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February 2, 2000
Whales on agenda of United Nations Millennium Forum thanks to long-term efforts of Breach Marine Protection, the UK-based whale protection and rescue group that collected 10 million signatures from people in 40 countries on a resolution that would change the focus international whale management to non-lethal conservation as opposed to regulation. For years, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has declined to debate the 'People's Resolution'. BMP is calling upon the UN to replace the International Convention on Regulation of Whaling with the International Convention for Cetacean Conservation.
January 27, 2000 From: SEA SHEPHERD CONSERVATION SOCIETY
AL GORES WHALES!
Vice President Al Gore's rapidly tarnishing environmental record is
nowhere more severely dented than in the effort to "save the
whales" - the rallying cry that heralded the birth of the modern
environmental movement in the early '70s.
Gore has not just refrained from taking action to protect whales and
maintain the position of the United States as the species' primary
champion in international forums, he is actively supporting whale
hunting.
In 1993, Norway returned to commercial whaling and was certified
by the US Department of Commerce for engaging "in whaling
activities that undermine the effectiveness of the International
Whaling Commission." Norway is therefore subject to trade
sanctions under US law, but Clinton and Gore have refused to
impose sanctions. As a result, Norway's whale hunt quota has
been climbing upward ever since. In 1997, Canada decided to allow
the hunting of endangered bowhead whales, was likewise certified
to be undermining the IWC, and subject to the same US sanctions
as Norway. Clinton and Gore again refused to impose sanctions.
In 1994, Gore backed the "Revised Management Scheme" - a half-
step toward the return of commercial whaling by setting theoretical
quotas on whale species prior to actually permitting a hunt - saying
this compromise was necessary to get international cooperation to
create the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in the Antarctic. It
wasn't: Environmentalists prevailed, the RMS was defeated, and
the Sanctuary was created without Gore's deadly "compromise."
In 1999, Gore allowed business interests to pressure the National
Marine Fisheries Service into listing the vanishing sub-species of
beluga whales at Cook Inlet, Alaska, as merely "depleted" rather
than "endangered." The beluga whale population at Cook Inlet has
plummeted from 1,000 to 150 in ten years. The endangered listing
sought by environmentalists and scientists would have protected
the beluga from pollution and development, but Clinton and Gore
decided to protect industry instead.
Most damning of all, in 1997 Gore backed the unilateral
permission given the Makah tribe of Neah Bay, Washington, to
resume whale hunting in U.S. waters, in violation of the rules of the
International Whaling Commission. The Makah's aboriginal
subsistence need to hunt whales has never been recognized by the
IWC, as required by federal law under the US Whaling Convention
Act.
This release deals exclusively with Gore's record on whales, but it
is important to remember that he was also the primary catalyst for
the devastating weakening of the Dolphin-Safe Tuna Act last year.
His support for the changes allows tuna fishing companies to return
to the techniques of dolphin-encirclement, a method proven to
cause many dolphin deaths from entanglement and drowning.
As the pressure mounts to return to commercial whale hunting
worldwide, Al Gore has proven that he is no friend to our nearest
relatives in the oceans.
January 26, 2000
Greenpeace CREW MEMBERS HAVE BEEN SAILING INTERFERENCE FOR THE WHALES against the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary around Antarctica since December 20.
The Japanese whalers claim, as usual, to be conducting a scientific expedition which seems to consist primarily of killing whales and selling their flesh in Japanese markets. This is the 13th year of this activity in defiance of the International Whaling Commission's mission to stop all whale killing except by certain aboriginal peoples who actually depend on whales for sustenance.
According to a Japanese news report, crew members of Greenpeace's vessel Arctic Sunrise have escalated their usual tactics by trying to board a catcher boat and the fleet's mother factory ship, the Nisshin Maru. Sprays of cold Antarctic water have been exchanged between catcher boats and a Greenpeace inflatable.
On December 21 there was a collision between the Arctic Sunrise and the Nishin Maru, each side blaming the other.
January 19, 2000
NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER OPPOSES WHALING
Prime Minister Helen Clark is supporting the Greenpeace petition for a global whale sanctuary. Attending the launch of the Greenpeace campaign, she pledged her government's support for the petition. She also criticized Japan's whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary as "deplorable" and objected to what she called "chequebook diplomacy", using economic incentives to garner support from small countries in need of funds in the International Whaling Commission.
Mincing no words she declared, " The New Zealand Government does not accept Japan's contention that it is whaling for scientific purposes. It is well known that meat from the whales slaughtered under the so-called Japanese Whaling Research programme ends up for commercial sale in Japan itself. (See previous page for more information on this.)
"The Government wants to work alongside all other concerned governments and non-governmental organisations to ensure that all steps possible towards a global sanctuary can be taken as quickly as
possible,'' she said.
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