Before the Renaissance

When I was involved between 1975 and 1982 in the campaign to end commercial whaling, our favourite sound-bite was “The harpoon guns should end up in museums!”  So I was thrilled last month when I found in the aquarium of La Coruña, Spain the harpoon gun of IBSA III, one of the whaling vessels we’d stopped killing endangered fin whales in 1980 when I was the campaign coordinator on board the Rainbow Warrior.

1980: This is me on the deck of the Rainbow Warrior.
The whaling vessel in the background is IBSA III

Thirty-two years separate last month’s photo (above) in the aquarium museum from the black & white photo (left) of me on the deck of the Rainbow Warrior in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. IBSA III, the whaling vessel on the black & white photo was one of five whale catchers owned and operated by a company whose business was to kill large whales on their migration path approximately 170 miles off the coasts of Portugal and Spain. After harpooning them, the catchers used to tow the dead whales (generally three at a time) to two land stations on the North West coast of Spain where the meat was sliced, packaged and frozen under the supervision of Japanese operators; at regular intervals a Japanese freezer vessel called in Vigo harbour and the whale meat was shipped to Japan. We’d picked up the Spanish fleet because it was on the list of pirate whalers -- they were catching as many whales as they could, as fast as they could, and ignored completely the regulations set by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) --  and also because soon after the end of General Franco’s dictatorship Spain was hoping to accede to the European Community. So we’d figured out that if we shamed them Spain could be the first domino to fall from a series of a dozen countries making at the time big bucks (big yens) from killing big whales. That’s indeed what happened two years later: in 1982 Spain's vote tipped the balance at the crucial IWC meeting where the moratorium on commercial whaling was adopted. Spain’s whaling industry was phased out, and now IBSA III’s harpoon gun is displayed in the aquarium museum in La Coruña as the witness of a very remote era.

When it was chased by the Rainbow Warrior,
IBSA III's harpoon gun wasn't resting in
a museum (1980)

I’m posting this story today, because the United Nations have designated the 22^nd of May the International Day for Biodiversity which is dedicated this year to Life in the Sea. Of course this year is also the 30^th anniversary of the adoption in 1982 of the IWC moratorium on commercial whaling. The campaign to end commercial whaling is a very old story that is still remembered as a milestone of the environmental movement. Essentially, it was a battle between very committed activists with a strong will against a large international group of old school businessmen unwilling to see that the times were changing.

The campaign for the moratorium on whaling finds its origin in Recommendation 33 of the first UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in June 1972. As we’re preparing for the Rio+20 Conference next month (Stockholm+40, in fact), should we ask ourselves  what we must send to museums this time? Oil drilling gears and refineries? Destructive trawl fishing gears? Unsustainable biofuel schemes affecting food security and the environment? Aging nuclear reactors on earthquake fault lines and elsewhere? Vessels flying flags of convenience to evade financial, social and environmental regulations? …Don’t count on governments to agree a list in Rio. But if only they put their words into action now and stop supporting with public subsidies environmentally harmful industries, for our children it could make the difference between living in a world of environmental horror or contemplating instead the museum of past environmental horrors.  Let the Renaissance begin!

Special thanks to Miriam Montero and Marta Cavallé of the Lonxanet Foundation for Artisanal Sustainable Fishing for arranging my visit at the La Coruña Aquarium, to Francisco Franco del Amo, Technical Director of the aquarium for his warm welcome, and to Greenpeace photographer Pierre Gleizes who kindly sent me the two photos from 1980 included in this piece. In his recently published entertaining book “Rainbow Warrior mon Amour” (in French), Pierre describes the first trip we did together in Spain as “a Tintin adventure”; Yep!

This blogpiece is also available in español, HERE (AQUÍ) on the website of the Spanish news agency EFE, and en français HERE (ICI) chez WikiOcean

Of saving whales and saving…face

For the past five years I’ve been involved with a fairly large group of NGOs and governments that sought to find a negotiated solution to the long standing political impasse at the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Although there has been a moratorium on commercial whaling since 1986 and the Southern Ocean was declared a whale sanctuary in 1994, the Government of Japan has been adamant that it had the right under the IWC constitution to continue to kill whales under the guise of scientific research. A costly and time-consuming so-called “whale peace process” took place for three years under the aegis of the IWC, until it broke down at last year’s IWC annual meeting held in Agadir, Morocco.

The “whale peace process” had been established in response to pledges by the Fisheries Agency of Japan that it needed political space to save face, because according to them part of the problem was what they described as an over-simplified and unfair representation of the whaling issue in the Western world. The whale peace process did not bear fruit because consensus was difficult among governments and NGOs alike. But it served to reach out – both formally and informally – to higher levels within the Japanese Government, beyond the Fisheries Agency whose officials have been suspected for a long time of having conflicts of interest. Members of the Cabinet of the last four Japanese Prime Ministers became involved, but they seemed to maintain a line that was not very different from the Fisheries Agency’s: over-simplification of the whaling issue was not helpful and anti-whaling sentiments expressed in the West were often counter-productive because they were perceived as humiliating or even racist, when instead the international community should help the Government of Japan find a face-saving solution, they said. As was recently made public in documents released by Wikileaks, one condition Japan has reiterated time and time again was that a broad international condemnation of the tactics used by the Sea Shepherd activist group was necessary to help Japan move in the right direction because they could not afford being seen to be giving in to a group which they’ve repeatedly described as a terrorist organization. In the last several years, at every meeting of the IWC, Japan has introduced an agenda item called “safety at sea” which generally takes an entire afternoon of the Commission’s work during which they describe (with video footage and power point presentations) what they consider to be Sea Shepherd violence against their ships and crews, in violation of international rules of good seamanship. And in response each time, virtually every single State member of the IWC has responded publically by condemning the Sea Shepherd, and IWC resolutions calling on governments to act against Sea Shepherd were adopted unanimously, in the hope that this would contribute to an enabling environment at the IWC. With this background in mind, the Japanese Government announcement that it was recalling its whaling fleet from the Southern Ocean because of Sea Shepherd is puzzling, even though it was followed by a request from Japan’s Foreign Affairs Minister to the Governments of Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands to cut any link with that organization.

