Canadian Law-Makers Hear World Council of Whalers Message; Does Paul Watson?

By David Hicks

• "There are no pirate whalers. ... Even though the protest industry would have you believe that whaling has stopped ... whaling has never stopped." WCW Chairman Chief Tom Mexsis Happynook addressing the Conference on Environmental Law and Canada's First Nations, November 1999. Click here for full text.
• "We're concerned with ... the International Whaling Commission's regulations ... and as such we follow those rules and regulations as a guidance to our activities." "We are the only organization that is banned from attending the IWC ever since we sank half of Iceland's whaling fleet in 1986 and we actually are quite proud of that distinction." Highlights of speech given by Paul Watson to conference assembly.
• "You talk about this 'IWC' ... This seems to be your guidepost ... the panacea for everything." Mr. Larry Baird, conference delegate, and member of the Ucluelet tribe, Nuu-chah-nulth nation, addressing Paul Watson.

"My name is Mauk-sis-a-noop which means gray whale hunter. My family comes from Cha-cha-tsi-us which is part of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, which is part of the Nuu-chah-nulth tribal group. My family has been a whaling family within our tribe for thousands of years. So it is important to note, right up front, that one thousand, three thousand, or five thousand years from now there will always be a Happynook whaling family. It will never end"

With these words, WCW Chairman Tom Mexsis Happynook formally introduced himself to the assembled group of delegates attending a conference on Environmental Law and Canada's First Nations held Nov. 18-19, 1999 at Vancouver's Pan Pacific Hotel. Chief Happynook attended by special invitation of the conference organizers, highlighting the eagerness of Canada's legal and legislative community to hear the World Council's message.

The conference brought together experts from a diverse number of backgrounds and professions: Lawyers, lawmakers, resource managers, First Nations representatives, as well as other knowledgeable people. Captain Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society attended as well, specifically to provide a counter-point to the traditional, sustainable use point of view expressed by Chief Happynook as it applied to whaling. This was highlighted early in the course of Mr. Watson's speech: at one point, radically diverging from the topic at hand, a clearly agitated Mr. Watson, red-faced and angry, told the startled assembly: "I am an earthling and I represent the non-human inhabitants of this planet ... they are sick and tired of being driven to extinction!" In response, Chief Happynook pointed out that a great number of cetacean species are in fact abundant, and made particular reference to the Eastern Pacific Gray Whale stock. Scientists with the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans have recently determined that this population has exceeded the carrying capacity of its food source; as a result, large numbers of migrating grays have been washing ashore along the migration path, dead of starvation.

Chief Happynook opened the discussion by addressing a fundamental question posed by conference organizers: "Are all aboriginal practices aboriginal rights?", explaining that "when we talk about aboriginal practices we are in fact talking about responsibilities that have evolved into unwritten tribal laws over millennia. These responsibilities and laws are directly tied to the environment, and are a product of the slow integration of cultures within their environment and the ecosystems ... the environment is not a place of divisions, but rather a place of relations. A place where cultural and biodiversity are not separate, but in fact need each other to maintain the balance required for survival ... One of the protest industry's most successful strategies to date has been the crusade towards bio-diversity. Regrettably, they have convinced the general public to overvalue certain parts of the environment: whales, seals, as an example, and removed the cultural aspect, human relationships, from biodiversity. The result is an unbalanced environment and ecosystem."

A central argument forwarded by those who oppose whaling is that whale oil and meat, contaminated by industrial pollution, represents a threat to the health of coastal peoples. According to Chief Happynook, however, the situation needs to be placed in context; although "the protest industry will tell you that whale meat is contaminated", people must realize that "clinical studies ... have [shown] the food indigenous peoples are eating now will kill us faster".

As Mr. Watson looked on, Chief Happynook conveyed his disappointment with the environmental movement. "Over the past 30 years, I have witnessed the environmental movement evolve from individuals who were truly concerned about the environment to a protest industry which is now a multitude of multi-million dollar corporations". The protest industry has abandoned fact, and has instead, through "media manipulation ... lobbying initiatives, and misinformation dissemination" used the media to portray sea-mammal hunters as "unethical barbarians without conscience". Chief Happynook supported this contention with a direct quote from Mr. Watson's book "Earthforce: An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy". To an intrigued audience, Chief Happynook quoted from page 42 of the book, wherein Mr. Watson states: "a headline comment in Monday's newspaper far outweighs the revelation of inaccuracy revealed in a small box inside the paper on Tuesday or Wednesday".

