Spørsmål
Steinar Bastesen (TF): Utenriksdepartementet, via NORAD, bevilger årlig store summer til organisasjonene IUCN-The World Conservation Union og World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), til sammen i overkant av 29,5 millioner. Disse organisasjonene motarbeider konsekvent norsk politikk og ressursforvaltning.
Vil UD opprettholde sin enorme støtte til IUCN og WWF?
2 vedlegg til spørsmål:
Vedlegg 1.
Lars Walløes innlegg på CITES-konferansen i Nairobi 15. april 2000.
Thank you, madam chair,
Norway has serious concerns about the quality of the analysis of the downlisting proposals concerning whales by IUCN/TRAFFIC. The analysis is seriously flawed, and has a strong negative bias.
Let me be concrete and take two specific examples. In the Norwegian downlisting proposal it is stated that the current (I quote) "Norwegian quotas are set by application of he Revised Management Procedure (RMP) developed by the IWC Scientific Committee" (end of quote). Then on page 62 in the IUCN/TRAFFIC Document under the headline "Precautionary measures", 3rd paragraph in the right column we can read, (I quote):" Detailed examination of the quotas set by Norway (listed in the SS) suggest that they are not compatible with all the provisions of the RMP". So IUCN suggests that Norway is cheating.
In the meeting Japan and Norway had with representatives from IUCN/TRAFFIC earlier this week, I pointed out that detailed calculations had been carried out every year since 1993 by Dr. Tim Smith from the Woods Whole laboratory on instructions from the US Government and (and this is important) that this was very well known to all the reviewers and to Dr. Barbara Taylor who coordinated the scientific reviews on behalf of IUCN, and who was present in our meeting. In addition I was approached by Dr. Taylor some months ago with the question of getting access to the catch data. I sent her all the primary catch data and a detailed explanation on how the quota had been calculated, but the group decided not to use it, although it takes only a couple of hours to perform the calculations.
Dr. Taylor admitted all these facts in the meeting earlier this week, but in the letter from IUCN to me it is only stated: ( I quote) "We were also pleased to receive the additional information from you that Dr. Tim Smith has examined the quotas set by Norway and found that they are compatable with the RMP" (end of quote). This sentence indicate that this information was new to IUCN, which is not true.
More serious is the fact that the sentence in the IUCN/TRAFFIC document is wrong, and that it was known to be wrong by the people in the IUCN/TRAFFIC system who were responsible for including the statement in their document at the time it was written. Such behaviour has a specific name in English : It is called to lie.
A second example which does not imply lying, but is strongly misleading, can be found a little earlier in the document - under 'Biological criteria', C) Decline in number. To the right there is stated: (I quote) "The North-East Atlantic stock of Minke whales was classified as a Protection Stock by the IWC on the basis that it had been estimated to have declined below the IWC's protection level of 54 pst. of whale abundance (IWC 1986). (end of quote). " This is in a narrow sence correct. But what is not stated is the fact that when this classification was made scientists believed on very weak evidence that the stock was of the order 20 000 whales which is less than a fifth of the current best estimates. This is general - many statements in the IUCN/TRAFFIC document are in a narrow sence correct, but are seriously misleading because relevant information which place these statements in a proper context are lacking.
Vedlegg 2.
Peter J. Schei
Head of Delegation of Norway to CITES COP 11
Nairobi, 17 April 2000
Dr. Sue Mainka
IUCN Head of Delegation to CITES COP 11
Dear Dr. Mainka,
It is with regret I have to respond to your letter of 17 April. Your claim that a member of my delegation made a personal attack on a member of the IUCN delegation in Committee I on 15 April, is unwarranted.
I sympathize with your delegate if she feels uncomfortable with having her name mentioned in relation to a description of an information-transfer-process from my scientific advisor to IUCN, and will of course regret if she has interprented this as a personal attack. This has never been the intention of the scientific advisor of my delegation, wich should also be clear from his statement that you will find attached: No allegation of misconduct of any kind has been leveled against your delegate. His statement was directed towards IUCN/TRAFFIC and in particular the group of people who have been responsible for drafting the IUCN/TRAFFIC document. According to the "acknowledgements and credits" paragraphs in this document the delegate concerned has not been member of this group.
