Help Us Save The Whaling Ban!!
WE NEED YOU TO HELP US SAVE THE WHALING BAN!
I am writing to ask for your urgent help. At a special 'Whale Summit' in May 2001 a new international alliance of concerned organizations and individuals was formed - the Global Whale Alliance (GWA) - to fight the resumption of commercial whaling. The ban on commercial whaling is close to collapse and could even be lifted this year! The annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), held in Sorrento Italy last summer, agreed to hold special intercessional meetings, one was held in Sweden in November and the second is to be held in Copenhagen in March, in order to finalize agreement on the Revised Management Scheme (RMS), a management plan for renewed commercial whaling.
At the SORRENTO meeting in July 2004, the United States was part of a small group of countries, including Japan, that tabled a proposal to have the RMS completed and the moratorium on commercial whaling lifted at this year's IWC meeting in Korea this June. in response to this crisis we have decided that all of the GWA's US-based organizations must focus all efforts on reversing this apparent change in US government policy and we have formed America's Whale Alliance (AWA) specifically to do so.
So far, over 160 organizations in over thirty countries have signed our GWA anti-RMS statement. They are also helping our campaign by pressing their governments to oppose the RMS and any resumption of commercial whaling. We need the help of as many US organizations as we can to help change the disastrous position the US Government is taking regarding the resumption of commercial whaling.
America's Whale Alliance needs your help to stop a certain disaster for whale conservation efforts. We would like your organization to sign on to our attached statement opposing current US policy regarding commercial whaling. Please also help our campaign further by lobbying the government to oppose the RMS and the lifting of the moratorium. We believe that adoption of the RMS will revive a cruel and unnecessary industry that has all but destroyed the world's whales. We believe that the US policy of backing the RMS is misguided. We do not believe this approach will serve the urgent conservation interests of the whales. Neither do we believe that their support for a resumption of commercial whaling represents public opinion in the US. We are particularly concerned that by supporting this plan the US is ignoring increasing scientific evidence of the serious environmental threats to whales, the health risks to people from eating whale products that are increasingly contaminated by pollutants, and the appalling cruelty involved in killing whales.
There is little doubt that the 30 year long campaign to end commercial whaling could be lost within the next few months. Unfortunately, most people are simply unaware that this is happening. Despite the fact that the case against commercial whaling is stronger today than ever before, the countdown to commercial whaling has already begun, but with your help we can still stop it! Please sign on to our statement below by going to our website, www.americaswhalealliance.org (http://www.americaswhalealliance.org), and filling out the on-line form. We will then contact you with details of how you can help the campaign further.
This is a critical time for the whales. Please help us to help them.
Thank you
Best wishes
Tami Drake and Jonathan Paul
Global Whale Alliance
On behalf of America's Whale Alliance
We oppose United States policy on commercial whaling
We the undersigned wish to express our profound opposition to the completion and adoption of the International Whaling Commission's Revised Management Scheme (RMS) that will inevitably lead to the lifting of the global moratorium on commercial whaling.
We call upon the United States Government to abandon its present policy of support for an RMS to lift the existing moratorium on commercial whaling and to use its international political and economic influence, and domestic fisheries laws, to enforce the existing moratorium for the foreseeable future.
We believe that our supporters, and the vast majority of US citizens, are opposed to commercial whaling and do not want the Government involved in negotiating its resumption. We believe that commercial whaling is outdated and unnecessary, environmentally unsound and inherently cruel. We believe it poses an unnecessary risk to the health and recovery of surviving whale populations and to the health of people that consume whale products, given they are increasingly contaminated by toxic pollutants.
We call upon the United States Government to support the continuation and strengthening of the commercial whaling moratorium for the foreseeable future; to initiate and support the vital research necessary into quantifying and addressing the serious environmental threats to whales; and the health risks posed to people that ingest toxic pollutants through the consumption of whale products.
We want the United States to save the whales, not whaling.
America's Whale Alliance
www.americaswhalealliance.org (http://www.americaswhalealliance.org)
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