed.

At the same time, she warned the like-minded sustainable use countries not to be lulled into a false sense of security, mistaking cordiality at the current IWC meeting for a compromise.“The Working Group should continue its efforts,” she said. Daven Joseph, a former Antigua Commissioner but who is now a member of the St. Kitts-Nevis delegation, branded the IWC as “dysfunctional” and charged that many of the rich countries were ignoring the economic problems confronting developing countries at a time of a looming food crisis and escalating prices.

In a memorandum circulated at the meeting, the Working Group said the “safety net” could provide a balance between what it called “conservation and management within which (whale) stocks at low levels will be protected and abundant stocks managed sustainably under a science-based regime.”

“We support the initiative of the Chairman of the IWC and we are hopeful that it would produce a positive outcome,” Goodman said. “But we need something in case the Commission and the Chairman don’t succeed. It is fair to say that the Caribbean countries which belong to the IWC are supportive of the safety net and there are representatives of Caribbean countries that are members of the Working Group.”

 

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