by Gareth Hughes
Sir Geoffrey Palmer, NZ’s representative on the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was on the Q & A TV show on Sunday and explained New Zealand’s policy stance its taking to the June IWC meeting in Morocco.
The position the NZ Government is supporting would allow commercial whaling at the next Whaling Commission meeting in June. This is a fundamental shift in NZ’s past policy position and I expect the vast majority of Kiwis believe New Zealand should stick with its traditional allies, keep its previous principled ‘no commercial whaling’ stance and join Australia and prepare a case against Japan for the International Court of Justice.
Palmer is trying to spin the new stance as a pragmatic response to the ongoing whaling and smart negotiating strategy. I think by taking this legalised commercial whaling stance we’ve given up and conceded too much to Japan, way too early in the negotiations. NZ needs a principled policy that says ‘no commercial whaling way’ full stop.
Kiwis weren’t asked if they supported a return to commercial whaling at the last election and I imagine don’t support it – even if Sir Geoffrey, thinks it may save a few whales.
It’s great to see today the launch of the ‘Save the whales, not whaling’ campaign which includes Greenpeace, Project Jonah, Forest and Bird, World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS).
Over the weekend I was collecting signatures on the Greens new postcard to the Prime Minister. If you’d like me to post you some flick me an email with your address: gareth.hughes@parliament.govt.nz
Published in Environment & Resource Management | Featured by Gareth Hughes on Mon, March 22nd, 2010
Tags: IWC, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, whaling, Whaling Commission
More posts by Gareth Hughes | more about Gareth Hughes
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
I have to be against what you are saying- If we cut numbers down from circa 3000 to 800-1200 within 10 years rather than just continue the farce then surely that is far better? yes it does mean that the world would signify that Whaling is acceptable in some way and would effectively cull any notion of the end of whaling but if the numbers are dropped from that they presently are then isn’t that better and whales can become a sustainable resource over time – that did sound a bit cynical but the fact remains if we just sit back and do nothing – or even go to the ICJ (btw if Japan refuses to acknowledge it’s jurisdiction then it will have been a futile and expensive endeavour) , we will be responsible for the endangerment of certain species and the possible extinction of others
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I’d expect and hope for, more.
Those people who feel deeply and passionately that whaling should end would be disgusted, should New Zealand become pro-whaling.
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I’m actually inclined to believe the Japanese would stick to the agreement if it was made and endorsed by the UN – the Japanese are one of the biggest funder of that Btw so the UN would want to keep everything sweet.
And why should whaling end- its a tradition of many peoples, even Canada endorses traditional whaling for the native peoples, yes whales are idolised in certain areas such as ours but in others they are just another natural resource – again sounds cynical but its a fact. My personal issue with Whaling is that they aren’t doing it in a “traditional” manner in the way the Native peoples of Canada do
And why is NZ going to be pro-whaling, It simply means NZ is moving to a process to properly decrease the whale slaughters
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Whaling isn’t a traditional activity for the Japanese.
We are the nearest human ‘community’ to the whales of the southern oceans. We should do all we can to protect them from human activity, especially that which results in them getting harpooned to death.
If not us, then who?
Giving the o.k to harpoonoing whales is not stopping whaling.
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@ greenfly
Actually the Japanese have been whale since the 12th Century – that’s longer than any Maori traditions if we go by the latest chronology data and longer than almost all European whaling, yes we should be pressuring the Japanese not to whale within the “sanctuary” I fully agree – they should whale within their own territorial and economic waters. As I think I said while back somewhere NZ and Australia are unfortunate in a way to have signed the Antarctic Treaty as it meant we agreed not to enforce our Sovereignty like all of the other Antarctic Nations so subsequently vast areas of Antarctic waters cannot be cordoned off from whaling . Perhaps NZ and Australia should go against International Law and enforce the moratorium by seizing the vessels – I support the idea but it would threaten our moral integrity as a nation to the rest of the world
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Government subsidies are the only thing keeping Japanese whalers in action. Like many aspects of Japan’s economy, it makes no sense whatsoever and is only kept going by vested interests, yakuza and bureaucrats who want to justify their existence. Hardly anyone eats whales in Japan, they just pile up in freezers. The Japanese people are so politically apathetic that they kept the same party in power from the end of WW2 until very recently!
You’ve got to realise that we are encountering a very different culture to our own. Completely different morality, politics and economics. Expecting them to ever voluntarily stop whaling is naive in the extreme. When faced with that, complete opposition is the only option.
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Seems to be Gareth, you can’t save whales with your sea shepard terrorist mates either. Might be time to have another look at the whole issue and take off your blinkers.
