Hunting whales with a boomerang

I read that the resumption of commercial whaling in Iceland is already having a boomerang effect on the country's tourist industry: whalewatching operators (whose business is to bring tourists to encounter and enjoy whales alive at sea) are complaining that the decision is hurting them already.

Hardly surprising.

In the three-part series that I wrote three years ago on Iceland, Greenpeace and Whales, where I described the first voyage of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in which I took part in 1978, I explained how in those pioneering times already we proposed the substitution of whaling by whalewatching:

"On first visiting Iceland we proposed that the whaling industry could be replaced by a whale-watching industry for tourists. Living whales can bring as much money, or more, and for longer, than dead whales, we said in a genuine attempt to change the mind-set. Like all visionary and ground-breaking thoughts, it was a laughable one at the time, and we were treated like weirdos: the weather in Iceland was not suited to taking tourists out to sea, they said; this was not the Canary Islands or the Caribbean. So I was pleasantly surprised the last time that I visited Reykjavik, in 1998, to see that there was a flourishing whale watching industry in the country. On hotel reception shelves, the old post cards of the Hvalur whaling station were replaced by post cards showing whale watchers taking pictures of living whales blowing on the surface of the sea. Whereas in the 1970s, tour operators would take visitors to the whaling station to photograph themselves and their children beside dead whales, they were now taking them to photograph themselves with living whales. Ideas which are ahead of their time will always be laughed at".

Whalewatching which has now boomed all over the world, including in the High North, is a new sustainable reality which the Icelandic and other governments should take notice of more seriously. Whalewatching operators have a right to claim that whales belong to them at least as much as to the whalers.

When two different activities compete for the same resource, the responsibility of governments is to protect the interests of the one that brings more shared benefits to the whole community. And the least damage.

The whaling industry has been claiming that the moratorium on commercial whaling undermines the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW), the founding treaty of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). But if you read the Convention carefully you will see that it seeks the conservation, development and optimum utilization of the whale resources (Article V2). Of course, back in 1946 whalewatching was not an option. But today can't it be argued that whalewatching represents the optimum utlization of the whale resources?

Heima hjá Rémi

The title of this blogpost means Chez Rémi in Icelandic.

My friend Arni Finnsson, the President of the Icelandic Nature Conservation Association (INCA), informs me that a member of the Icelandic Parliament, Moerdur Arnason has linked in his blog my Political Whaling piece from yesterday.

Political whaling

We had commercial whaling, scientific whaling, aboriginal whaling.

Here is a fourth category: political whaling.

The Icelandic whaling fleet has caught its first fin whale this week-end, after a licence was issued last week by the Icelandic government.

There is already a large stockpile of unsold whale meat in Iceland, where there is a very limited market for whale meat to say the least.

In modern times, the main market for Icelandic whale meat has always been Japan. But now the Japanese have got a large stockpile of whale meat from their own whaling operations to deal with. So they are not keen in importing whale meat from Iceland and Norway (which they say is too contaminated for safe human consumption).

Increasingly, whales are being killed only to make noisy political statements.

Krill count

Yesterday in Paris I had lunch with my friend Yves Paccalet who is returning next month to Antarctica where he has not been since he went there with Jacques-Yves Cousteau and the Calypso some thirty years ago, and with Bertrand Charrier (another former Cousteau team member). Yves says that he is curious to see how Antarctica has changed during this time.

I told him to visit the Krill Count website that was just launched a few days ago by the Antarctic Krill Conservation Project which we described in this blog a month ago.

Krill Count contains a lot of useful resources for anyone concerned by the future of Antarctica.

A philosopher by training, and a writer, Yves is a wonderful story-teller as the French public knows well. It is good that he is going to Antarctica, because he will have a lot of inspiring stories to tell and write.

Yves and Bertrand were very helpful in the 1980s and early 1990s during the Save Antarctica Campaign that led to the 50-year moratorium on Antarctic minerals exploitation, an issue that was championed by the French government at the time, in part thanks to the support of the Cousteau team.

With the threat arising from the krill bonanza, it's good we can count on them again.

I told Yves that I would send him the link to Krill Count, but I will send him this blogpiece instead, so that others can benefit also from the information.

España bananera (2)

En su viñeta de hoy El Roto, el mejor editorialista del diario El País, nos enseña un constructor dando consejo a un alcalde "Llama a la destrucción 'progreso' y nadie se te opondrá".

Perfecta ilustración de la situación escandalosa en Navas del Marqués descrita en este blog el domingo pasado, y del analfabestismo ambiental operante por toda la peninsula ibérica.

