Greenland's determination to force a vote on its bid to hunt humpback whales destroyed any semblance of a cooperative atmosphere and progress at the International Whaling Commission in Santiago on Thursday. The contentious debate over Greenland's proposal ruined Chairman William Hogarth's campaign for consensus and collegiality at this year's meeting.
The vote was 29 yes, 36 no, and 2 abstentions, as European and Latin Americans voted to ensure that the Greenland proposal fell well short of the three quarter majority necessary for passage. The United States voted with Greenland, an independent province of Denmark.
Until Greenland advanced its proposal to add ten humpbacks per year to its aboriginal subsistence whaling catch take, whaling and pro-whale factions at the meeting had steered clear of controversy for four days. Japan did not introduce its highly divisive proposal for small-scale coastal commercial whaling program and Latin American nations withheld their proposal on a South Atlantic whale sanctuary.
"This was a cynical move by Greenland," says Humane Society International president Patricia A. Forkan. "Many delegations asked Denmark and Greenland to hold off for a year, allowing the Chairman's plan for improving practice and procedure at IWC to ripen and bear fruit."
Forkan also criticized the U.S. delegation for its support of the Greenland bid. "The Greenland proposal did not include a reliable statement of need, and its aboriginal subsistence whaling program is mired in controversies about its extensive commercial aspects, which violate IWC standards. Given these facts, the U.S. delegation should at least have abstained from voting."
The U.S. delegation had tried to persuade Greenland and Denmark to withdraw the proposal, but the influence of Alaska's aboriginal whalers and its congressional delegation tipped the balance in favor of the bid.
"The entire European Union and Latin American blocs saw the Greenland proposal as the shoddy affair it was," Forkan added. "We had a right to expect our own delegation to do the same."
In the debate over the vote, Japan and its Caribbean allies, who cynically scuttled aboriginal quotas at the 2002 IWC meeting in Shimonoseki, cast themselves as defenders of aboriginal peoples worldwide.
"This was the clearest signal of the U.S. delegation's confusion," Forkan noted. "No one would have been hurt by a decision to defer debate on Greenland until next year, while the Chairman's plan to improve practice and procedures at the IWC goes forward."
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