Press Releases

17 November 2000 - New Zealand's Prime Minister Ethnocentric

The President of IWMC World Conservation Trust, Eugene Lapointe, says the Prime Minister of New Zealand has obviously learnt nothing from her trip to Brunei.

"International relations call for both respect and understanding, and Miss Clark has shown neither in criticising another sovereign state's rights to conduct perfectly legal research on whale stocks," Mr Lapointe said.

"In her efforts to act as cheerleader for Greenpeace, she has completely thrown aside her obligations as a head of Government in understanding and respecting other countries cultures and traditions."

"Miss Clark is ill-informed. All wildlife management involves some form of lethal research, and that includes whales. She is labouring under the misconception that conservation means preservation. All cutting-edge environmental research defines conservation as sustainable use for the benefit of both present and future generations," Mr Lapointe said.

New Zealand's research into its fisheries is conducted through lethal means. "As Minister of Culture, Miss Clark is revealing her ethnocentricity by calling another country, Japan, 'barbaric'."

"If Miss Clark had attended the World Council of Whalers assembly, she would have heard Aotearoa New Zealand's Indigenous People's define the nature and extent of their treaty rights to sustainably utilise whales.

"I have heard Maori people say here that talk is the food of chiefs. Obviously, Miss Clark is not a chief," Mr Lapointe said.

The International Wildlife Management Consortium is an international organisation devoted to the promotion of sustainable use as a conservation mechanism, to the protection of sovereign rights of independent nations and to the respect of cultures and traditions.