Esta noche, el Secretario General de ADENA Juan Carlos del Olmo y Carlos Bravo de la asociación ecologista Centaurea me informaron (después de leer mi "España bananera") de que por fin pararon ayer al mediodía las máquinas gracias a la actuación del Fiscal de Medio Ambiente. Pero leyendo esta mañana en El País las declaraciones del Alcalde de aquel pueblo, es evidente que esta lucha va para largo. ¿Cómo es posible que cualquier crétino pueda ser alcalde en este país? Para conducir un coche, tienes que aprender el código de circulación. Pero para conducir un pueblo, no te exigen nada. Algo falla.

También ayer, se presentó en Madrid el informe anual del Observatorio de la Sostenibilidad creado a iniciativa de nuestro amigo Domingo Jímenez Beltrán. Según dicho informe, España pierde cada año 50.000 hectáreas naturales por la construcción, lo cual equivale a la superficie de 50.000 campos de fútbol.

El mes pasado en París, un ex-alto cargo de la administración francesa y del Programa de Naciones Unidas para el Medio Ambiente me decía, medio en broma: "Cómo redactor de la Ley de Protección del Litoral en Francia y del consecuente éxodo de constructoras a España, yo tengo la impresión de ser en cierta medida el padre del 'milagro económico' español".

¿Milagro español? Cómo deciamos en nuestra época misianica en los años 70: cuando habrá muerto el último pez, caído el último árbol, secado el último río...entonces el hombre se dará cuenta de que el dinero no se come.

Nuclear test: what should we do?

When I read that the North Korean authorities claim that their underground nuclear test has not "resulted in any leak of radiation", what comes immediately to my mind is this photo of the venting of the US Baneberry "underground" test in the Nevada desert in 1970. Greenpeace was the first, in 1981, to leak this now iconic picture; it was Allan Thornton (from Greenpeace at the time) who put his hand on it in Washington DC.

The use of nuclear weapons explosions for political and "diplomatic" purposes is always appauling. In all circumstances.

So, North Korea's nuclear test today is deeply distressing.

In the coming hours, we shall hear a lot of condemnations on the part of the international community and individual governments of course.

What could have been the most effective response in the last few days when North Korea threatened to perform its nuclear test?

Wouldn't it have been for the US and Chinese governments to announce that they would ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) of 24 September 1996?

Annex 2 to the Treaty contains the list of signatories that need to ratify for it to enter into force. Most of them have now ratified. With the exception of: China, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, and the USA.

It would have been nice to celebrate this year's 60th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 10th anniversary of the signature of the CTBT with the treaty's entry into force.

It would have given the moral high ground to those who will be prompt in condemning today's nuclear explosion in North Korea, but who yet have not banned nuclear testing themselves.

España bananera

Muchos españoles suelen utilizar un neologismo, que no me gusta nada por el desprecio y la ignorancia que revela hacía países y gente que no tienen la misma suerte que los habitantes del mal llamado Primer Mundo: cuando constatan o comentan una chapuza o un hecho anticuado, muchos Españoles dicen que es tercermundista.

Por ejemplo:

Aquel barrio periférico marginal, ¡tercermundista!
Ese programa de televisión basura, ¡tercermundista!
Tal basurero contaminante, ¡tercermundista!
Los vertidos salvajes tan frecuentes en toda la geografía española, ¡tercermundistas!
El caos circulatorio en casi todas las ciudades españolas, ¡tercermundista!

Y por supuesto cuando los alcaldes de una comarca se ligan para reclamar una autovía que les permita meterse un buen paquete en los bolsillos con la recalificación de terrenos y permitir la invasión de ladrillos y cemento y la proliferación de campos de golf insostenibles, te explican que, claro, la antigua carretera es tercermundista.

Tercermundista, para la España negra, es el insulto supremo. Y sirve para justificar lo injustificable.

[Yo no se si algún Roland Barthes español ha analizado lo que se esconde detrás de esta fea expresión; yo supongo que para muchos se trata de quitarse subconscientemente las penas y las responsabilidades: ¿Porque plantearse cambiar esas malas costumbres, si son tercermundistas? Cómo sabe todo el mundo, España es miembro de la OECD, el club de los ricos desde 1960; ¡No me mires; mira al vecino!, yo no tengo nada que ver con eso.]

¿A qué viene todo esto?

Mientras España (y sus municipios) recibe fondos de la Unión Europea para llevar a cabo programas de conservación de la biodiversidad (de las cigueñas negras entre otras especies y de habitats vulnerables), unos alcaldes y empresarios sin escrupulos se permiten tirarlo todo por la borda. En el territorio español, andan sueltas bandas de delincuentes que no dudan en arrasar lo que les apetezca a toda costa, incluso a costa de la Ley. Y ¡no pasa nada!

