Monday, June 21, 2010

International Whaling Commission 21 June 2010 Agadir



All Non Government Agencies have been removed from the Commission Meeting and are not to return until Wednesday. The Commission is now meeting behind closed doors and apparently the very future of the IWC is on the Agenda

Greenpeace softens line on whaling
ANDREW DARBY, AGADIR, MOROCCO

June 21, 2010


JUST over two years after Greenpeace last ran direct action against Japanese whaling in the Antarctic, the environmental organisation has joined calls for a deal - even if it is hard to digest.

The world's original anti-whaling group has signed on to a joint statement, with the World Wildlife Fund and the influential US Pew Environment Group, that would allow commercial whaling in the northern hemisphere.

In exchange, it wants ''a phase-out of all whaling in the [Antarctic's] Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary'', said Greenpeace oceans campaign head Sarah Duthie.

Greenpeace's change of heart surprised some. ''I think they're kidding themselves,'' said Darren Kindleysides, the director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, in Agadir yesterday. ''They are giving up on the moratorium on global commercial whaling.''

But on the eve of what Environment Minister Peter Garrett forecast would be the single most important International Whaling Commission meeting in 30 years, the Greenpeace shift signified a spreading mood for compromise.

The outcome will not necessarily favour Greenpeace, or Australia, which wants a five-year phase-out of all Antarctic whaling.

In a split from previous trans-Tasman solidarity, New Zealand is being praised by a pro-whaling source for its ''true leadership'' in trying with the United States to broker a deal Japan could accept.

A key negotiator is former NZ prime minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer, whose work on the compromise began three years ago with the Pew Foundation in a meeting at the UN in New York.

He will be joined by more high-level ministers and officials at the IWC's 62nd annual meeting than ever before, in another pointer to a deal being made.

Japan's delegation will be led by the director-general of its powerful Fisheries Agency, Katsuhiro Machida, and vice-minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Yasue Funayama.

They will build on a proposal first put forward by the Chilean IWC chairman, Cristian Maquieira, who suggested 400 minke whales and 10 fin whales could be taken in the Antarctic for the next five years, in a total global commercial hunt of 1312 whales.

This is 200 whales fewer than were harpooned last year around the world through loopholes in the 24-year commercial whaling moratorium. In Japan's case, it would mean a cut of about 100 whales on last summer's protest-disrupted Antarctic hunt, and better than a halving of the 935-whale ''scientific'' quota it awards itself.

Tokyo argues that now it has made the tough decisions, it's time for Australia to make some too. But Mr Garrett said Australia was not alone in its hardline opposition, with Latin American and many European countries agreeing.

8 comments:

  1. Heard on the radio today some guy from Woodside,"...one of the things we take heart from is our ongoing studies being taken off of James Price Point is we have found the main route for the Humpbacks is 25klms offshore,so we now know no whales will be in the way of our gas hub".This was ABC morning news!Well we have fished there for many years and have seen whales in closer than 1klm from shore.Let alone all the other creatures that live and visit there.

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  2. enough to make you puke,colin barnett on 4 corners crying over indigenous kids in the kimberley.what about the kids in the pilbara or goldfields?they have lots of mines and gas plants but are worse off than kids up here.if he really gave a damn he could give $33,000,000 a year to kimberley kids.after all he plans to spend over $500,000,000 on a smoko spot in the city,to go with the dumb $100,000,000 plus bloody bell tower.

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  3. Wayne Bergman has done the impossible magic trick.4 corners explained last night how he had grabbed the famous gun off Barnett,pointed it at the people at the meeting and got most of them to vote for the gas hub at Prices Point.And even though he knew it had no bullets, he still managed to shoot himself in the foot with it!Talk about amateur hour at the KLC,this crowd are an absolute farce.

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  4. want to really freak out?check this out.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dk-matai/gulf-of-mexico-danger-of_b_619095.html

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  5. one of the very interesting things about the above link story is how close we are to the massive faults to our north.also does anyone have any knowledge of bad methane pockets around the australian coast?for that matter any high pressure pockets or problem wells?

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  6. everything you always wanted to know about BOP's.easily the best read yet.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/us/21blowout.html?src=me&ref=homepage

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  7. Re the huffington post story on the doomed Macondo Well in the Gulf of Mexico."Macondo shares its name with the cursed town in the novel"One Hundred Years of Solitude"by the Nobel-Prize winning writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez".If the huge methane deposit beneath the well,which is now leaking out of fissures and cracks in the sea floor blows,then 100 years of solitude would seem likely for not just the gulf coast,but well beyond.End of the world stuff.Make a great movie.

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  8. There must be some truth in all of this because the first signs of real panic are appearing.BP is making no attempt to stop the flow,only contain it.Some very serious people are pushing hard for the well to be collapsed with explosives.This does sound very much like they know it can't be stopped with the relief wells because the cement around the casing is faulty and oil and gas are escaping from the surrounding rocks.However if conventional explosives don't do the job they are looking at nuclear weapons in a final attempt to collapse the well.An increasing number of people believe this gusher cannot be contained and it is doomsday for the gulf.

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