Of course it is well known that the whaling industry is in bad economic shape. Japanese people have lost their taste for whale meat and there is currently a stockpile of frozen whale meat which is estimated at 6000 tonnes, an historic high. For this reason, when the fleet departed in December, Greenpeace-Japan had already predicted that the whaling season would be shortened. With shrinking whale meat sales, the State-owned Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) which conducts the “scientific” hunt does not manage to cover its operating costs; it’s been reported that the ICR recently asked the government to donate more public money in support of their operation. This, as well as the considerable cost of a Japanese Government campaign to support the membership of a myriad of countries in the IWC via funds from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other sources, is likely to be seen as offensive by the Treasury in a time of economic hardship in Japan.

But if it was seriously considering ending its operation, why did the Japanese Government take an approach this week which is so much at odds with the save-face requirement they were asking for until now? Why didn’t they make a well planned voluntary announcement, for example last year when the World Biodiversity Conference took place in Nagoya, Japan only a few weeks before the departure of the whaling fleet to the Southern Ocean? Everyone would have applauded them then, and not Sea Shepherd. Rather than face-saving what they’ve done looks like whaling hara-kiri. Even if it is still early to say that the early return of the fleet this season means that the whaling interests are defeated for good, the credibility of Japan’s whaling strategy is now very seriously undermined. It will be harder for example for Japan to continue to canvas support from small developing countries at the IWC, even if it wants to. One plausible explanation is that in the context of Japanese domestic whaling policy driven by a strong pro-whaling lobby of parliamentarians many of which are members of the opposition party, blaming Sea Shepherd is a face-saving strategy for the government.

Another question is whether the shock wave of the U-turn of the whaling fleet will be restricted to the whale conservation issue, or whether it will have implications beyond whaling. What message does it send to NGOs campaigning for the protection of, for example, bluefin tuna, sharks and other marine species? Is it an invitation to muscle up their action, stop dialogue and prioritize "direct action" instead as Sea Shepherd has been doing for years? In the context of climate change also, activists are discussing the role of civil disobedience. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were inspired by this week’s unexpected development in the Southern Ocean.

This blogpiece is also available in español, HERE (AQUÍ) on the website of the Spanish news agency EFE

Whale watching

I just returned from this evening's Award Ceremony of this year's Equator Initiative Awards Ceremony, which I found quite inspiring. The prize given to small and indigenous communities from Africa, Asia and Latin America means a lot to those who receive them. This recognition gives them visibility and maybe even protection within their own countries.

Held at the American Museum of Natural History, the award ceremony took place during a dinner that was preceded by a policy forum about Biodiversity, Ecosystems and Climate Change.

Less than a month before the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity meets in Nagoya, Japan, this was certainly not considered to be the place to mention, let alone discuss the consequences for whaling of the detrimental impacts of climate change on cetaceans, especially in the Polar regions.

But when we were escorted to the ceremony venue after the policy forum, I thought it was cool that our dinner tables were installed under the Museum's famous life-size blue whale reproduction. Even though I was probably the only one present who made the link.

Moroccan bluff

One thing that caught my attention during the whaling conference in Morocco last month was the absence of any high authority at the opening of the conference. Normally, the host country is represented at minimum by a Government minister, if not by a member of the Royal family. The host country's opening speech is rarely inspiring to say the truth, but even less so in Agadir where it was read by an almost anonymous bureaucrat who did not even bother to invent an excuse to justify the absence of his boss.

In Agadir, I was expecting the presence of the Moroccan Fisheries Minister, because since his country joined the IWC in the Japanese orbit in 2001, it has been part of the cohort of West African countries who claim (mostly with crocodile tears) that their food security could be at risk because voracious whales are threatening to invade their waters and eat all the fish. In response it's been argued many times that instead West African countries (and everyone else) should be concerned with voracious foreign fishing fleets, excessive fishing effort, wasteful and destructive fishing methods, and non-selective fishing gear (for example, approximately 80% of the cephalopods consumed in Japan come from Moroccan waters, and this is surely more than all the squids the sperm whales in the area can eat). What the Fisheries Minister's absence is telling us is that -- of course -- the "whales are eating our fish" argument is a bluff. If it was so important for the future of his fishermen and his people, surely the minister would have seized the opportunity. The IWC isn't going to meet another time in Morocco in the foreseeable future.

I've been wondering what else was behind what some have interpreted as a lack of courtesy of the Moroccan Minister.

One reason could be that he (or the Prime Minister's office) knows that supporting Japanese whaling might not be so popular among Moroccan voters after all. Like the rest of the world, Moroccan society faces many challenges that are more important than whales for the livelihood of its people of course. But they watch TV stations from France and elsewhere, and are also influenced by the very large Moroccan diaspora that lives and works abroad. Indeed every single Moroccan layperson who spoke with me during my stay there (hotel managers and their staff, taxi drivers, restaurant owners and waiters, shop tenants, newspaper salesmen, Maroc Telecom operators, and even Moroccan journalists like the one with me on the photo, etc.) were showing sympathy for whales, and they had no idea that their country was hosting the whaling conference to give a hand to Japan, not to whales.

Another reason could be that the Fisheries Minister thought it was wiser not to show up in the middle of last month's cascade of journalistic stories concerning alleged bribery and "vote buying" affecting (among others) African countries and delegates.

When the conference began, I suggested to a European activist who had come to Agadir with banners and whale costumes to demonstrate outside the conference, that one useful thing he could do was to display a banner in French that would have said something like "Japan gives orders; Morocco obeys them". "Do it if you don't mind spending a few days in the police station", I said. I'm not entirely sure why he desisted; I suppose that was because he had a non-refundable return ticket.

