The South African government will play a critical role next week in ensuring the conservation of whales, dolphins and porpoises.
Government representatives say they will support a controversial proposal at the highly charged yearly meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to strengthen the group’s conservation mandate. The IWC is the global forum that regulates whaling issues.
Dubbed the ”Berlin Initiative”, the new proposal has been the subject of energetic lobbying in past weeks. South Africa will join 20 other countries — including Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States and Kenya — that have already come out in support of the initiative. More than 30 conservation groups worldwide are lobbying in its favour.
The Berlin Initiative proposes to recognise the conservation role of the IWC by establishing a conservation committee and an environmental research fund. Supporters say this is essential to safeguard cetaceans for future generations, considering the increasingly complex array of threats they face — ranging from noise pollution to climate change and over-fishing.
The supporters will be pitted against whaling nations such as Japan, Norway and Iceland — as well as a host of countries that support them — when the global forum gets down to business in Berlin on Monday June 16.
Horst Kleinschmidt, director of Marine and Coastal Management in the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, will head the South African delegation at the
meeting.
”We will listen to the debate, but will support the Berlin Initiative. No conditions will be attached to our support,” says departmental spokesperson Maryke Brand.
The Berlin Initiative could break a stalemate between pro- and anti-whaling nations that has paralysed the IWC for the past decade. The conservation committee would have decision-making powers and would play an active role in conserving sea creatures.
One of the lead NGOs behind the Berlin Initiative is the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Its local director, Jason Bell-Leask, says the South African government’s support is crucial because the IWC is usually split down the middle. ”At the IWC, every vote counts,” he says. ”The whaling countries publicly express concern about the endangered status of some populations and species, but they are expected to vote against the proposal.”
South Africa has a global reputation for promoting whale conservation and whale-based tourism, though it has not played an active role in the IWC in recent years.
The IWC imposed a global ban on commercial whaling in 1986, but Norway has defied the ban since 1993 and Japan hunts whales for ”scientific” purposes. Last year Iceland also applied to hunt whales for ”research”.
Opponents of the initiative warn that it ”risks bringing the IWC to its knees” because the conservation committee could be unduly influenced by outside organisations and individuals that finance its activities.
”Power follows money,” says Eugene Lapointe, director of the pro-whaling
international organisation IWMC-World Conservation Trust. ”The danger is that the unelected financial power brokers of this new committee will use their newly granted muscle effectively to run the IWC.”
Lapointe urges countries that support the Berlin Initiative ”to build safeguards into their proposal to ensure that, if passed, there is no abuse of power”.