Gallery: WikiLeaks Reveals International Intrigue Over Science and Environment
01sea-shepherd
While most of the attention around WikiLeaks' diplomatic cable release involved high-profile geopolitical intrigue, some of the documents involved science and the environment. __Above:__ Sea Shepherd Whale Deal ----------------------- The latest of these, [reported Jan. 6 by the *Guardian*](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/06/wikileaks-secret-whaling-deal) newspaper, involve discussions in late 2009 and early 2010 between the United States and Japan over Sea Shepherd, an antiwhaling group that has fought Japan's ongoing hunts on the open seas. Japan, admitting that Sea Shepherd had effectively limited its kills, [asked the United States to investigate](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/232461) the group. The [United States agreed](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/233769) and asked Japan to lower its quotas, and to help negotiate lower quotas with Iceland, another whale-killing nation. The United States eventually asked the International Whaling Commission to pass laws to "guarantee security in the seas," a veiled reference to groups like Sea Shepherd. According to the *Guardian*, Great Britain and other European countries defeated the proposal. *Image: [Sea Shepherd Conservation Society](http://www.flickr.com/photos/guano/3264971586/)/Flickr.*
02margaret-chan
Diplomatic-DNA Gathering ------------------------ The U.S. State Department [instructed U.S. diplomats](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/11/u-s-chases-foreign-leaders-dna-wikileaks-shows/) in July 2009 to collect biometric information — fingerprints, facial images, iris scans and DNA — on the emissaries of countries in southern Africa, the Middle East, southeast Asia, China and Cuba. The requests made sense: Fingerprints and photos are already collected, while iris scans and DNA could be used to verify identity. And the countries involved are all countries with whom the United States is, if not necessarily antagonistic, not exactly cordial. But the requests weren't limited to countries like Uganda and Pakistan. They [called for collecting information](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/219058) on "U.N. officials, to include under secretaries, heads of specialized agencies and their chief advisers." As for what the United States would do with the DNA of United Nations officials, the cables do not say. *Image: World Health Organization leader Margaret Chan./WHO.*
03tibet
For Tibet, Climate Change Is Worse Than China --------------------------------------------- According to the Dalai Lama, environmental problems on the Tibetan Plateau, which is besieged by deforestation, mining, pollution and climate change, are [more pressing than China's inclusionist policies](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/220120). Given Tibet's brutal experience, that says a lot. "Tibet is a dying nation. We need America's help," the [the Wikileaks cables reported him saying](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/149327). *Image: [Visualization of black soot pollution around the Tibetan plateau](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=41854)./NASA.*
04vatican
Genetically Modified Crops and the Vatican ------------------------------------------ Cables describe U.S. diplomats pressuring the Vatican in 2008 to reverse its opposition to genetically modified crops. The Vatican refused to yield, and offered a sophisticated critique of the technology. It wasn't the safety or science of GM crops they rejected. Instead, they worried that "that [widespread use of GMO food in the developing world](http://213.251.145.96/cable/2005/08/05VATICAN514.html) would subjugate its farmer population and become a form of economic imperialism simply serving to enrich multinational corporations." Those fears are not grounded in precautionary principles or biotech distrust, but the experience of places like India, where the pressures of industrial agriculture, compounded by [Monsanto's introduction of modified cotton](http://www.trevoraaronson.com/story/?storyID=53), have pushed thousands of farmers to [commit suicide](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/18/world/asia/18iht-farmers.1557902.html?pagewanted=all). *Image: [One From RM](http://www.flickr.com/photos/onefromrome/215948884/)/Flickr.*
05corn
Genetically Modified Trade Wars ------------------------------- Even as diplomats said Vatican resistance to genetically modified crops would be [met with insistence](http://213.251.145.96/cable/2005/08/05VATICAN514.html) on the "'moral imperative' of biotech food, the U.S. ambassador to France displayed rather different imperatives in calling for a trade war against the European Union, the Wikileaks cables reveal. With Monsanto's YieldGard corn — engineered to produce a pesticide subsequently found to be [polluting U.S. streams](http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/gm-maize-has-polluted-rivers-across-the-united-states-2091300.html) — threatened by [anti-GM movements in western Europe](http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/05/09MADRID482.html), the U.S. ambassador to France called for "retaliation." "Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU," [wrote then-ambassador Craig Stapleton]( http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/12/07PARIS4723.html) in 2007. "The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory." *Image: [Peter Blanchard](http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterblanchard/3061822169/)/Flickr*
06chagos-islands
Marine Park With Ulterior Motives --------------------------------- Britain in April 2010 [set aside a California-sized region](http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/04/uk-establishes-record-breaking-m.html) of the Indian Ocean for protection. It contains some of the most remote and pristine coral reefs in the world. The decision, however, wasn't just about conservation. During the 1960s and 1970s, Britain allowed the United States to conduct weapons tests on islands in the region, and deported some 2,000 people. They've asked ever since to return, and have taken their case to the European Court of Human Rights. Now that their islands are set aside for protection, it could be a harder case to win. As one British official is [described as saying in the Wikileaks cables](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/207149), "establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago's former residents." *Image: Wikimedia Commons.*