Thank you to Paul Spong, the man who in 1974 brought whales to Greenpeace and Greenpeace to whales, for taking and sending me the photo illustrating this post.

When the dust settles

I arrived home last night after two weeks in Morocco at the IWC conference.

I recommend the commentary published in the New York Times Environment blog; I agree with every word in it. "What is certain is that the ocean’s largest mammals are no better protected now than they were before the meeting."

I'm sure that as the dust settles, we'll find more commentaries of that kind. I find it hard to understand why some environmentalists celebrate an outcome that means Japan, Iceland and Norway, the three whaling countries have gone home with the assurance that they can continue whaling as much as they want, when and where they want with no international control or restrictions.

Richard Black of the BBC reported in his last entry two nights ago that Japan had been ready to accept a limit of 150 minke whales for its annual whale catches in Antarctica. Of course it is 150 too many. But it is also reasonable to say that compared to the self-allocated "scientific research sampling" of 935 minkes whales and 50 endangered fin whales (and possibly 50 additional humpback whales), it would have meant progress regardless of whether you care because of animal welfare, enviornmental or international governance concerns (or all three together). It is unclear whether 150 minkes would have been the virtual zero the US and other delegations were talking about to help Japan save face before they could stop high seas whaling altogether for economic reasons. But it was certainly closer to it than 935 minke and 50 fin whales.

The young Japanese man with me on the photo is Junichi Sato of Greenpeace-Japan. He told his compelling story and shared his viewpoint with Richard Black. I wish everyone among those who stand for the moratorium had listened to Junichi.

Japan was also ready to accept the clause that would have restricted to domestic markets the consumption of whale meat and other whale products. This would have been a fatal blow to Iceland's whale meat export market entirely dependent on Japan. Iceland announced last week that in the light of the failure of IWC negotiations they would send their fleet this week-end to start killing fin whales.

Joji Morishita, Japan's chief negotiator told me on Friday that for Japan a new period of reflection was starting. I hope that everyone reflects.

[With eleven entries, my daily Agadir blog published by the Spanish Agency EFE is now completed, but will remain online at least for some time. Spanish readers can click here to retrieve it]

Nothing to celebrate

I am writing from the plenary room of the IWC meeting here in Agadir, where (as it was becoming obvious yesterday) the members States one after the other are declaring dead the negotiation process initiated three years ago to seek an exit to two decades of impasse on whale conservation.

After two days of meetings behind closed doors, they had no courage and no political will, and they threw the baby with the bath water.

The big winners are the three countries, Japan, Iceland and Norway who can go home with the assurance that they can kill thousands of whales with no international control.

And there are two big losers:

The whales of course, who will continue to be hunted commercially (or scientifically as Japan says), including in the Southern Ocean “sanctuary”. The credibility of the IWC is next to nil now, but this is not all.

The incapacity of the 88 IWC members is bad news for the broader picture of international environmental governance too. If the international community is not capable of fixing an issue like this one, where – after all – the interests at stake are very limited and small, what hope does this leave us with that governments will put aside their narrow national interests and principles when they face much more important and complex challenges, such as climate change?

The Environment Minister of Australia, Peter Garrett has just said that the collapse of Agadir (to which he has contributed actively) “is not the end of the world”. Well, I’m not so sure.


(Click here for the Spanish version published by the Spanish news agency EFE)

Take the heat off

When I participate in complex international conferences where a lot of distinct voices battle to be heard or noticed, I often try to put my imagination to work to find a simple way to communicate directly with everyone on the first day, in order to position above the background noise the organization I’m working for.

One of my favorites for example was when I led the Greenpeace delegation at the legendary WTO Seattle conference back in 1999. There were thousands of pressure groups of all kinds, thousands of demonstrators (and the National Guard) in the streets, and tons of publications and brochures and posters. Among so much paper and noise, our report “Safe Trade in the 21st Century” (safe for the environment, safe for public health, safe for sustainable development) would have gone almost unnoticed if we hadn’t printed the executive summary (“Instructions to practice Safe Trade”) on a box that contained...a green condom. The queue around our diplay was huge; I still have a copy of the documentary made by the BBC, which shows government ministers, high level civil servants, corporations CEOs, NGO representatives, journalists, member of the WTO Secretariat and th Euopean Commission, everyone filling their pockets with our “executive summary”.

One year earlier, in 1998 at a ministerial conference at which we campaigned for measures to ban the Dumping at sea of obsolete offshore installations, the radioactive Discharges from nuclear reprocessing plants, and the Disposal of hazardous substances, we called our proposal the Three-Ds, and we had it printed in 3-D format, and to focus their attention we gave it to all ministers and delegates with the sort of glasses your now get to watch Avatar at the cinema. More recently, in October last year when the climate talks were resumed in Barcelona before Copenhagen, I was working for the Tcktcktck campaign and we had 4000 alarm clocks ringing all at once to wake up the delegates (unfortunately, they went back to sleep almost immediately).

This time for the whaling conference, I anticipated that at this time of year in Agadir the majority of delegates would suffer from the heat in this coastal city on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. So, a couple of months ago, I asked my Varda Group colleague Cristina Castro to find out if there was a way to get 600 fans produced with the words “Take the Heat off the Whales” (in three languages).

At midday, the conference centre and the terraces of the surrounding restaurants had many delegates fanning themselves with the words “Take the Heat off the Whales”. IWC rules prohibit the exhibition of advocacy banners during the negotiations. But fortunately, they don’t prohibit the exhibition of fans!

This afternoon, the countries’ delegates are negotiating under closed doors as if it was the election of a new Pope they're talking about. The negotiations aren’t going well. More on that tomorrow.

