Moves

One of the Environment Ministers who attended this week’s meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was telling me last night that it was difficult for journalists calling from home to understand why the process agreed this week to try and fix the IWC was better than the usual acrimonious screaming matches to which IWC commissioners had become accustomed.

Well, what’s good is that the burden is now on Japan to come up with a realistic proposal or posture, as we’ve explained yesterday on the Pew Whale website.

For more than a decade, after each IWC meeting, it was the pro-moratorium countries who had to try and figure out what their next move should be [and until recently they'd been paralyzed]. But after this week, it’s Japan who’s got to move. And if they don’t, or if they move in the wrong direction, the moral high ground of the pro-moratorium group of countries will be reinforced.

The One Billion Yen question is Can we help Japan do the right move? And how?

[Talking of moving, I need to pack now, free my hotel room and go to the airport. I should be home just in time to watch the Euro Cup Final tomorrow]