Hace dos días, yo tuve la alegría de mandar un email de enhorabuena a mi amigo Luis Santiago Cano, uno de los biólogos que más han hecho (y hacen pese a las trabas) para que sobreviva la cigueña negra. Yo le mande este email inmediatamente después de enterarme que para salvaguardar la especie a la cual él ha dedicado su vida, el Tribunal Superior de Justicia había ordenado la paralización de un proyecto faráonico e insostenible; un proyecto como ya casi se ven sólo en España dentro del territorio de la Unión Europea [tomen nota: no he dicho proyecto tercermundista].

Pero esta mañana, yo me enteré por el diario El País que como respuesta desafiante a la sentencia del Tribunal Superior de Justicia, las máquinas se han puesto en marcha, y empezaron a talar más de mil arboles, aparentemente sin que la Guardia Civil supiera o quisiese parar este flagrante delito. Estamos en plena política de hechos consumados: "¡Aquí no hay ni cigueñas negras ni leches, veán Señores, aquí no queda náa!".

[Con la nueva Ley de Montes que dificulta la recalificación de terrenos quemados, ¿el bulldozer y la motosierra reemplazan el mechero?]

Yo me acuerdo que cuando yo daba mis primeros pasos por España, en la época de la Transición democrática, se hablaba (con la mirada optimista hacia el futuro) del hormigón franquista, para significar que el expolio de la costa y del resto de la naturaleza era cosa del pasado.

Treinta años después, duele decir que el hormigón democrático no es mejor.

Green Bush

Environmentalists all over the world will be amazed to hear the news.

George Bush is taking the green side on a global environmental issue!

What is more, perhaps:

He is asking the United Nations to do something about it!

And he is receiving praise from 60+ environmental NGOs worldwide.

I always say that the United States are a country capable of the best, and the worst. Against all odds, that country remains a strange mix of the best and the worst values. The whole country is a paradox.

Anyway, perhaps today I never felt so good about that country since Jimmy Carter was running it.

I said perhaps.

Resurfacing Rainbow

Yesterday around lunch time, friends from the Greenpeace diaspora started to bombard my BlackBerry with emails: the story that the brother of the French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal had been a member of the team that sank the Rainbow Warrior twenty-one years ago in Auckland, New Zealand had suddenly become headline news in France and New Zealand.

[The information was published Chez Rémi exactly one month ago]

The resurgence of this story in the middle of the French Socialist Party primaries has a taste of dirty politics. Like the entire twenty-one year old Rainbow Warrior affair.

Of course, Ségolène Royal cannot be blamed for what her brother was doing twenty-one years ago. [She can't be admired for it either; I say that because -- let's face it -- all those in France who thought it was right to sink the Rainbow Warrior have not vanished]. But the story does remind voters that she was herself at the time serving in the Elysée Palace as adviser to President Mitterrand, and that another French Socialist Party primaries contender, Laurent Fabius, was the Prime Minister when the Rainbow Warrior was sunk.

It is hard to anticipate today whether the Rainbow Warrior will stay or not in the landscape of the current French presidential race. But rather than watching from the side, the French Green Party (and maybe French environmentalists as well) could take the resurgence of the Rainbow Warrior as an opportunity to call upon the Socialist Party and other candidates to commit to giving priority to the universal adoption and implementation of one of the most important legacies of the Rainbow Warrior, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and the thirteen steps to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation that were agreed by the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). With the Bush administration's preventive war and counter-proliferation doctrine against the non-proliferation regime, and with so many candidates at the threshold to become Nuclear Weapons States, this would be an opportune way for French mainstream politicians to exorcize (once and for all?) the ghost of the Rainbow Warrior.

The world (including France) has changed considerably since 1985. But it is amazing to see how the Rainbow Warrior continues to haunt French politics so many years later. As former Rainbow Warrior crew member in its very early days, and as a French man, I can't help but find it almost fascinating.

In 1998, I was in Lisbon on another Greenpeace ship, the Sirius, and we welcomed on board the mother and the sister of Fernando Pereira, the Portuguese photographer who was killed by the French Secret Services' bomb placed on the hull of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985. Because the visit took place on 10 July, on the anniversary of the bombing, it was an intensely moving moment that I will never forget. With Ségolène Royal putting so much emphasis on family values in her electoral campaign, maybe she could pay a visit to Fernando's family, next time she's in Lisbon. She'd learn something.