(Click here for the Spanish version published by the Spanish news agency EFE)

Judo in Morocco

Since the Soccer World Cup started I've been curious to find out about this Chinese solar energy hardware supplier, Yingu, which is advertising in the stadiums. I've tried to find a website for Yingu, but strangely I don't seem to find any (maybe it's in Chinese-only).

There's only one solar company among the World Cup sponsors in the middle of many conventional companies (Castrol, Sony, Visa, etc.). But still, it shows that the green economy is on the move. And, because it's a Chinese company, I hope it's making European and American industry and political leaders realize that they're going to miss the train of the green economy unless they speed up.

I took this photo in the hotel where I'm staying in Agadir, Morocco for the international whaling negotiations, which in many ways look like a football match. Or political judo. After several days of formal and informal negotiations, so far everyone is still on the tatami. And no-one has shifted to karate.

If everyone continues to play by the rules, I think it is still possible to reach an agreement next week. For this to happen, Japan would need to agree to bring an end to its scientific whaling in the Southern Ocean, and we're not there yet.

There is a lot of media interest for this negotiation. The Spanish news agency EFE, for example has asked me to blog in Spanish from Agadir, and I started doing that yesterday. A few days ago, EFE also put out an interview with me, as their IWC curtain-raiser. I think this reflects the interest for whales in the Spanish-speaking world, where whale-watching has boomed in recent years.

Cool or freaky?

I'll be on my way this evening to Agadir, Morocco for two intense weeks at the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Just before starting to put stuff in my suitecase, I ran into an Argentine guy selling all sorts of pins in Madrid's Plaza Mayor, and I bought a few which I think I could wear at the whaling conference:

The eye on the top row alongside the Agadir souvenir suggests a need for greater transparency (and maybe openness) from all participants.

The whale underneath is a humpback, one of the most iconic whale species (together with the blue whale of course). Humpback whales have been protected since the mid 1960s after being driven to near extinction. Now some populations are starting to show signs of recovery (which reminds us that not all efforts to protect whales have been in vain). In the last few years, Japan has been threatening to kill fifty humpback whales in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary. That's what some people call delicious whale research.

And the pin below with a dove on the globe reminds us that there are so many issues affecting our planet, it would be good to get this one (whaling) out of the way.

Not sure whether wearing these pins makes me look cool or freaky. What do you think? Send me an email or a SMS with the word cool or freaky.

On the photo, I'm wearing a whale tie I got at the 1982 IWC meeting where the moratorium on commercial whaling was adopted. 28 years later, this tie is completely démodée. But it's like a totem, so maybe I'll put it in my suitcase.

Climate refugee at sea

BBC Earth News reports that the grey whale sighted last month off the coast of Israel has now been spotted off Barcelona by members of Submon, a divers club from Catalonia.

The BBC reports that Nicola Hodgins of the Whales and Dolphins Conservation Society (WDCS) says she believes the whales' next logical step would be to turn North after passing the strait of Gibraltar, and continue along the coasts of France and the UK.

But I think something very cool the whale could do instead is to head South, and turn up at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Agadir, Morocco in two weeks time.

The only logical explanation to the presence of this grey whale in the Mediterranean continues to be that it is a climate refugee, lost after entering the recently opened Arctic North West passage, as I wrote on 12 May here Chez Rémi.

Keys

The Chairman of the International Whaling Commission, Cristian Maquieira has written an interesting piece on the BBC Green Room. Titled "Decision time for whale conservation", the piece published yesterday evening focusses on the package deal under consideration in the next two weeks at the meeting of the Whaling Commission, which I will be attending.

I picked up a few interesting sentences from Maquieira's piece:

"What we are seeking by bringing all whaling under the control of the IWC is to reduce significantly the number of whales killed and to promote whale conservation, especially of the most endangered species and including support for whale sanctuaries."

Support for whale sanctuaries is good and essential. Currently Japanese whaling operations are taking place within the boundaries of the Southern Ocean sanctuary. Bringing an end to whaling in the Southern Ocean is certainly the first key to turning the Agadir negotiation into a sucessful outcome.

[See my own BBC op-ed on this subject, last year. The situation has no changed much, except that it's hard to conceive that a decision could be postponed yet again this month]

"It is now time for governments to speak together about what they are ready to achieve collectively. The lively discussion that has ensued since the vice-chair and I issued our proposal is exactly what we wanted and what we expected."

With different words, Maquieira is in some way saying something similar to what I said in my own op-ed published by EFE this week: the 22nd April proposal tabled by Maquieira and his Co-Chair caused the perfect storm. It is now up to the crew on board the IWC vessel to navigate carefully in choppy sea, stay on course, and avoid a collision. And also to make sure that they reach port while the tide is high. After this month's meeting, it will be low tide, and it would be much more difficult to navigate safely. The willingness of all, but first and foremost Japan and the other two whaling countries, to be smooth is another key to success in Agadir.

"In the 21st Century, international policy cannot be well-informed and effective without public accountability and the engagement of civil society. If any of the different stakeholders feel we have not given them a fair hearing, we are bound for failure".

Right. Our friends from the environmental and animal welfare NGOs will like that. But Civil Society is not a monolithic entity. The representatives of the whalers are also part of it. And the degree to which they're willing to be reasonable and stop putting in a corner the governments to which they belong will be another key to the success of Agadir. Or to its failure.

Whaling paradoxes

If you can read Spanish, you'll be interested to read my opinion piece the Spanish news agency EFE has just published.

The title, Paradojas Balleneras refers to three paradoxes we're all faced with in the middle of the international negotiations over the reform of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) which is programmed to conclude this month:

Paradox 1: The moratorium on commercial whaling adopted in the 1980s was a great success, but the last whaling countries are now taking advantage of it to escape from IWC control.

Paradox 2: In order to reinforce the moratorium, should exemptions be authorized?

Paradox 3: In order to calm the game, is it right to twist the arms of the players?

