IWMC World Conservation Trust

After the eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 8, Kyoto, 1992), the new Chairman decided to organize an informal session where NGO representatives could speak briefly to Committee members and observer Parties. These meetings would be held only at the full Committee meetings and not during Standing Committee meetings held during each COP.

The informal sessions with NGOs usually take place during the evening of the first day of the Standing Committee meeting. They last about one hour. Given these circumstances, only those NGOs with sufficient financial means are able to attend. This creates a serious lack of balance in the views expressed to the Parties. For that reason, the usefulness of these events has been contested by IWMC.
 
During these sessions, too, certain NGOs used to provide Standing Committee members with their promotional materials and prepare special documents available to the Standing Committee. At the last meeting of the Standing Committee (Lisbon, September-October 1999), however, documentation was made available to the members of the Committee and observer Parties two days before the scheduled NGO session. Violating the understood arrangement for such activity is one thing. Providing, documents that are misleading and that contain information that has long been proven erroneous is quite another.
 
At the Lisbon meeting, Earthtrust, an extreme NGO, distributed a document on the enforcement of CITES.  It implied that illegal whale meat was entering Japanese markets. The document was based on a report from Baker, Palumbi and Cipriano whose credibility has repeatedly come into question since 1994.  It's content was contradicted by studies conducted by TRAFFIC Japan and the Government of Japan. The Japanese delegation, which represents the Asian Region in the Standing Committee, was forced to issue a formal response to the Earthtrust paper. 

IWMC feels strongly that such behavior should not be allowed. If such informal NGO sessions are to continue in the future, NGOs should not be allowed to distribute documents that have not been previously submitted to and accepted by the Secretariat and, if necessary, the Committee itself or its Chairman. They would have to conform to the same rules that apply at every COP.�
 

Fischler’s point is that European Union standards and the higher costs incurred by European farmers to meet them establish a competitive disadvantage versus farmers from the United States, Asian and Latin American nations. Fischler wants a “level playing field” where WTO “rewards” farmers adhering to the EU’s higher animal welfare standards.

While no one, particularly advocates of sustainable use, would deny the importance of animal welfare in any endeavor involving trade in domestic or wild animal products, Fischler’s concerns are seen as the “inside” bureaucratic component of the extreme animal rights NGO’s movement. Critics consider the EU’s focus on so-called welfare “standards” attempt to disrupt trade by imposing unreasonable and impractical criteria that will force farmers of fur and other animal products out of business.

Similar tactics have been employed for years within the United States by extreme animal rights NGOs, particularly in relation to the rearing of animals used in medical research.  Rather than expressions of concern for the welfare of animals, imposition by law of overly stringent “welfare” criteria are used to choke off the use of animals in this vital health research field.� 
 

Growing international concern over the conservation of the world’s tuna stocks has led Japanese tuna fleet owners to push for a reduction in fishing pressure for the valuable food species.  Japan’s tuna fleet owners voluntarily reduced their fleet by 132 vessels (or 20 percent) to help reduce fishing pressure on tuna stocks. Agreements with Taiwan and Korea, other important tuna fishing nations, will see similar tuna vessel reductions.

Integral to that effort is the reduction of “Flags of Convenience” tuna fleets. This 240-vessel fleet operates outside resource management practices upheld by national fishing fleets. Japanese tuna boat owners are asking for a halt in commerce with the FOC vessels.  According to the Japanese tuna boat owners, Mitsubishi Corporation cooperation in this effort is critical to success and they urged Mr. Sasaki to sever all relations with FOC fleets.

IWMC supports this strategy and recognizes the importance of unity by Japanese tuna concerns if the non-use NGOs are to be stopped in their effort to vilify Japan and halt all sustainable use of the ocean’s resources.�
 

Japan’s long-line tuna fleet owners support the government initiative. Earlier, Japanese fishing vessel owners voluntarily agreed to reduce fishing pressure on tuna by scrapping 132 long-line craft, a 20 percent fleet reduction. Japan is negotiating proportional fleet reductions with Taiwan and Korea.�
 

Japan’s long-line tuna fleet owners support the government initiative. Earlier, Japanese fishing vessel owners voluntarily agreed to reduce fishing pressure on tuna by scrapping 132 long-line craft, a 20 percent fleet reduction. Japan is negotiating proportional fleet reductions with Taiwan and Korea.�
 

The early morning whale beaching drew a broad mix of volunteer help, from BP Amoco, the Petroleum Company to the Trinidad and Tobago Defense Force to the Police and the Fire Services, and private citizens joined government fisheries and environmental ministry personnel in attempting to save the pilot whales. The cause of the strandings and the multiple fish kills remains a mystery. One theory places the blame on algae consumed by the fish and lesser cetaceans.�
 

During the survey photos showing characteristic “fingerprint” markings of callouses around the forehead and blowholes of the whales were compared to the estimated 2500-2700 whales off the Argentine coast with the 3000 around the tip of South Africa and the 1500 between New Zealand and Australia. US marine biologist, Roger Payne, is credited with discovering the identifying marks on the whales.   

Javier Corcuera, director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Fundacion Vida Silvestre Argentina, said some scientists believe the South American and South African whales meet between Buenos Aires and Cape Town -- around the Tristan da Cunha archipelago in middle of the South Atlantic -- to mate, explaining the species’ wide genetic diversity.  Southern right whales are believed to be increasing at a rate of 6.8 to 7.7 percent each year.�
 

A coalition of 35 animal rights groups, led by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and the Animal Protection Institute, pushed the trap ban before the U. S. Legislature and the public through full-page anti-trapping ads in USA Today and the Washington Times (said to cost $72,000), and face-to-face political persuasion. They nearly succeeded. The ban language was not immediately detected by sportsmen’s Congressional monitors.

Although the backroom maneuvering by the animal rights groups has not ended and the fact that the report issued by joint representatives of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate has not been released, trappers are confident that this immediate threat has been defeated… for now.�
 

The move to cloak the anti-cultural bias and extreme non-use preservationist policies of the NGOs behind a “local” native front group sprang from a lesson learned by HSUS and its colleagues nearly half a decade ago. HSUS and its allies were humiliated in 1994, during COP XI in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida because of its opposition to indigenous African cultures’ insistence on sustainable use-based conservation and human economic development policies. Ironically, HSUS, through one of it’s allied NGO groups, attempted to use a Maasai coed to discredit Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE Program a few years ago. When the young woman refused to condemn the rural community development program, the NGO community tried unsuccessfully to smear the woman’s reputation with an outrageous and vicious character assassination campaign.

Called the Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition (MERC), the Washington DC –based group is said to be readying plans to exploit women, school children and other community groups by using them to further the anti-natural resource use theme embraced by SSN. SSN is said to be designing tee shirts, togas, and caps emblazoned with anti-hunting, anti-sustainable use slogans to be worn during the Nairobi CITES meetings.  Songs, poems, and other crafts by school children are also planned as part of the SSN media blitz. African elephants, a favorite NGO fundraising animal, will be the featured species highlighted by the NGO hi-jinx.�
 

Kundu and Watson led the protest against the Makah First People’s resumption of their whaling tradition last year. While the office sought by Kundu is modest – a seat on the Marysville, Washington city council – he has been called “one of (the movement’s) most effective environmentalists” and a “potential political powerhouse.”  

His NGO allies acknowledge the council seat is “a minor step” but insist Kundu “is certain to be slated for higher office”. Anti-whaling and anti-First People factions are being urged to contribute any monetary sum even the price of a “medium pizza” to help Kundu’s entrance into policy making politics.