Official newsletter of the WCW
#4 November 1998
IWMC World Conservation Trust Becomes a Member
WCW Represented at Animal Users' Conference
IWMC World Conservation Trust Becomes a Member
The International Wildlife Management Consortium World Conservation Trust is now a member of the World Council of Whalers. IWMC is a world-wide coalition of wildlife managers who believe in the sustainable utilization of wildlife resources. Its membership includes governments, regional associations of governments, NGOs and other organizations involved in wildlife management. Visit their web site at www.iwmc.org .
The Chairman of the World Council of Whalers visited Ottawa Oct. 26 - 30 and held meetings with officials in the departments of Fisheries and Oceans, Foreign Affairs & International Trade, Indian and Northern Affairs, and the International Development Research Centre. Information was also exchanged with interested parliamentarians concerning the work of WCW.
Meetings were also held with the Fur Institute of Canada, involved with marine mammal issues through its work in Canada and internationally with sealers.
Meetings were also held with Inuit leaders meeting in Ottawa at that time, who represented the four major Canadian Inuit regional organizations, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, and NTI (the Nunavut government-in-waiting that assumes Home Rule status over much of Arctic Canada in a few months' time).
The tone of all these meetings indicated that the level of support for WCW was strong in the national capital and among Inuit leaders and whalers throughout the Canadian north.
We are waiting eagerly for news that the Makah have succeeded in taking a whale. In the past weeks the WCW office has been flooded with calls from the media. It is hard to explain that while the WCW supports the Makah hunt, the Makah have been forbidden by the US government to have anything to do with us. We have, nevertheless sent messages of support.
"Resident" gray whales, of interest to the whale watching industry were initially ruled off-limits but, as of November 1st all gray whales are considered migratory.
The Makah whaling crew, issued a 10-day whaling permit by their whaling commission November 3, have had to delay their hunt because of weather.
The whalers will be further challenged by a convoy of boats containing hostile animal-rights activists and the press. Ashore nerves are already frayed. Sea Shepherd activists who have been hovering offshore for a month defied tribal police November 1 and tried to land in Neah Bay. Paul Watson's wife, Lisa Distefano, got pushed off the dock and an angry melee concluded in the arrest of four activists.
Canada is not making the Makah hunt any easier. The US buffer zone required between protest boats and the canoe will not be enforced if they cross into Canadian waters. While they may not hunt a whale, if a wounded whale crosses to the Canadian side they will be permitted to kill it.
The Chairman and his wife dropped in on the South Pacific Peoples' Foundation's Pacific Networking Conference in Victoria on September 19 where they spoke with delegates from the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Canada.
The South Pacific Peoples' Foundation, founded in Victoria in 1975, supports the initiatives of Pacific Islanders to sustain their cultures, their environments and their communities. It is the only registered charity in Canada devoted to education and advocacy on issues critical to people throughout the Pacific. Recently this focus has expanded to linking indigenous peoples in Canada and the Pacific.
Stuart Wulf, director of SPPF greeted the Happynooks cordially and expressed interest in providing the membership of SPPF with information about WCW via their quarterly magazine, TOK BLONG PACIFIC which circulates in Canada and the South Pacific. Additional visibility for WCW in BC may ensue from their visit. Soane Puamay, chairman of Viti Fiji and South Seas Cultural Society, and anchor for a Fijian-language TV show based in Vancouver expressed interest in doing a show on WCW (he reports 35,000 to 40,000 Fijians living in southern BC!). Seema Ahluwalia, a college sociology professor in Richmond, BC urged WCW to put material on our website that she and other educators could access for teaching purposes. She promised to present it to her 140 students.
Joan Goddard, a member of SPPF, will continue to network with South Pacific peoples through this group. She found the conference participants from island cultures very interested in WCW and eager for more information. Winning over the large proportion of Canadian members who have allegiance to environmental groups will be more challenging.
WCW Represented at Animal Users' Conference
Joan Goddard attended a conference of the National Animal Interest Alliance in Portland, Oregon October 24-25. An outstanding group of speakers addressed the group, including WCW members Ingmar Egede, Founder and Chair of the International Training Center of Indigenous Peoples in Greenland, and Eugene Lapointe, President of IWMC World Conservation Trust. Other WCW associates attending were Teresa Platt who is on the board of NAIA, Steve Boynton, and Magnus Gudmundsson.
The Saturday workshop brought forth some shocking reports of violence suffered at the hands of animal rights fanatics from people in such diverse fields as biomedical research, wildlife management, fur farming and the animal entertainment industry. NAIA, dedicated to the welfare and humane treatment of animals, facilitates dialogue between animal user groups and presents factual information to the public via the media and its own newsletter to counter animal rights movement misinformation.
Conferees, many from parts of the US unexposed to Makah whaling news, were extremely attentive to the WCW speakers and discussion in the workshop of animal rights campaigns against whaling. There was strong encouragement for WCW to share in NAIA's efforts, and the editor of their award-winning magazine has asked that we send them news and articles.