Fight aid with aid

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SEA SHEPHERD CONSERVATION SOCIETY

JULY 18, 2001

 

IF U.S. IS SERIOUS ABOUT SAVING WHALES, IT WILL HIKE AID TO CARIBBEAN

Activists call for counter-measure to Japan's whale-hunting bribery at IWC

 

As the International Whaling Commission prepares to convene its annual

meeting in London on Monday, two measures condemning commercial whale

hunting are before the U.S. House and Senate, and President Bush has stated

his opposition to the practice. Yet this opposition will mean nothing if six

small Caribbean states continue the practice of voting down whale

sanctuaries and voting in favor of undermining restrictions on whaling at

the International Whaling Commission -- as they have every year since the

government of Japan bought their IWC memberships for them almost ten years

ago and proceeded to pour more than $100 million in " fisheries development "

aid into their economies in exchange for their cooperation on whaling issues

at the IWC.

 

" Antigua, Grenada, St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and

St. Kitts-Nevis constitute the swing vote that will make the difference

between life and death for the world's whales for decades to come, " said

Paul Watson, president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. " If the

U.S. government wants to put its money where its mouth is, it will call a

meeting with all six whaling commissioners, who are in London for next

week's meeting, and tell them that Japan's current aid levels will be

matched or surpassed by U.S. aid if they vote for the whales at this meeting

of the IWC - that means voting for the South Pacific and South Atlantic

whale sanctuaries, and against provisional approval of the Revised

ManagementScheme to re-legalize commercial whaling. "

 

Sea Shepherd notes that the West successfully persuaded Yugoslavia to turn

over Slobodan Milosevic to an international tribunal to be tried for war

crimes by withholding $2.8 billion in development aid to that country until

it had done so. " If the U.S. wants to take real action to save the whales,

it knows exactly what to do and how to do it, and it has nothing to do with

making position statements: It means sitting down at the table and trumping

Japan's Caribbean ace-in-the-hole, " Watson said.

 

Watson is captain of the Ocean Warrior, the Society's flagship, currently on

patrol with a volunteer crew off St. Lucia, which allows the local hunting

of dolphins and small whales. The pro-whaling nations have effectively

blocked the IWC from asserting its authority to conserve the small cetaceans

routinely targeted in hunts in the Caribbean and elsewhere.

 

" We believe it's no coincidence that tourism has been declining in the

Eastern Caribbean since word of these nations' lax or outright hostile

polices on whales and dolphins began widely circulating late last year, "

said Watson. " We're here to save as many as we can on our own until the IWC

starts doing its job. "

 

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Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

22774 Pacific Coast Hwy.

Malibu, CA 90265

Tel.(310) 456-1141

Fax.(310) 456-2488

http://www.seashepherd.org

seashepherd