The fifth leak on whaling
On Jan. 3, many media organizations picked up on Wikileaks‘ cables coming from Japan. See a good overview here.
However, most missed a leak that came from Australia on the subject, which summarizes Canberra’s opposition to an attempted deal that would have seen the practice legalized with certain restrictions.
Canberra’s opposition to that deal can be summarised as followed:
Garrett Chief of Staff David Williams told econoff that the GOA could accept a compromise that delivers a much lower level of whaling, but it has to be accompanied by signals of commitment to address other key issues – sustaining the commercial moratorium, keeping whaling out of the southern sanctuary areas and Australian antarctic waters, bringing all whaling under the control of the IWC, and preventing future scientific whaling. Absent any signals on these areas, Garrett and other political leaders will be under consistent attack on a deal that only addresses
numbers, however low.
Later, I will discuss more comprehensive search techniques for people using Wikileaks and hopefully complete a detailed post on what the cables released Jan. 3 tell us.
Patrick Sherriff
Richard Smart
Rick Martin