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Rimu, wiki is not accepted as a source.
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What is the moral argument – none. It is the same absence of moral position that is also occuring on mining on conservation land. The same blindness allows a nuetral tax change which leaves many worse off (once rents are taken into account) and only a few (much) better off.
Giving up the strategy of a moral argument (this government does not believe in them) for the tactical approach (“moral flexibility”) – might convince this government as they make policy decisions – but what sort of vain hubris leads them to believe that it will convince others. Neither those opposed to whaling or those supporting it are going to go along with it. All it shows is that this New Zealand government will sell out its principled positions – what next free trade, human rights …
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Rimu -
good point about Japanese behaviour around whaling.
Stephen –
you’ve missed the point that Japanese have hoovered up all the available fish-stocks in their own area, without any compunction, and they will fish our nighbourhood to extinction (including inside whale sanctuaries like the seas off the Ross Dependancy) and still not consider that they are being short-sighted, unsustainable or wrong.
They behaved in exactly this manner during WWII, in the way they worked captured prisoners to death on the Singapore railway line – as a culture, they have an arrogance that says their own ethics are above questioning, and it was only the fact of US bombs dropping on Nagasaki & Hiroshima that made them accept that their expansion through the Pacific & SE Asia had to stop.
Since they were banned from raising another army in the negotiations after WWII, they have focussed on commercial supremacy – the manufacturing industries, and fishing the pacific dry.
Manufacturing has back-fired on them somewhat, as their major market is the USA, to whom they were loaning billions through treasury bonds, in order to keep US consumption afloat; those bonds may default, leaving Japan seriously out of pocket.
The last thing they’re going to do right now is voluntarily capitulate over their fisheries.
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katie & rimu:
I think you are getting into dangerous ground alleging a cultural propensity of Japanese to unsustainable or brutal practices.
We, the collective cultures who make up Aotearoa/New Zealand, don’t have too flash a record (moa, huia, New Zealand grayling, Cygnus atratus sumnerensis extinct – Maui dolphin, kakapo, takahe, toheroa, paua and various frogs under serious threat) – and that is to just name a few – the list goes on.
We don’t have too flash a record. It is actually arguable that only Hawaii has a worse biodiversity record than New Zealand since human settlement.
We are correct to condemn Japanese whaling, but let’s not take an “holier than thou” approach to it, because our record here in Aotearoa/New Zealand on maintaining biodiversity is actually worse than that of the Japanese.
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@toad
katie & rimu:
I think you are getting into dangerous ground alleging a cultural propensity of Japanese to unsustainable or brutal practices.
Beat me to the punch :p
Btw I’m not a fan of whaling just so people are clear, I’d like it ended as well but I just feel that this will be the best option to take and will come with better benefits for the whales
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Gareth, you will be too young to remember Prebble’s “Save Rail” campaign from the ’80s.
He killed that too, and it has still not recovered.
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Toad, rail was already dead before Prebble came along.
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Of course some rail are gone now, regrettably, but those that remain are all the more precious.
Same with crake.
http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/wetland-birds/9
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You can’t control drugs by legalising them
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well..wouldn’t you say the inverse actually applies..?
we obviously can’t control them..by having them illegal..eh..?
that much we have already proven..eh..?
your suggestions there..charles..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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“we obviously can’t control them..by having them illegal..eh..?”
I think that’s his point, and he’s applying that to whales.
I don’t think there is enough of a similarity between whaling prohibition and drug prohibition for them to be comparable, personally. Japanese whaling ships don’t grow freely all over the planet, like certain drugs do.
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oh..slow me..
i just thought he was lost/confused..in the wrong thread..
instead..he was..um..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Who the hell down-votes rail jokes?
While on the topic of birds.. Charles is a goose!
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Rimu – Fundamentally legislating in order to gain great controls is the same as in drugs as in whales. Leaving that aside though all I was highlighting was the status quo is not working, and it’s better be active and to do something rather than sitting around crying about whales. I agree that something needs to be done, and I think Sir Geoffrey Palmer has the solution. This is a great article to illustrate
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10633682
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I agree that the status quo isn’t working, but that’s where the overlap with drugs ends as far as I can tell. The reasons for the status quo not working are totally different for those two things.
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The myth being promulgated presently is that the ‘status quo’ is having no effect of the number of whales killed. Rubbish. Imagine if there were no rules at all.
