Skrap, málning og hvalveiðar

Það hefur ekki verið mikið bloggað hér upp á síðkastið. Ekki það að ég standi í þeirri trú að það valdi mörgum vonbrigðum, en ástæðan er einfaldlega sú að nú stendur yfir mikil vinnutörn að "Bjórá", það þarf að skrapa, pússa, "skera" og rúlla. Þess utan þarf svo að pakka og flytja, þannig að það er yfirdrifið við að vera, eins og stundum er sagt.

Veðrið er ekki það hagstæðasta fyrir þessar athafnir, en hitastigið lafir rétt undir 30°C, og þess utan í rakara lagi, þannig að svitakirtlarnir hafa varla undan að dæla vökva út á hörundið.

Það er því líklegt að lengra verði á milli blogga á næstunni, en það það er margt sem ég þyrfti að koma hér á framfæri.

Eitt af því er grein sem nýlega birtist í Globe and Mail og fjallar um hvalveiðar.  En greinina má finna hér.

En það er margt áhugavert í greininni og hvet ég alla til að lesa hana, alla vegna þá sem láta sig hvalveiðar einhverju skipta, hvort sem þeir eru fylgjandi þeim eða á móti.

Hér eru nokkrar "klausur" úr greinnini:

"It wasn't until 1986 that the International Whaling Commission -- the international body responsible for the industry -- finally agreed to a moratorium. And by then whales had become a sacred totem, an object of veneration that entranced an entire generation of environmentalists.

But something has gone wrong.

More and more whales are being killed every year despite the moratorium. Five years ago, roughly 1,000 whales were taken annually, either outside the IWC's jurisdiction or under its dubious "scientific permit" system. Last year, the number had jumped to about 2,500 and it's expected to reach 3,215 by 2008."

"The short answer is that the kind of environmentalism born back in 1971 is finally collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions -- and the IWC moratorium along with it. The longer story involves the manipulation of science, vote-buying, sordid backroom deals, and a great deal of bad faith. Even Greenpeace and the world's whalers agree on that much.

Nobody expects the IWC to begin to authorize commercial whale hunts any time soon -- that would require a vote by 75 per cent of its membership, which has grown from 14 founding nations in 1946 to almost 70 today. But the June 18 resolution, sponsored by Japan, could mark a major turning point."

"The moratorium was never supposed to be permanent. It was originally intended to give scientists enough time to assess the world's badly depleted whale stocks and determine where sustainable quotas could be justified. And over the years, many whale populations were found to be in perfectly good health."

""We have to base resource management on science and knowledge, not on myths that some specifically designated animals are different and should not be hunted, regardless of the ecological justification for doing so," says Gro Harlem Brundtland, the ex-Norwegian prime minister who led the historic UN Commission on the Environment and Development. "There is no alternative to the principle of sustainable development. This is necessary and logical."

In the absence of such logic, the moratorium has resulted in perfectly healthy and abundant whale species showing up on the "banned" list of endangered animals maintained by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). For example, North Atlantic minke whales are listed even though neither the IWC nor the IUCN considers them in danger. As a result, the credibility of CITES is undermined, and a pall of doubt has been cast over the status of the truly endangered creatures it wants to protect."

"The rules allow North Pacific grey whales to be ground up into mink-farm feed by Chukchi hunters of the Siberian coast, even though the Chukchi have no long tradition of hunting the whales. At the same time, the IWC wants the abundant minke of the North Atlantic kept off-limits to whalers in Norway's Lofoten Islands because their ancient Norse culture isn't considered "aboriginal."

The same rules outlaw traditional, small-scale whaling by such ancient Japanese coastal communities as Abashiri, Taiji and Ayukawa, because those whalers have always sold their catches. But the IWC looks the other way when Greenland's Inuit kill whales and sell the meat and blubber."

Já, það er óskandi að hvalveiðar og verslun með hvalaafurðir verði leyfðar sem fyrst, enda get ég ekki séð neinar ástæður til annars, en auðvitað á að vernda þær tegundir sem eiga undir högg að sækja, engan hef ég heyrt tala um annað, en það á alls ekki við um allar hvalategundir.