SVG proposing an amendment to IWC quota of whaling

This country will be proposing a scheduled amendment to continue the subsistence quota of whaling which currently stands at 4 per annum.{{more}}

Edwin Snagg, this country’s representative on the International Whaling Commission (IWC), made the comment at the opening of a two-day OECS and CARICOM Agriculture ministerial and commissioners meeting on Wednesday.

If the IWC moves to a six-year period, then this country will then ask for the quota to be increased to 24.

“And we expect that we will have the support of all the countries present in the room,” Snagg said.

The Vincentian whaling commissioner thanked his colleagues from across the region for the continued support over the years.

He said that St Vincent and the Grenadines, only the second territory behind Alaska and the smallest whaling nation in the world, had the capacity to use its marine resources in a sustainable manner.

“We believe that we have the capacity to manage such resources in our interest and in a sustainable manner,” Snagg said.

He said that he believes strongly that this country had rights within its territorial boundaries to be able to harvest its resources.

Snagg contended that the islands in the region continued to face what he termed as a new form of colonization, because there were those who wanted to dictate to the islands in the region.

“And we have to fight it the same way we fought it in history when we had the period of slavery when we were told what to say and do,” he continued.

Meanwhile Saboto Caesar, Minister of Agriculture and featured speaker at the opening ceremony, said that any organization which does not recognize the rights of the Caribbean people to the fisheries resources as the common property of mankind, must be considered dysfunctional.

“The inability of the IWC to establish a regime to facilitate the orderly exploitation of whale resources based on the best available scientific information is a disservice to the parties of the commission international law, sound resource management and perpetuates the erosion of cultural practices and traditions,” Caesar said.

He further contended that the IWC needed to recognize that the careful utilization of all the marine resources must contribute to the sustainable livelihoods of coastal communities.

The Minister of Agriculture maintained that the whale hunt here is a traditional one, but that this country does not cling to the practice primarily for sentimental reasons.

“The dangers each time a whale is hunted are very real. It is a skill and courage which ensures our people eat nutritious food and it is highly resented by our government and our people that we are continually harassed and insulted by misguided criticism of what to us is a necessary and entirely rational food-producing activity in our part of the world,” he said.

“We are not torturing animals to produce expensive luxury foods such as veal, neither are we producing cheap chemically laced animal protein by factory farming million of pigs and chickens that are then exported by wealthy industrialized countries. We are conducting legitimate economic activity while keeping the proud cultural whaling tradition which is important to us as a nation.” (DD)