The IWC is still in the middle of a perfect storm caused by the proposal tabled by its Chair and Vice-Chair in the month of April as a basis for negotiation. It is still early to say whether the storm will help the IWC vessel getting into port. Or if it will derail it. Or even crash it into an iceberg or a rock.

My piece is featured on EFE Verde, the new environmental service launched a few months ago by the Spanish news agency that reaches out in particular to Latin America and Spain. EFE Verde is a great concept, and a great tool to monitor environmental trends, policy and perceptions in the Spanish-speaking world.

Yes we kan

The appointment today of Naoto Kan as the new Prime Minister of Japan is probably not a bad thing in the context of this month's whaling negotiations in Morocco.

Kan's administration offers some continuity with the Hatoyama administration which has been actively involved in the whale talks in the last 9 months.

Before Hatoyama's resignation there was concern that it would be hard for the former Prime Minister's extremely weakened cabinet to move on a meaningful whale conservation deal.

But now with Kan, there is a Prime Minister as strong as one could hope in the present circumstances.

Of course whales are not on top of the Prime Minister's agenda. Despite conventional belief in the West, the whaling issue in Japan is largely seen as unimportant, and most Japanese people do not really care about whether they kan or kannot eat whale meat. But exactly for this reason, whales kan be for the new Prime Minister of Japan a relatively easy way to send a positive message to the rest of the world.

Japan's whaling policy largely results from the lack of accountability and transparency of Japan's Fisheries Agency. It is good that Prime Minister Kan has a reputation for standing up to bureaucrats. And for wanting to cut the public deficit. Thus, domestically also the whale negotiations kan help the new Prime Minister deliver his programme.

I kan't help it. I've got to stay optimstic.

Beyond principles

Because it took me two evenings to find the book on the photo, I keep thinking that I should really find the time to clean up the mess on the numerous bookshelves I've got at home and in the office.

The book I was looking for is a 1989 publication called "The Greenpeace Story." The page on the photo shows me with two other Greenpeace colleagues in 1982 at the meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) the night after the moratorium on commercial whaling was adopted. The caption says: "Success Hans Guyt (left), John Frizell and Remi Parmentier are delighted by the IWC vote."

I clearly remember the time this photo was taken nearly thirty years ago, many drinks after the IWC adopted the resolution that started the moratorium on commercial whaling. It was in July 1982 in Brighton, England. What the IWC decided on that day was a moratorium effective only four years later, after the 1985-86 whaling season. And yet all the environmentalists who were there did celebrate. I don't recall anyone suggesting at the time (or even now) that we'd sold out to whaling interests, and the moratorium on commercial whaling is widely perceived as one of the landmark victories of the global environmntal movement.

This is a point I made last week in Paris, at a consultation organized by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs where the French Government delegation to the IWC was seeking views as to whether it was okay to give consideration to exemptions to the moratorium on commercial whaling. The IWC starts meeting in two weeks in Agadir, Morocco, and the main dish on the menu is the so-called package deal which as it is everyone (whalers and anti-whalers alike) is opposing.

I don't think there should be a deal at any cost. But if a deal means that there is a way to end whaling in the Southern ocean, to restrict whale meat consumption to local communities in the countries where whaling is still taking place in some shape or form, to put whaling back under the control of the IWC and its Revised Management Procedure as it was published almost a decade ago, to prevent the commercial killing of vulnerable species, to end the abuse of the IWC treaty Article VIII clause which Japan says it allows them to decide which whales and how many they can take if they allege it's for scientific research, if everyone agrees in good faith and says they won't object to the deal or any parts of it; if all these conditions are fulfilled (what with Greenpeace, Pew and WWF we call the Six Fundamental Elements), then I think there can be a deal. It does not mean there will be celebrations in Agadir (as we wrote in April, no-one enjoys eating rats), but if these conditions are fulfilled, the situation would considerably be improved, I think.

The odds are not very good though, because of course for all sides it's easier to retreat and to maintain their principles. But would that be the best thing for whales in the water? And would it have been right to reject the moratorium resolution in 1982, on the basis that it was going to be effective only several years later?

Greenprice

Hace un par de semanas, encontré por pura casualidad este artículo publicado por el diario español ABC hace hoy exactamente 30 años, el 22 de Mayo de 1980, un día o dos después de que yo anunciase en rueda de prensa, en nombre de Greenpeace, nuestra intención de zarpar con el Rainbow Warrior para aguas españolas para oponernos a la caza ballenera.

¿Greenpeace? o ¿Greenprice? La falta de ortografía en el titular y a lo largo del artículo es un buen recordatorio de que a los pioneros de Greenpeace nos costaba no sólo hacernos oir, si no también darnos a conocer. En aquel entonces, Greenpeace no era una tarjeta de presentación que permitía, como hoy, abrir todas las puertas. Para empezar en muchos paises teníamos que deletrear el nombre de nuestra organización y explicar que (y qué) significaba "Paz Verde". Y como veis, aún así algunos periodistas metian la pata.

Un mes después de esta rueda de prensa, dos buques de la armada española nos apresaron en alta mar y nos detuvieron con el Rainbow Warrior durante varios meses en la darsena militar de Ferrol, a petición de la empresa Industrias Balleneras SA por habernos colocado en lanchas neumaticas delante de sus arponeros.