The present situation surely does need to be improved, but that improvement must result in no whales hunted, not the legitimising of the regular killing of a ‘a few’. (A few? What’s ‘a few’? Will that ‘few’ be a constant number or a fluid one. Those presently interested in whaling seem to be very ‘fluid’ in their claims and aims. I trust them not.
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he has always bellowed..
but he may be developing the middle-age disease..eh..?
http://whoar.co.nz/2010/the-favorite-sin-of-the-middle-aged/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Toad -
reprimand taken.
However, I stick with my point that they have hunted their own locality to extinction – indigenous populations in Alaska, Iceland and Norway have not so done, whereas Japan has turned whaling into an industry that they regard as fiercely nationalistic, as much as their bullet trains or Mt Fuji – these are all iconic parts of modern Japan, and so is whaling.
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http://whoar.co.nz/2010/whaling-the-great-betrayaloutrage-as-secret-deal-set-to-sweep-away-international-moratorium/
“..The moratorium on commercial whaling, one of the environmental movement’s greatest achievements, looks likely to be swept away this summer by a new international deal being negotiated behind closed doors.
The new arrangement would legitimise the whaling activities of the three countries which have continued to hunt whales in defiance of the ban – Japan, Norway and Iceland –
- and would allow commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary set up by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1994.
Conservationists regard it as catastrophic, but fear there is a very real chance of its being accepted at the next IWC meeting in Morocco in June ..
..not least because it is being strongly supported by the US – previously one of whaling’s most determined opponents.
Should the deal go ahead, it would represent one of the most significant setbacks ever for conservation ..
.. and as big a failure for wildlife protection as December’s Copenhagen conference was for action on climate change..”
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Whales are food.
The world is (increasingly) starving
We must eat everything
Whales are next on the menu.
(no point blubbering over it)
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here is the view from over there..
http://whoar.co.nz/2010/whaling-the-great-betrayaloutrage-as-secret-deal-set-to-sweep-away-international-moratorium/
“..The moratorium on commercial whaling, one of the environmental movement’s greatest achievements, looks likely to be swept away this summer by a new international deal being negotiated behind closed doors.
The new arrangement would legitimise the whaling activities of the three countries which have continued to hunt whales in defiance of the ban – Japan, Norway and Iceland –
- and would allow commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary set up by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1994.
Conservationists regard it as catastrophic, but fear there is a very real chance of its being accepted at the next IWC meeting in Morocco in June ..
..not least because it is being strongly supported by the US – previously one of whaling’s most determined opponents.
Should the deal go ahead, it would represent one of the most significant setbacks ever for conservation ..
.. and as big a failure for wildlife protection as December’s Copenhagen conference was for action on climate change..”
they are reasonably unequivocal..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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greenfly-if that was an attempt at humour -it failed to amuse.
What Keys is doing is ‘appeasement’ to the Japanese [ some may remember a certain British PM who had a 'piece' of paper from hitler].
Japan’s continued and expanded program of scientific whaling is inconsistent with its obligations under the Law of the Sea Convention, the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling Convention, the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), and the Convention on Biological Diversity to protect and preserve the marine environment, to protect rare and fragile ecosystems and endangered species, to prepare environmental impact assessments when changes to the marine environment are likely to be caused by its activities, and to refrain from claiming resources under the guise of marine scientific research. This program is not legitimately “scientific” because it has not been peer-reviewed and does not have precise quantifiable goals. It is inconsistent with Japan’s obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity because reduces the sustainability of whale species and has “adverse impacts on biological diversity.” It is unquestionably an abuse of right because it invokes Article VIII of the Whaling Convention in a manner that certainly was unanticipated by the framers of the Convention and has been repeatedly condemned by the majority of the other contracting parties to the Convention.
Japan’s actions can be challenged by concerned states in the International Court of Justice or through the dispute resolution procedures of the Law of the Sea Convention and the conciliation procedures of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
But that would take a government with balls.
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the appeal to “tradition” can be used to justify any atrocities. Suttee, female circumcision, slavery, all are “tradition” in some culture. In my own culture, it has long been a tradition for a bunch of in bred upper class layabout retards to blow horns, yell nonsense and go around the countryside terrorising the local fox population. this “tradition” has been illegal since 2004, and British culture has not suffered.. Likewise, Japanese, Inuit and other cultures would survive a whaling ban. If a culture relies on cruel past-times to keep it going, then maybe it should die out.
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Whats next, we going to herd dolphins into one of those coves up north in the bay of islands and say “But thats ok we are just controlling the numbers” what a crock of S**t have you ever thought maybe the whales come into our waters to get away from those whale & dolphin killing humans. Go Gareth you have our support.
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