Pro-Whaling Countries Poised to Take Over Commission

John Roach
for National Geographic News

June 16, 2006

Pro-whaling nations may take control of the International Whaling
Commission (IWC) this weekend for the first time since commercial whale
hunting was banned 20 years ago.

Delegates from the 70-nation commission are gathering on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts for the IWC's annual meeting, which runs today through June 20 (St. Kitts and Nevis maps and facts).

Ever since the commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, Japan has worked tirelessly to restore the whale hunt. The Japanese government argues that whaling is central to Japanese culture.

This year antiwhaling activists fear Japan may finally get its way. The island nation, many believe, has recruited enough countries into the pro-whaling camp to begin chipping away at whale protections.

(See our report on last year's IWC meeting: "Commercial Whaling Ban Holds—For Now" [June 24, 2005].)

This morning, however, Japan lost a vote on a proposal to remove from the meeting agenda discussion of small whales, dolphins, and porpoises—which conservationists consider some of the most endangered species in the whale family.

(Download dolphin wallpaper.)

Conservationists considered the vote—30 for versus 32 against, with one abstention—a sign that Japan has yet to secure the majority it needs to begin whittling away at the commercial whaling ban.

But Japan may well have its majority before the meeting is out.

"The first vote was in keeping with the status quo," said Susan Lieberman, director of the Global Species Program for the conservation organization WWF, speaking from the St. Kitts meeting.

While the first vote is encouraging for the antiwhaling community, Lieberman says, several nations had yet to arrive at the meeting or pay their dues. At least two of those nations, she adds, are pro-whaling.

A majority of pro-whaling votes on the whaling commission will not overturn the ban. That requires a 75 percent majority. But the anti-whaling community fears a shifting tide.

Armed with a majority on the IWC, pro-whaling nations could weaken whale-conservation measures, revoke environmental groups' observer status on the commission, and make votes secret, conservationists say.

Shady Deals?

Antiwhaling nations and environmental groups say Japan has used promises of financial aid to entice small, relatively poor African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries to side with it on the IWC.

Japan denies the charge.

"We have never done that," Jouji Morishita, the director of international negotiations on whaling for the Japanese Fisheries Agency, told the BBC's Today radio program.

But according to the Associated Press, since 1998 Japan has given St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, and St. Kitts and Nevis the equivalent of more than a hundred million U.S. dollars in fishing aid.

Most of these countries have backed Japan on whaling.

"There is no reason these countries would vote for whaling," Lieberman said. "They have no interest in whaling. Many depend on whale [watching] tourism, if anything."

On Thursday WWF released a poll showing that the citizens of ten Pacific and Caribbean nations oppose the killing of whales, despite the fact that their governments consistently vote with Japan at IWC meetings.

"In some [nations], it was overwhelming," Lieberman said.

"In Antigua and Barbuda 79 percent of those polled—and it was a very scientific poll—are opposed to all commercial whaling."

The question asked was as follows: "The representative of your country has in past meetings of the IWC voted for a return to commercial whaling. Do you think your country should have voted this way?"

Anthony Liverpool, Antigua and Barbuda's whaling commissioner, told BBC News that the poll question was "unfair."

"Antigua and Barbuda does not have a history or tradition or culture of whaling. The majority of our people are not very knowledgeable about whaling," he said.

"The government's position at the IWC is a principled position on the importance of using our marine resources in a manner and at a rate that will enable that resource to last for generations."

Scientific Whaling

Japan currently exploits a loophole in the whaling ban, killing whales for what it calls scientific research. Last season the Japanese took 850 minke whales from Antarctic waters and 10 fin whales, according to Reuters.

Iceland also conducts scientific whaling. Norway, the only country to openly hunt whales commercially, has set a quota for this year of 1,052 minke whales.

Whale meat regularly shows up in Japanese supermarkets, on school menus, and in family-style restaurant chains, Reuters reported.

But it's not being eaten, according to a report released Tuesday by the Tokyo-based Dolphin and Whale Action Network.

The report shows the price of whale meat is falling in Japan, because the national appetite for the meat has declined, and there is now a surplus.

The finding contradicts the claim that whale meat is popular in Japan.

"Many people think the Japanese like whale meat and therefore continue whaling. That's not true," Junko Sakuma, the report's author, said at a news conference Tuesday.

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