Pero el tiro les salió por la culata: en Ferrol el Rainbow Warrior era una especie de Caballo de Troya con el cual muchos españoles pudieron familiarizarse con nosotros, y desde el cual pudimos familiarizarnos con este extraño país en transición hacia la democracia después de cerca de 40 años de dictadura. En bastante poco tiempo, la gente se enteraba por los medios de comunicación de qué eran "los Grinpis", y (aunque la ortografía podia aun ser deficiente) a nadie se le ocurrio volver a llamarnos "los Greenprice". De repente, la existencia de una flota ballenera española satellite del Japón (toda la carne de ballena se exportaba a aquel país) empezó a ser una carga para esa España que aspiraba a ser homologada como socio europeo. Un año después de los acontecimientos de Ferrol, el Gobierno español tuvo que empezar a tomar más en serio sus obligaciones como miembro de la Comisión Ballenera International y obligaron a los balleneros a respetar cuotas. Control tras control, salió a la luz que la empresa ballenera llevaba una doble contabilidad de las cantidades de carne de ballena que salian para el Japón, y se dijó que -- cómo en el caso de Al Capone -- la Hacienda Pública se interesó de cerca al tema. España tuvo también que cerrar el puerto de Las Palmas a buques-factoria piratas que tenían por costumbre mandar desde las Islas Canarias al Japón miles de toneladas de carne de ballena de contrabando.

El resto es Historia. En 1982, España votó finalemente a favor de la moratoria mundial sobre la caza ballenera comercial que se adoptó aquel año. También en 1982, ya no eramos unos desconocidos en este país y recibimos un apoyo sin precedente de la opinión pública española (pescadores gallegos incluidos) en nuestra campaña contra las operaciones de vertidos radioactivos que cada verano llevaban a cabo varios paises europeos en el Atlántico. Sería el último año que se uso la fosa Atlantica como basurero nuclear. En 1983 trabajamos con la recien estrenada administración de Felipe Gonzalez y con otros paises hasta conseguir ése año una moratoria sobre los vertidos radiactivos en todo el mundo. Diez años después, en 1993 conseguimos que esa moratoria fuese permanente después una ardua y larga campaña política que me tocó coordinar.

Cuando me preguntan sobre los primeros tiempos de Greenpeace, acostumbro a contestar que antes de ser una organización, eramos una tribu, lo cual tenía ventajas e inconvenientes. En 1984 me tocó reunir a unos cuantos ecologistas españoles con quienes formamos Greenpeace-España formalmente. Un año después, el atentado criminal perpetuado contra el Rainbow Warrior por los servicios secretos franceses nos precipitó en la edad adulta. Aunque (cómo está bien conocido) no todas las luchas tribales dentro de Greenpeace se extinguiesen por acto de magia.

El 22 de mayo de 1980, no se celebraba el Dia Internacional de la Biodiversidad, por supuesto. Nadie conocía esta palabra ya que apareció por primera vez aquel año en una publicación científica. Es interesante notar que hoy, treinta años más tarde Televisión Española destaca cómo la conservación de los cetáceos genera grandes ganancias en las Islas Canarias, cómo en otros puntos de la geografía española y del mundo. Como yo escribí hace tres años durante una visita a la isla de Tenerife: "Cuando yo navegué por primera vez (a bordo del Rainbow Warrior) en aguas españolas, la Ley defendía exclusivamente a los balleneros, y castigaba a los que (cómo yo y mis colegas de entonces) querían proteger a las ballenas. Pero una generación y media más tarde ha tenido lugar un cambio de paradigma total. Algo digno de celebrar."

Whales' wealth

Tomorrow, 22nd of May, has been designated by the United Nations as the International Day of Biodiversity. So it's quite appropriate that I'm writing this piece surrounded with frogs and colibris in a park in Santo Domingo de Heredia, Costa Rica.

I'm also surrounded with representatives of the governments of the so-called Buenos Aires Group of Latin American countries who've been meeting here this week to discuss their strategy, four weeks before the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Since 2005, the Buenos Aires Group (now made up of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, El Salvador, Uruguay, and Venezuela) coordinates the position of its members at the IWC. Latin America acts as a block to promote the end of scientific whaling by Japan in the IWC-designated Southern Ocean sanctuary, and to propose the establishment of an other international whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic.

This year's International Day of Biodiversity is dedicated to Biodiversity, Development and Poverty Alleviation, a theme which is at the heart of the work of the Buenos Aires Group. The Latin American countries object to the fact that a distant fleet that belongs to one of the richest countries on Earth sails annually across the globe to depossess developing countries of whales whose migration from Antarctica to the Latin American shores brings to local populations increasing wealth and other benefits and opportunities for sustainable development, including tourism.

In the last 25 years, pursuant to the IWC moratorium on commercial whaling which entered into force in 1986 and thanks also to the rise of democracy and public participation in decision-making, Latin America has seen a paradigm shift which has transformed the region (formerly a satellite for Japanese-controlled land-based whaling factories established in the corrupt military dictatorships of Brasil, Chile and Peru) into the host of a flowerishing whale watching industry of great benefit for sustainbale development.

Pro-whaling advocates argue that whaling and whale-watching can co-exist side-by-side. In Western countries, urban families may take kids to visit cattle farms and enjoy a burger the next minute, so what's the difference? they say. The difference is that the Buenos Aires Group and other anti-whaling countries consider that whale watching is their management option, and that whaling interests should not fiddle with it. Experts in cetacean behaviour also strongly object to the notion that whaling and whale watching can co-exist: according to their observations whales used to the presence of innocent whale watching vessels become easier preys for the whaling boats, and -- on the opposite -- whale pods aware of the existence of whaling vessels become fearful and elusive to whale watching boats.

Whales on thin ice

When I first saw on Monday the truly amazing story on the BBC website about a grey whale sighted in the Mediterranean off the coast of Israel, I was not sure what to say because it was so strange. Atlantic grey whales have been extinct since the XVIIth or XVIIIth century, and whales are not exactly small deepsea organisms that can pass unnoticed.

For me this story was just mind blowing. As weird as if someone announced they'd photographed a Dodo, it was like a belated April Fools Day stunt. Until I read Kieran Mulvaney's blog yesterday, where he explained that this whale is likely to be a victim of climate change. The most credible explanation, Kieran says, is that this grey whale would likely have got lost after entering the Arctic North West passage recently open as a result of ice melting induced by climate change.

