Washington Post says: "Blame Iceland"
Yesterday, the Washington Post came out with a scathing editorial about Iceland, and how it harpooned a UN agreement which would have protected vast areas of sensitive marine habitat from unregulated bottom trawling:
A tiny country that still hunts whales scuttles an effort to save the ocean bottom.Sunday, December 3, 2006; Page B06
IN A FORM of fishing known as bottom trawling, huge, weighted nets are dragged across the ocean floor, destroying corals and just about everything else in their path. In U.S. waters, the practice is tightly regulated -- and forbidden in certain environmentally sensitive areas. On much of the high seas, however, it's open season. Delicate ecosystems get ravaged with nobody paying attention. The Bush administration, along with several other governments, has been pushing for a moratorium on unregulated trawling on the high seas. Last month, thanks in large part to Iceland, it failed to get that measure.
...snip...
Because the arcane rules of high-seas fishing are largely defined by consensus, even small countries that are genuine moral outliers in world attitudes toward oceans can prevent agreement. The result in this case was a mushy resolution that fell far short of what the administration and environmental groups wanted, which in turn is ominous for efforts to protect marine life in international waters.
This is incredibly damning stuff and right on the money. It sounds like Iceland was able to basically veto any strong action, with the complicit support of some other countries most likely.
I hear that the closed-door agreement will come before the UN General Assembly in the next few days. It will likely get a rubber stamp of approval since none of the governments involved want to admit how badly they have screwed up, and because something (at least in this case) is (probably) better than nothing.
What the editorial doesn't include is that the real hero in all of this was another tiny island country, Palau, which stood up to Iceland right to the end.
Comments
Have you all been taking your fucking medications, or what?
"It sounds like Iceland was able to basically veto any strong action,..." you make it sound like Iceland is a major super-power or something. It´s always the same thing, when something happens somewhere, people look to blame the micro-nations instead of the ones who are really to blame. Here´s one for you. Did you know that the U.S. is one of the, or the number one biggest whaling nation in the world. Actually they call it scientific whaling but did you know that you don´t have to kill whales in order to study them. So Scientific whaling=Commercial whaling in disguise. Japan and Russia hunt like three or four times many whales than Iceland. The commercial mink whale quota that the Icelandic goverment issued was a number of 30 animals out of all the 70.000 animals living in Icelandic waters.
Posted by: Jon Gunnar Bjarkan | December 7, 2006 6:32 AM
Jon -
The entire point of the Washington Post editorial was that any nation can drag a consensus agreement down to the lowest common denominator.
Meaning these sort of international conservation agreements can be largely held hostage by the nations doing the damage, or even one spiteful bureaucrat.
And while I am happy to criticize the US on plenty of issues (climate change, war in Iraq, etc. etc.). But the US does not do any commercial whaling (not as fake science or otherwise).
A few native tribes engage in limited traditional subsistence hunting - as they have for thousands of years without causing extinction.
You are confusing the US with Japan, which kills almost 1,000 whales per year under the guise of science. And don't worry, we are sending an expedition to the Southern Ocean to peacefully intervene against their hunt.
But thank you for your inquiry about my health. I am doing fine. Hope you are also well.
Posted by: Andrew | December 7, 2006 11:35 AM