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Welcome to the diary of IWC 58 – from St Kitts – the adopted land of the
green monkey.
Here starts the regular – daily (and hopefully real time
reports) from WDCS on what is happening here at what seems likely to be an
historic meeting. With the addition of several new members to the commission, it
is now almost inevitable that the pro-whaling faction has the majority. The
question is what will they do with it? Japan has shown from its previous
activities and comments already filed on the current agenda that it will call
for secret voting. This will fundamentally change the face of the commission and
people will no longer know how their representatives have votes… unless they
decide to declare this.
We also have some other ideas of what the
Japanese lobby will do, but we will not say too much here, in case it gives them
ideas!
Anyway, let’s start by further setting the scene:
 The IWC is meeting in St.Kitts, a
beautiful Caribbean island fringed with sandy beaches and palm trees. With
neighbouring Island, Nevis, it forms the smallest Caribbean nation. The next
island to the south and behind Nevis is Montserrat which has been making its own
anti-whaling protest by way of a recent volcanic eruption which coincided with
the pre-meetings of the scientific committee. Over the last few weeks, depending
on the wind direction, the plumes of smoke and ash coming from the newly
awakened volcano have disrupted aircraft bringing scientists and other delegates
to St Kitts. The plumes have apparently filled the sky from about five to 55
thousand feet and the small, mainly twin-propeller aircraft coming into the
airport here from Antigua and other neighbouring islands have – not surprisingly
- been loathe to fly through this.
It is possible that the volcano may
play a significant role in the vitally important voting at this meeting if any
late-coming representatives of nations are unable to get to St Kitts. (It may
also have some impact on departures too but that will be another story.) St
Kitts itself is not otherwise being affected by the volcanic activity and,
contrary to some rumours, the plume of ash is not reaching us here.
St.
Kitts, like the neighbouring islands, was itself originally formed by volcanic
actions. The centre of the island is a tall volcanic cone swathed in dense
tropical forest. This volcano last erupted some 400 years ago. Consequently, the
small island is mountainous with rich volcanic soils. Until recently, the soils
of St Kitts supported as its main economy sugar cane growing but this ceased
recently and now tourism has become the chief interest. The small towns, main
roads and hotels are concentrated around the coastal area.
 The meetings of the International Whaling Commission are being
held in the Frigate Bay Marriott Hotel – an immense American-style hotel mainly
populated by American tourists touting sunglasses, caps and either deep tans or
raw sunburns. The conference area in the Marriott is hidden behind the glitzy
Casino (which is far easier to find) and is largely removed from the tourist
areas although delegates will need to enter them to find food – meaning that
once again at an IWC meeting we are surrounded by people having a far better
time than we are.
To the north of the Marriott – a ten dollar taxi ride
away – is the main town, Basseterre. The main square in this bustling town
(‘Piccadilly Circus’) boasts a fine old clock tower and many tourists shops. A
block away is the park where behind white picket fences slaves used to be
corralled, bought and sold. To the south of the square is the national museum –
this currently hosts a display about the whaling debate. The curator, using
materials donated by the Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research and
conservation organisations has tried to provide a balanced account of the
current debate on whaling for island children and their parents. In fact they
rarely actually see whales here; most local people seem largely unaware of them
but the IWC meeting is a big event and increasingly the local news is starting
to feature it and speculate on the role that St Kitts is playing in this
matter.
On the other side of the narrow flat isthmus from the Marriott
Hotel is south Frigate Bay, where the pace of life is more traditionally
Caribbean. There are bars in palm leaf roofed shacks on the beach and up in the
wooden slopes of Timothy Hill beyond there is much wildlife, including troops of
lively and agile green vervet monkeys. The monkeys are an introduced species –
the descendents of pets that escaped. There is a rumour that they now outnumber
the people and one recently snatched the Spanish Commissioner’s breakfast banana
(but she snatched it back).
Which brings us back to the dreaded meeting
itself: as last year we are now sitting just ahead of the main Commission
meeting watching new members join and other existing members clear their dues
such that they have voting rights. Last year, the pro-whaling faction came
perilously close to having achieved the simple (50% +1) majority. Indeed, some
counts indicate that they actually had it… but just didn’t have everyone in
their seats in good time for key votes.
The current situation is unclear
– more new parties may join before we begin (or even after) and it is not clear
which existing parties will have the vote… but the feeling is that, for the
first time in decades, that the pro-whalers will be back in the driving seat and
the question is then, if they gain the majority, what will they do with it?
New parties so far this month: Cambodia (joined 1/6/06); Guatemala
(joined 16/5/06); Israel (joined 7/06/06).
Stay tuned for more
updates.
 That is not a
whale.
The colourful IWC welcome banners hanging across main streets and
in the hotel – presumably prepared by the authorities in St Kitts - contain a
small error: apart from the welcoming words, they feature a selection of
animals. However, the anticipated whale images are missing. Instead, one side is
adorned with the images of the world’s biggest fish: the whale sharks.
We assume that the whale shark mistake was made during the design stage
when the wrong animal was selected.
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