Kieran does not explain why the whale was not sighted before it showed up off Tel Aviv a few days ago. But of course the weather and visibility have been rough this winter. And not every man on the bridge of ships can tell the difference between a sperm and a grey whale, or even a fin whale.

I'm sure there are plenty of plans now to monitor and watch the lost whale, wherever it decides to go. I hope some authorities are doing something to restrict the abundance of film crews and whale watchers who could disrupt the already stressed animal. But in a way it is good to see how the contemporary approach to natural science has evolved in modern days: not many decades ago the first thing scientists had done in such circumstances would have been to harpoon or shoot the poor thing.

[As a matter of fact, it is the existence in the first half of the XXth century of a "Discovery Committee" that prompted in 1946 the negotiators of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (which still governs the International Whaling Commission more than 60 years later) to adopt the now infamous clause (Article VIII) authorizing unilateral "scientific" whaling which the Japanee Fisheries Agency has been alleging to for two decades in order to circumvent the moratorium on commercial whaling. Article VIII was meant to let scientists catch a specimen or two in the event that a new species or rare animal was found; it was never meant to be a cover-up à la japonaise]

It's an interesting coincidence also to see this mysterious grey whale showing up only five weeks before the crucial annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission where a decision on the [no-] future of whaling is expected. Opponents to whaling argue for extreming precaution because no-one can really tell what is the future of whales in an environment bound to suffer increased environmental stress from climate change (including ocean acidification, changes in temperatures, water currents and salinity, etc.) and other human-induced environmental harms (fisheries by-catch and entanglement in nets, ship strikes, noise and toxic pollution, habitat disruption, etc.)

In a way the discovery of this grey whale emphasizes this message. It's only too bad that she swam all the way from the Pacific and came so close to Agadir, Morocco where the meeting of the IWC will take place next month, but missed it. Nice try, though.

No rat for dinner (tonight)

The other day, I found two dead rats in my garden, and I thought I'd dress a table to take this photo. The idea was that I might soon need this photo to evoke Geoffrey Palmer's warning at the beginning of the Small Working Group of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) which I attended in Florida last month. Geoffrey, who was chairing the meeting, said in his opening remarks that for the negotiation to be successful, everyone at the end of it would need to have the feeling that they'd all been eating a rat together. It was Geoffrey's way of saying that if everyone, whalers and anti-whalers, really wanted to reach an agreement they would all have to give something away: some of their respective principles, some of their revenues and routine, some of their pride, etc.

Sixty days before the annual meeting of the IWC, yesterday was the deadline when a proposal had to be tabled for consideration this year. Last week, a 12-country Chair's Support Group had failed to reach a consensus that could be transmited to the annual meeting for its consideration, and instead the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Commission were asked to put forward a proposal. In the preceding 48 hours, some started to say they were smelling a rat, because informally the IWC Secretariat kept delaying the time at which they thought the proposal would be ready. Finally they settled for 22h00 UK time.

Everyone within the conservation community was disappointed when the proposal came through. The document is made up of 43 pages, but the priority focus of attention was Table 4 on page 15 and 16 with the proposed catch limits for the next ten years. The biggest disappointment is that the proposal contemplates a continuation of whaling inside the internationally agreed Southern Ocean sanctuary, where the Japanese whaling fleet has been defying the international community in the last 20 years with so-called scientific whaling activities. A phase down of the catches of minke whales is proposed, from 400 per year at the beginning to 200 per year at the end of the ten-year interim period covered by the "package". But there is a footnote (7) that suggests that annual catches could be much higher if in the preceding years, the fleet does not manage to fulfill this catch limit, for whatever reason. Even worst, Table 4 also suggests that the Japanese fleet could be allowed to catch ten fin whales (an endangered species) per year in the next two seasons, and then continue catching five per year until 2020. The document (including Table 4) contains other problematic elements, concerning -- among others -- Iceland's and Norway's whaling operations, several aspects of the proposed Japanese coastal whaling operations, uncertainties as to whether the international trade in whale meat will be prohibited, etc. At all costs, conservationists want to maintain the integrity of the moratorium on commercial whaling agreed in 1982, and of the Southern Ocean Sanctuary agreed in 1994. Condemnation by countries like New Zealand who had put high hopes in this process came very fast.

So, game over? I don't think so. No rat for dinner tonight. Not yet, at least. The structure of the IWC has similarities with the United Nations during the old Cold War era, and the proposal we've seen yesterday reflects this political reality. The current Chair of the IWC who co-authored the proposal, Cristian Maqueira from Chile comes from a country and a region that strongly opposes whaling, whereas the Vice-Chair, Antony Liverpool from the Caribbean nation of Antigua & Barbura has very strong ties with Japan's whaling interests (whatever is the reason). So, it would have been naive to expect that both of them alone could have sorted the IWC mess which no-one has managed to undo in more than 20 years.

What they've produced is presented as a basis for negotiation at the annual meeting in June. Read carefully what they say in the introduction, page 2 and 3:

"For the purposes of allowing for continued discussion, we have put in some example numbers in Table 4 [...] at this stage we have included a two-step decline in Antarctic minke whale catches [...] this is neither a continuous decline nor a stable limit [...] the only inevitable result of the example numbers we have inclued in Table 4 is that as a package they will [be] disliked by all for one reason or another, including ourselves. They are merely there to stimulate the necessary intense discussions and negotiations prior to Agadir [...] the text in the present document [...] represent[s] a starting point for further discussions and negotiations rather than a firm proposal". And they add: "Almost inevitably, there is a tendency for Governments of all persuasions to take the position that 'we' have given up more than 'them'. This is inevitable and natural." [emphasis added).

I'll undress my rat dinner table for now. But just in case, I'll keep it in the fridge.

Half full, Half empty

I'm receiving a lot of requests for comments about this week's meeting of the Chair's Support Group of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) which has been meeting in Washington DC this week.

