So 'normal' means 'hunt more whales'...

After three days of meetings in Tokyo, the pro-whaling members of the International Whaling Commission have concluded that the best plan to move forward is to keep hunting more whales.

The purpose of the meeting was to talk about how to ‘normalize’ the IWC. Before the meeting, we said that meant ‘commercial whaling’ in the eyes of this crowd, and it seems we were right.

The big move this morning was that the Japanese government presented a new proposal for what they claim is "small scale" coastal whaling, but rather than continue to call it science, it is now being referred to as "community whaling". However, the plan remains unaltered - to catch 220 whales, despite having virtually no market, no scientific justification, and no community benefit.

So the basic conclusion we draw from this meeting? Normalisation of the IWC' simply means continuing with the current situation - catch as many whales as possible. No new ideas have come from this meeting. The only concrete proposals are to have secret ballots at the IWC, to hold closed meetings, to exclude NGO's where possible, and to keep catching the same number of whales.

What has become very clear to me is that the IWC desperately needs to be modernised - to increase transparency, and to explore ways to protect whales for the future. The onus now clearly rests on the governments from other countries to seize the initiative, and make the IWC a body that works for the whales and not for the whalers.

It is hard to know how to describe the meeting – in some ways it was boring, in others fascinating. I have certainly never been to a meeting like it! But perhaps the best way to round out some reporting on this meeting is to let the delegates speak for themselves – I think these two quotes summarise it perfectly:

“I have worked for 25 years in European affairs and 13 years in the Brussels Council of Ministers, which works very well, because there is no access to meetings for press and NGO’s” – one delegate committed to transparency.

“I am a human being, and I get frustrated. I want to see the resumption of whaling as soon as possible” – the Chair of the meeting.

Shane