St. Vincent and the Grenadines, encompassing just 340 square kilometers (130 sq. mi) and 105,000 people in the eastern Caribbean, is better known for its banana production and high-end tourism than for its role in international negotiations. But the tiny Commonwealth nation gets outsized attention at annual meetings of the 88-nation International Whaling Commission (IWC). In those deliberations, intended to establish global policy for preserving whale stocks, St. Vincent and the Grenadines regularly faces off against anti-whaling nations in insisting on its rights to hunt humpback whales. That insistence generated more than the usual tension at this year’s meeting, held July 2-6 in Panama City, where St. Vincent and the Grenadines won an extension of its quota to kill four humpback whales... [Log in to read more]
