Sea Shepherd blasts Netherlands IWC delegation

[Guest guest]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 28, 2000

NETHERLANDS BETRAYING THE WHALES

Dutch IWC delegation pushing for worldwide whale hunt at Australia meeting

 

The head of the Netherlands delegation to the annual meeting of the

International Whaling Commission in Adelaide, Australia, is spearheading the

efforts to resume commercial whale hunting.

 

Commissioner Fer von der Assen, chair of the IWC Working Group on the

Revised Management Scheme, has drafted a proposed amendment change to the

Schedule of the IWC that would implement the RMS - the protocol to pave the

way back to worldwide whaling. The working group will conclude its

deliberations on Thursday.

 

" I doubt that the people of the Netherlands are aware of their

Commissioner's actions, or would approve, " said Paul Watson, president of

Sea Shepherd International, speaking from the SSI flagship Ocean Warrior in

Amsterdam. " The recent brief, disastrous revival of the African ivory trade

should be a sufficient object lesson to the IWC delegates: The resumption of

commercial trade is paradise for poachers, smugglers, and black marketers.

It cannot be controlled. "

 

Sea Shepherd International rejects the underlying assumption of the Revised

Management Scheme and the Revised Management Procedure - that whales are a

commodity existing to serve another species.

 

In addition, SSI rejects any attempt to implement the Revised Management

Scheme or move for its adoption in the Schedule of the Convention as an

attempt to legitimize the resumption of commercial whaling using dubious

science and largely theoretical data. The fragmentary data and vague

computer modeling of the quota formula in the Revised Management Procedure

cannot serve as a reliable basis for the RMS. In addition to its inherent

unreliability, all population data compiled through 1994 was revealed to be

useless in light of the revelation that year of the former Soviet Union's

covert policy of killing up to 30 times more whales than it had reported to

the IWC, a massive program of cheating that went on for two decades.

 

The RMS does not address pirate whaling, whale meat smuggling, or increasing

pollution and environmental threats to large cetaceans. It largely relies on

the whaling industry's willingness and ability to police itself - which,

based on history, is alone sufficient cause to oppose adoption of the

Revised Management Scheme.

 

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