Accusing Mr. Watson and the protest industry he represents of "collecting millions of dollars by preying on people who are unaware of the dynamics of indigenous cultures and coastal communities, and our relationship to our environment and ecosystems". Chief Happynook posed a pointed question to them: "what puzzles me is, if they are truly environmentalists, conservationists, then why are they not spending the millions of dollars they raise on stopping the pollution that is negatively affecting the oceans (and) our traditional food sources?". Mr. Watson, apparently prepared only to discuss whaling, made no reply.

The true environmentalists in the whaling issue, according to Chief Happynook, are the "large and diverse number of countries, indigenous peoples, and coastal communities who depend on the cultural, nutritional, and economic benefits that whaling provides". In most cases, he explained, their traditions "have existed for millenia". In all cases, "concern for the continued health of the community is integrally linked to the whalers' concern for the continued health of whale stocks ... this is cultural/bio-diversity, a practice that has been developed and nurtured through millenia".

In stark contrast to the ecological framework described by Chief Happynook, Mr. Watson's speech took a divergent, divisive approach, which covered a number of points; some related to the topic of environment and law, others presenting more of a personal narrative. Stating that as an organization, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is "not concerned with the domestic legislation and especially between bi-lateral agreements which are treaties between two nations", Mr. Watson went on to declare that his organization believes that the Makah should "have the right to sue the United States for not representing their responsibilities before the IWC". These apparently contradictory sentiments were further complicated by Mr. Watson's further assertion that the Sea Shepherd Society hoped to utilize it's particular interpretations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to "constructively abrogate the Makah's treaty right" to hunt whales; the fact that "abrogate" is merely a synonym for "revoke" was not lost on the First Nations delegates present, one of whom accused Mr. Watson of "environmental colonialism".

"We just go over this whole colonialistic attitude, we're moving forward, and now we get boxed in with environmental colonialism ...You guys [protectionist groups] are doing it". To which a clearly upset, defensive Mr. Watson retorted: "I resent being called a colonialist, an environmental colonialist. I live on planet earth, I am an earthling and I do represent the non-human inhabitants of this planet, specifically marine wildlife ... that is my constituency, that is who I represent.

As the law-makers and lawyers in the audience no doubt contemplated the inherent difficulties in speaking on behalf of a whale-client, Mr. Watson drew upon a favorite argument of those opposed to whaling: a global conspiracy headed by Japan and Norway existed, which sought to open the door to cultural whaling through the "recruitment of ... the Maori, the Tongans ... the Makah, native communities in Siberia, and ... Greenland".

Summing up his organization's opposition to the Makah hunt, Mr. Watson stated that although "we do not want to be the enemy of native communities, [there] is an old saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend and it also holds true that the ally of my enemy becomes my enemy as well". Lest the assembled delegates misunderstand who the enemy might be in this case, he went on to explain "[Chief] Happynookwent to Japan to perform a dance for the send off of the Japanese whaling fleet to Antarctica ... he is an ally [of the Japanese] and as such, we must oppose him."(1) Having left little room for compromise in this realm of allies, enemies, and mandatory opposition, Mr. Watson's later comments that "I do not presume to sit in judgment of what the traditions of the Makah or Nuu-chah-nulth are; that's not my domain at all, we have never issued any statements on that at all, we have in fact I think been very respectful in our dealings with the Makah" left more than one audience member perplexed.

Shifting his attention closer to home, Mr. Watson declared that Canada is a pirate nation, that "all whaling in Canada is pirate whaling". As evidence of this, he highlighted the fact that the United States "has issued certification against Canada for illegal whaling and has threatened Canada with trade sanctions". Following Mr. Watson's speech, Chief Happynook took the opportunity to clarify these remarks to the assembled delegates, explaining that the right of Canadian whaling peoples to hunt whales is "protected under the Constitution of Canada, the highest law within the Canadian legal system", and that threats of sanctions from the United States need to be placed in context; the "Alaskan Eskimos also hunt bowhead, and have always had a quota". According to Chief Happynook, "Canada's refusal to re-instate its membership in the International Whaling Commission clearly shows their increasing awareness of the central importance of First Nations rights, and the effectiveness of local management regimes based on science, and traditional resource management knowledge".

