The first shots have been fired in what looks like becoming a major
showdown between countries that want to restart commercial whaling and those
that disapprove. In the run-up to the International Whaling Commission鈥檚
annual meeting in Kyoto, Japan, in May, nations have started sizing one
another up.
In 1986 the IWC imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling. Last week,
Norway announced it would kill between 300 and 800 minke whales this year
and sell the meat. Minke whales are more abundant than the larger whales.
Jan Olsen, Norway鈥檚 fisheries minister, said the plan had been drawn up
on 鈥榓 secure scientific basis鈥�.
A new scientific procedure for calculating sustainable catches of whales
was agreed in principle last summer by the IWC, but its use for actual whaling
has yet to be approved. It is not clear whether Norway used the procedure
to calculate its catch. But at last year鈥檚 IWC meeting, several members,
including Britain and the US, opposed Norway鈥檚 plan to use the revised procedure
to catch whales.
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In a letter to the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet last year, Norway鈥檚
then foreign minister Thorvald Stoltenberg called minke whales 鈥榬ats of
the sea鈥� which 鈥榯ake fish from fishermen鈥� and 鈥榝rom the whale species that
are threatened鈥�. Last week, when he announced the plans for the hunt, Olsen
repeated this view.
Iceland left the IWC last year in protest against the IWC鈥檚 rejection
of its plans to resume whaling. Norway threatens to leave if the IWC opposes
its whaling plans again this year. This would leave Japan in the uncomfortable
position of being the only remaining member of the IWC in favour of whaling.
Japan announced last week that at the Kyoto meeting it will 鈥榩ress for
the resumption of commercial whaling around Japan and in the northern Atlantic鈥�.
Japan has been hunting minke whales 鈥榝or research鈥� purposes in the Antarctic.
The US Congress is expected to pass a resolution this month aimed at
halting the Japanese and Norwegian moves. It calls on the US to oppose commercial
whaling in keeping with the US Marine Mammal Protection Act, which allows
the US to stop importing fish from whaling nations.
Japan鈥檚 fisheries agency says its whalers can kill 2000 minke whales
a year without harming the survival of the species. Last month the agency
launched an advertising campaign on the benefits of whale meat. Fisheries
officials are quoted as saying whale meat helps cure such things as asthma
and dermatitis.
