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Whale-hunting nations gain momentum

An international whaling group this week is expected to try to chip away at a moratorium on commercial whaling that environmentalists say has saved the Earth’s largest creatures from extinction.
/ Source: Reuters

An international whaling group this week is expected to try to chip away at a moratorium on commercial whaling that environmentalists say has saved the Earth’s largest creatures from extinction.

For the first time since whale-hunting was banned in 1986, pro-whaling nations led by Japan expect to have a majority at the International Whaling Commission’s annual meeting in the Caribbean island state of St. Kitts and Nevis from June 16-20.

Last year, Japan, Norway, Iceland and their allies failed to attain a majority only because some members showed up late or had failed pay their dues.

Even with a majority, they will not be able to end the hunting moratorium because that would require 75 percent of votes at the 70-member IWC.

But environmentalists say the whaling nations could take conservation off the IWC agenda, impose secret balloting, expel non-governmental organizations, shelve proposals to establish new sanctuaries and recommend a resumption in the trade in minke whales.

All those steps could turn the IWC back into an agency that manages whale hunting, rather than one that prohibits it.

“We are approaching the IWC this year in terms of the pro-conservation camp with a great deal of apprehension,” said Joth Singh, director of wildlife and habitat protection at the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Regulate or conserve?
The commission was founded in 1946 to regulate whaling. But it became more focused on conservation as the giant mammals were driven to the edge of extinction. Australia and South Africa lead the anti-whaling lobby, arguing that whale-watching is more lucrative than killing them.

GREENPEACE JAPAN YUSHIN MARU
In this photo released by Greenpeace, the Yushin Maru catcher ship of the Japanese whaling fleet captures a whale after harpooning the mammal in the Southern Ocean Saturday, Jan. 7, 2006. The Greenpeace activists had been chasing Japan's whaling fleet in Antarctic waters for almost two weeks, hampering their hunt for whales as part of Japan's scientific research program. (AP Photo/Greenpeace, Kate Davison, HO)** NO ARCHIVE, NO SALES **Kate Davison / GRENPEACE

Japan stopped commercial whaling when the ban came into force but a year later started using a loophole that allowed some whale hunting for “scientific research.” Critics say the meat ends up in gourmet restaurants and that Japan has never published its research in peer-reviewed journals.

In the season just ended, Japan’s ships brought back 850 minke whales from Antarctic waters, and, for the first time, 10 fin whales, which conservationists say are endangered.

Iceland also conducts “scientific whaling” and caught 25 minke whales in 2005. Norway is the only country to defy the ban and to engage in commercial whaling and plans to kill 1,052 minkes in the North Atlantic this year.

The whaling nations say whale hunting is a cherished part of their cultures. They say minke whales -- a small species eaten as steaks, hamburgers or as sushi -- are plentiful.

Japan also blames whales for depleting fish stocks, a charge environmentalists liken to blaming woodpeckers for deforestation.

Whaling strategy
Japan intends to propose at the IWC the establishment of a new group of nations that support commercial whaling, and to use it to reform the fractious organization, officials said.

“If things go on like this, the raison d’etre of the IWC as a whaling management organization disappears,” Hideki Moronuki, head of the whaling section at Japan’s Fisheries Agency, said recently.

Norwegian Whaling Commissioner Karsten Klepsvik said a simple majority at the IWC would be enough to request the U.N.’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to lift a ban on trade in minke whales.

A pro-whaling majority could also order the IWC to revive moribund research into assessing quotas and catch rules.

Japan will open the meeting with a condemnation of efforts by Greenpeace to shadow and harass Japan’s whaling fleet.

The environmental group may lose its observer status at the IWC, said Greenpeace International spokesman Mike Townsley.

“A simple majority is not the end of the story,” he said. ”The IWC may be flawed but its commercial moratorium and its sanctuaries saved the lives of tens of thousands of whales and protected whole species. That’s too big a prize to give up.”