Groups With Money NOW Have Their Chance to Save the
Whales
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:20:44 -0700
Groups With Money NOW Have Their Chance to Save the
Whales
Commentary by Paul Watson
Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is not a wealthy
organization. We bring in less than one half of one
percent of the annual contributions given to
Greenpeace for example.
Sea Shepherd has stayed small because we have never
developed a bureaucratic structure nor have we
invested in large scale direct mail campaigns or spent
millions of dollars on advertising and promotion.
We have grown slowly and remained small because we are
an organization of volunteer activists who spend our
funds in the field. It has been our choice to remain
small and active and unencumbered by bureaucracy.
We understand that there is a need for large wealthy
organizations although the real strength of the
movement is in the diversity of organizations,
individuals, and strategies.
Generally, I dont comment on organizations that I
have not been involved with and thus restrict myself
to criticisms only of Greenpeace, which I co-founded,
and the Sierra Club of which I was recently a national
director.
The fact is that Greenpeace spent a great deal of
money sending two ships to the Southern Oceans in 2005
and 2006 for the purpose of protesting and filming the
illegal slaughter of whales by Japan. They bore
witness to the slaughter but were unable to prevent
it because they were restricted by their
non-interventionist tactics and pacifist philosophy.
That is their choice, of course, but they now have the
money to save whales in an exceptionally non-violent
and established manner and I am urging them to
consider doing so.
Greenpeace condemned the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Societys actions in Antarctica as being overly
aggressive and accused Sea Shepherd of being reckless
by directly intervening to physically interfere with
whaling, which of course is something that I
originally learned to do as an original crewmember on
the 1st and 2nd Greenpeace whale campaigns back in
1975 and 1976.
In fact I am also urging other groups with money who
campaign against the slaughter of the whales, groups
like the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)
and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to
do something that will make a significant difference.
These groups have the power and most importantly the
resources to act on this initiative.
They need to underwrite the membership dues of
pro-whale members of the International Whaling
Commission. In other words, they need to do with poor
pro-whale conservation nations what Japan is doing
with poor nations they recruit to support their
whaling industry.
The cost would be a fraction of the costs of the
recent Greenpeace ship campaign to Antarctica. A few
hundred thousand dollars could prevent the Japanese
from seizing control of the IWC.
In the 2005 IWC convention, of the 66 IWC member
nations, 29 voted YES to commercial whaling and 30
voted NO. Anti-whaling nations Costa Rica, Kenya, and
Peru could not vote due to delinquent subscription
payment, and four pro-whaling nations which had
received bribes from Japan Belize, Gambia, Mali, and
Togo were absent.
If all IWC member-nations show up to vote in 2006 (and
we can count on Japan to twist the arms of Belize,
Gambia, Mali, and Togo to be present to vote), it will
be 33 YES and 33 NO, which would deprive Japan of the
51+% majority.
But Costa Rica, Kenya, and Peru may not show up
because they cannot afford the membership dues. The
solution is for groups like Greenpeace, IFAW, or HSUS
to pay these membership dues and also to recruit other
nations to join to support the whales.
The whales could lose the support of the majority of
the member nations of the IWC in June 2006.
Greenpeace has the power to prevent this from
happening. I will be the first to applaud them if they
do.
[Thanks to Anthony Marr for assistance on this
posting].
P.O. Box 2616, Friday Harbor, WA 98250 (USA) Tel:
360-370-5650 Fax: 360-370-5651
Copyright © 2006 Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
All rights reserved.
Permission is given to forward, distribute and publish
this information
Captain Paul Watson
Founder and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society (1977-
Co-Founder - The Greenpeace Foundation (1972)
Co-Founder - Greenpeace International (1979)
Director of the Sierra Club USA (2003-2006)
Director - The Farley Mowat Institute
Director - www.harpseals.org
Whom when I asked from what place he came,
And how he hight, himselfe he did ycleepe,
The Shepheard of the Ocean by Name,
And said he came far from
the main-sea deepe.
- Edmund Spenser
A.C.E. 1590
www.Seashepherd.org
Tel: 360-370-5650
Fax: 360-370-5651
Address: P.O. Box 2616
Friday Harbor, Wa 98250 USA
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
contact owner: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Mail list: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Delivered-To: mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED]
List-Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
no flaming arguing or denigration of others allowed
contact owner with complaints regarding posting/list
or anything else. Thank you.
please share/comment/inform and mostly enjoy this list
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/quick_vegetarian/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
