Anti-whaling nations have secured a victory in the first vote in the 54th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Japan. Iceland’s bid to rejoin the IWC, but to ignore its 1986 ban on commercial whaling, was defeated for the second year running.
Member countries voted by 25 to 20 against Iceland, and three abstained. At past IWC meetings, pro and anti-whaling nations have tended to vote en bloc. Major changes to IWC policy require a three-quarters majority, so the vote will give encouragement to countries campaigning against proposals to resume commercial whaling.
Japan and Norway will lead this year’s attempt to overturn the ban. In his opening statement to the meeting, Minoru Morimoto, Japan’s IWC commissioner, reiterated Japan’s backing for restricted trade in whale meat, “particularly in the light of the robust status of some whale stocks”.
But numbers of many whale species, including the minke, which Japan would like to commercially exploit, are exceedingly difficult to estimate, say whale biologists.
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Sanctuaries unlikely
UK fisheries minister Elliot Morley called the anti-Iceland vote “a major setback for the pro-whalers and an unexpected margin”. But the substantial minority backing for Iceland also makes it unlikely that anti-whaling nations will be able to push through plans for new whale sanctuaries, for example.
At the 2001 meeting, proposals for two sanctuaries, one in the South Pacific, the other in the South Atlantic, were blocked by Japan’s allies, also for the second year in a row. In their turn, anti-whalers voted against Iceland’s bid to rejoin the IWC with reservations, and against overturning the commercial hunt ban.
The failure of the IWC to pass any key policy-changing decisions in 2001 was widely seen as evidence of its powerlessness, and of the lack of trust between pro- and anti-whaling nations. Allegations of Japanese vote-buying continue this year.
But while votes will be taken on the commercial whaling ban, and on the sanctuaries, no vote will be needed for Japan to expand its programme of “scientific whaling” for 2003. Japan wants to increase its annual take of minke whales from 100 to 150, and to also kill 50 sei whales, which the WWF says are endangered.
Six nations have joined the IWC since April 2002, taking the total membership to 51. New members Benin, Gabon, Palau and Mongolia are expected to vote for whaling, and Portugal and San Marino against. Greenpeace claims that Japan has “bought” Benin, Gabon and Palau with promises of aid – a claim Japan rejects.
Three members are not allowed to vote, because they have not paid IWC dues. The meeting, in Shimonoseki, a former whaling centre, runs until Friday.