In his comments to the IUCN review of the Norwegian downlisting proposal, the scientific advisor of the Norwegian delegation had to explain in detail how he had given all the necessary information on a specific point to IUCN through a certain person. That person was only mentioned in this context. She had also herself confirmed that IUCN had received that information in a meeting between IUCN and the concerned scientists last week. It was neither said that she was responsible for the final content of the IUCN/TRAFFIC document, nor for the content in a letter from IUCN of 13 April, which implies that this information was not available for IUCN before this meeting. She has however confirmed that IUCN had the information beforehand. Despite this fact IUCN has neither corrected the relevant statement in the review, nor in the letter of 13 April admitted that they had this information. Quite to the contrary IUCN has in that letter stated that this was additional information, which is not true. This was the basis for the strong statement of my scientific advisor. The statement is attached to this letter.
For Norway the IUCN rewiew is of the utmost importance not the leat because the Secretariat has based its change of position on our proposal on this review. The recommendations of the Secretariat greatly influences the position of many contries.
IUCN is not adressing the reality of the complaints from my advisor and other scientists on the review. Let me therefore repeat our main concerns with the IUCN/TRAFFIC analysis of the downlisting proposals for whales and especially with the analysis of the Norwegian proposal 11.18:
1) The analysis contains significant factual errors:
One example was given by my scientific advisor in the meeting on the 15 April and can be found in his attached statement.
Another example is the statement that the NAMMCO estimate of 72 100 minke whales "has not been accepted by IWC", indicating that this estimate is wrong. The fact is that the IWC-Scientific Committee has only preliminary discussed the NAMMCO estimate. Thus it is neither accepted nor rejected by the IWC.
A third example can be found under "Biological criteria" where the analysis of decline by Schweder & Volden (1994) is mentioned. It is stated that "no conclusions were drawn because different analyses produced different trend results". No alternative analysis has been published in the IWC official annual report or elsewhere in the scientific litterature.
2) There is a strong negative bias against the whale downlisting proposals:
One example was presented in the meeting and can be found as the second example on the statement from our scientific advisor (attached). Another example can be found in the last five lines of the "Analysis" sector where Norway is criticized for not including in the register whales harvesting by Greenlanders or killed unintentionally in fishing operations. This is beyond the point as the Norwegian DNA register is established to make it possible to conclusively distinguish between Norwegian whale products from specimens taken legally in the Norwegian hunt and possible whale products from other sources.
Norway do not accept such biased and erronous reviews of our proposals for amendments of the appendices.
By copy of this letter I am also making our concerns and explanations known to the Bureau of the meeting and the CITES secretariat.
Sincerely
Peter J. Schei
Head of the Norwegian Delegation to CITES COP11
CC:Ambassador B. Asadi, Chair, CITES COP 11
Mr. Willem Wijnstekers, Secretary General, CITES
Mr. David Brackett, Chair, IUCN Species Survival Commission
Dr. Maritta R. von Bieberstein Koch Weser, Director General, IUCN
Mr. Steven Broad, Executive Director, TRAFFIC
Grunngiving
I forbindelse med avviklingen av CITES-møtet i Nairobi i april i år har det de siste dagene versert en føljetong i Dagbladet om lobbypenger, såkalt hvalsmøring som Dagbladet kaller det. Stortingsrepresentantene Gunnar Kvassheim og Gunn Karin Gjul har uttalt seg og Hallgeir Langeland har sendt brev.
Jeg har en annen side av samme problemstilling som jeg vil ta opp og det er Norges årlige bidrag til WWF og IUCN. I 1999 fikk WWF kr 5 354 970,-, i 2000 er det planlagt støtte på kr 5 230 000,-. IUCN fikk i 1999 kr 23 683 937,- mer enn medlemskontingenten på kr 607 000,-. I tillegg betalte UD kr 150 000,- til et møte holdt i regi av IUCN. Både WWF og IUCN motarbeider og manipulerer vitenskapelige data hva angår hval.
WWF motarbeider konsekvent alt arbeid fra norsk side internasjonalt for bærekraftig forvaltning av sjøpattedyr. IUCN brukte bevisst feil data i forbindelse med anbefalingene til CITES-sekretariatet. Noe som var medvirkende årsak til at vi kun fikk simpelt flertall for våre forslag om nedlisting av vågehval og ikke 2/3 som vi måtte ha. Jeg viser til innlegg holdt av regjeringens rådgiver på sjøpattedyrspørsmål, Lars Walløe, på konferansen og til brev fra leder av den norske delegasjonen til CITES, Peter Johan Schei, til Dr. Sue Mainka, leder av IUCN delegasjonen. (Vedlagt)