I'm telling everyone that I want to be very careful with what I say, because it's tough to determine whether a glass is half full or half empty. And of course, it's almost impossible to say before you've tasted it whether the beverage in the glass tastes good, or even if it's drinkable. And the compromise proposal due to be tabled at the next annual meeting of the IWC won't be made public for another few days.

I expect I'll have more to say soon. Meanwhile I recommend Richard Black's piece from last night. As always, Richard is very sobber when he writes. A number of details (and other aspects) are missing of course, but it remains an excellent account of where we're at.

The whaler wears no clothes

I told Sue Lieberman yesterday that I was not sure if Charles Clover's Pearl Harbour analogy in The Sunday Times to describe the bullying by Japan of this month's CITES conference would hit the right chord in Tokyo. She said, "probably not, but it certainly felt that way".

Although there are differences of opinion on whether it is right (and productive) to draw a straight parallel between the current debate over the conservation and management of Atlantic bluefin tuna and the decades-old whale conservation policy debate, it's hard not to note the similarities of Japan's political strategy at CITES this month with this country's past approach at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) as The Guardian pointed out a few days ago.

The Atlantic bluefin tuna has been brought to the brink of extinction in the last decade by increased worldwide human consumption driven by a combination of factors including high consumer demand in Japan and elsewhere, unsustainable subsidies in the European Union, and poor enforcement of catch limits and other regulations around the Mediterranean Sea.

The proposal to put Atlantic bluefin tuna on CITES’ “black list” of species that cannot be traded internationally, sponsored by the Principality of Monaco and supported by the United States and the European Union among others, was largely seen as a last ditch opportunity to save this iconic species which has been a source of food and wealth for the people of the Mediterranean for thousands of years.

It was also hoped that Japan as well would see the proposed trade ban as a long term opportunity, because – as the worldwide fisheries crisis continues to unfold – the outlook is bleak for this country’s feeding patterns largely dependent on the availability and supply of marine resources. For example, a study published in 2003 in the scientific literature suggests that up to 90% of the biomass from large predator fish species has already vanished (download the large Pdf file if you want to see the whole report). So, in short, it was hoped that Japan would agree to a measure that could reduce its supply in the short and medium term, because it would be immensely beneficial to Japanese food security in the longer term. But Japan favored short term corporate benefit instead, and bullied the CITES Convention.

Of course, it is not the first time Japan takes the risk of tarnishing its international reputation amid a controversy about the use and conservation of marine resources. Whaling is the most obvious case that comes first to mind. Japan has been taking heat for nearly 40 years since the first UN Conference on the Human Environment held in 1972 called for a moratorium on commercial whaling, an activity Japan is currently the only country in the world to carry out in the high seas. Ten years after the 1972 conference, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) established a legally-binding moratorium, but Japan has always found ways and pretexts to evade and to continue killing whales. Japan’s most contentious whaling operation takes place every year in the Southern Seas – a whale sanctuary or no-take zone for whales recognized by the international community with the exception of Japan whose factory ship has been targeting a growing number of nearly 2000 whales annually in recent years. Our contemporaries in Japan have lost their apetite for whale meat, but the Japanese Fisheries Agency continues to subsidize the whaling at great expense, even though there is reportedly a big stockpile of unsold frozen whale meat in the country.

In the last three years however, the Japanese administration showed signs of willing to seek a compromise whereby they would accept to respect international law and regulations if in exchange they were allowed to carry out what they call small-type coastal whaling. Whether this would mean that Japan would accept to stop catching whales in the Southern Ocean sanctuary and elsewhere in the high seas is still subject to negotiations within the framework of the IWC. It is hoped that this will be clarified before this year’s IWC annual meeting in Morocco in June. Japanese officials now recognize that their past whaling activities were unsustainable and caused irreversible damage to the whale resources. They’ve repeatedly pledged that they would limit and control whale catches to “sustainable levels.”

Until now, a significant number of countries within the IWC have shown some sympathy for Japan’s “sustainable whaling” claims. And some that traditionally oppose commercial whaling, like New Zealand for example have made real efforts to try to accommodate Japan’s concerns in a bid to bring whaling back into international control and to eliminate whaling in the Southern Ocean. These “whale peace talks” are due to conclude in three months in Morocco at the end of June, but now the joint Japan-Libyan coup d’état against the CITES Convention might have brought a blow to the willingness of the IWC to believe Japan’s “sustainable whaling” claim. Japan’s coup at CITES reminds the worst acrimonious times in the past history of the IWC, and it’s almost impossible not to extrapolate. Under IWC rules, a population of whales brought down to 15% of its original size would automatically be protected and any catch would be banned. 15% is what is thought to be left of the Atlantic bluefin tuna’s pre-industrial fishing population, so why did Japan so adamantly campaign to prevent a trade ban that would have eased the pressure on the species? If this is the vision of sustainable management and good marine stewardship of Japan, do they also have a hidden agenda with the “whale peace talks”? Unless it does something drastic before the IWC meeting in June, the risk is for Japan to be seen like the whaler with no clothes.

[To make that point, maybe the environmental NGO observers at the IWC should all take off their clothes at the opening of the meeting]

The Japanese Government has only a few weeks left to prove that it genuinely wants a truly sustainable whale deal at the IWC this year, and that it will not bully the IWC in Morocco like it just did with CITES in Doha. The most obvious way to restore trust would be for the Japanese Government to announce its willingness to give up its costly high seas whaling operation in the Southern Seas. This would be an effective confidence-building move, and one that could benefit to the Japanese coastal communities who catch whales on the Japanese shore and are presently suffering from the unfair competition of the heavily subsidized high seas operation in the Southern Seas. In the event that the IWC would agree that some coastal whaling could take place in line with recommendations from its Scientific Committee and in recognition for Japan’s effort to move out of the Southern Seas, it would be a win-win for the Japanese Government: it would preserve local whaling traditions and eliminate a highly costly and unnecessary high seas whaling operation.