Mr. Watson replied that his organization, and other conservation groups, had "no opposition to the Bowhead hunt in Alaska. There never has been, there is not, and there will not be ... [because] it falls within the guidelines of the IWC". However, as Chief Happynook pointed out to the assembled delegates, the IWC regulations are an inadequate guideline for the actions of groups such as the Sea Shepherd Society, who's stated purpose is to oppose all whaling. "I'd just like to point out ... that the IWC only has jurisdiction over 5% of the whaling that goes on in the world ... There are over 80 species of cetaceans that are hunted worldwide, so when Mr. Watson talks about international laws and those kinds of things, the IWC has not teeth. It is a good old boys club who travels around to exotic places in the world and holds wonderful little meetings that are very racist based ... So when we talk about the IWC, you need to realize that it doesn't have very much jurisdiction at all".

In closing, Mr. Watson chose to abandon the issue of indigenous rights and whaling, and instead addressed an issue of fundamental concern to him and his organization: a perceived lack of respect towards them and their work. "If people wish to be disrespectful ... and say that we are other than what we present ourselves to be, I would suggest they produce some real evidence to back up their arguments instead of just resorting to rhetoric which is supplied by the Japanese and Norwegian whaling industries". The roots of this apparent lack of respect were highlighted in the question and answer period which followed Mr. Watson's presentation: one delegate accused him of "changing the story" with regards to the role of the Sea Shepherd Society in past environmental protests, and cited evidence to this effect.(2) Mr. Watson responded with a different interpretation of the evidence presented, and denied the accusation. However, the exchange highlighted the dangers of opposing alleged rhetoric with rhetoric of one's own; often, the underlying reality is forgotten in the play of words, with negative consequences for the people who live it. Using the example of international law so often cited by opponents of whaling, Chief Happynook explained this to the assembled delegates: "If you look hard enough you will find wonderful words, enshrined in many international conventions and declarations, but as usual that is all they are, 'words", and indicated that indigenous and coastal people had more fundamental concerns regarding adequate representation in the fora where such words are spoken.

Chief Happynook closed the whaling discussion by highlighting the role of the World Council of Whalers: noting that the WCW was not solely a whalers' organization, as per Mr. Watson's remarks, he pointed out that the recent addition of the Australian Aboriginal Dugong hunters to the growing list of WCW members, and shared with the assembled delegates the WCW's long-term vision: "the WCW was formed to present a unified voice for indigenous peoples around the world, and to fight for their rights and not have environmentalists try and impose their ideals upon cultures from around the world ... I know we're here to try and find solutions to these issues, and I just want to re-state the WCW's solution to the problem ... and it's taking place in many parts of the world as we speak: Traditional Resource Management Knowledge must be incorporated with science and well-founded modern resource management techniques and administered through regional regimes which include indigenous peoples and coastal communities in the decision making process. That is the solution to the predicament we're in. Indigenous whalers from around the world are sick and tired of everyone thinking that they know what's best for us, and we have a very important role to play and a lot of knowledge that needs to be incorporated. So I ask the lawmakers here to give serious consideration to the words that I have spoken today. Think about them, and how they make sense".

As the conference concluded, a number of delegates paused to thank Chief Happynook, and express support for his words, and the work of the WCW. In stark contrast, at the other end of the room, far away from the media spotlight and the familiar realm of direct action and sound-bite conflict, a tired looking Paul Watson clutched his law books to his chest, as he endured the criticism of a native delegate.

NOTES:

(1) Presumably, Mr. Watson is referring to the Nuu-chah-nulth cultural exchange which toured Japan. See WCW newsletter Issue #5, February, 1999 for proper details on this visit.

(2) The speaker, Mr. Larry Baird (a member of the Ucluelet Tribe, Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations), referred to Mr. Watson's role in the spiking of trees during the Clayoquot Sound logging controversy in British Columbia, Canada, and indicated that Mr. Watson had "changed his story" regarding his role in these activities, in denying his involvement to the conference assembly.

For further information contact: World Council of Whalers, PO Box 291, Brentwood Bay, B.C. V8M 1R3, Canada. WCW@island.net

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