Japan Loses Bid to Resume Commercial Whaling

FRIGATE BAY, St. Kitts, June 18, 2006 (ENS) - The pro-conservation coalition has won all the major votes at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) annual meeting here, defeating pro-whaling efforts by Japan and its allies to increase whaling. But the votes were so close in the 70 member commission that neither side can claim permanent victory.

In the first vote, Japan proposed that the agenda be amended so that there could be no discussion in the IWC with regards to small cetaceans - whales, dolphins and porpoises. The proposal failed, with 30 votes for, 32 votes against, and one abstention.

Japan's perennial proposal that all votes of the IWC should be taken by secret ballots also failed, with 30 for, 33 against, and one abstention.

On the third vote, Japan proposed that the IWC allow their small coastal communities to kill minke whales. The proposal failed with 30 for, 31 against, and four abstentions. As an amendment to the IWC Schedule, Japan needed a vote of 75 percent of the IWC members to prevail.

The four countries that abstained from the vote - China, Kirbati, South Korea, and the Solomon Islands - have voted in favor of Japan’s positions in the past.

Joji Morishita, spokesman for the Japanese delegation, said the Japanese were glad it was not a secret ballot. "Japan will remember which countries supported this proposal and which countries said no," he said.

Joji Morishita is a member of Japan's delegation to the International Whaling Commission. (Photo courtesy Government of Japan)

On Japan's proposal that the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary be abolished, the vote was only 28 for, and 33 against, with four abstentions. A two thirds majority was needed to pass the measure.

The IWC adopted a non-binding declaration proposed by 30 pro-whaling members - the St. Kitts and Nevis Declaration. The declaration supports the pro-whaling agenda and states that the IWC will collapse unless whaling resumes. It does not propose a course of action and has no effect on the workings of the commission.

A Japanese delegate called adoption of the declaration "a big step forward." Japan's chief delegate Minoru Morimoto said, "It is very satisfactory that a declaration which supports our efforts to normalize the IWC has been adopted." To Japan, "normalize" means the resumption of whaling. A global moratorium was imposed by the IWC in 1986.

But Australian Environment Minister Senator Ian Campbell, who is leading his county's IWC delegation, called the St. Kitts and Nevis Declaration, "a toothless statement of frustration."

Anchovies found in the stomach of a Bryde's whale are examined aboard a Japanese research whaling vessel. (Photo courtesy Institute of Cetacean Research)

Despite having gained 33 votes in favor, 32 votes against, and one abstention, several governments are challenging the validity of the vote.

Many governments declared their opposition to the declaration, including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. China abstained.

Conservationists in St. Kitts to observe the IWC meeting criticized the declaration and the process the pro-whaling nations used to bring it to a vote.

"This amounts to a sneak attack on the IWC," said Dr. Joth Singh, director of wildlife and habitat protection with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

"After losing on every single proposal they brought to this meeting, the whaling countries and their supporters cooked up a non-binding statement, sprang it on the commission and pushed it to a vote," said Singh. "They want to kill whales, and they’re willing to kill the Commission to do it. But this is no death blow, just a stinging flesh wound."

Japan conducts annual whale hunts in the Southern Ocean and in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, saying they are killing whales for scientific research, which is permitted under the IWC regulations. The Japanese attempt to sell the meat from their whale research, but it is failing to move the tons of whale meat produced by the taking of up to 900 whales each year.

Each year, the pro-conservation nations condemn the practice, and they did so again this year.

United Kingdom Minister for Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare Ben Bradshaw (Photo courtesy UK Government)

"That hugely damages their international reputations," Bradshaw said. "The whale meat is stacking up in huge freezers in these countries because they can't sell it. I can only think that it is about a kind of culturally nationalistic obstinacy that makes them pursue this course."

"We are saddened and disappointed that instead of building consensus on difficult issues, this declaration has brought both sides to the brink of open conflict," said said Dr Susan Lieberman, director of WWF's Global Species Programme. WWF agrees that the IWC has serious deficiencies and needs modernisation and reform, but this declaration takes the IWC in the wrong direction."

"The votes we have won at this meeting are a significant achievement for whales and whale protection," said Australian Environment Minister Campbell.

"This year we have kept the balance in favor of whale protection, however, the passage of a non-binding declaration by pro-whaling nations at today’s meeting, though toothless, is a wake-up call to the world," Campbell said.

Campbell said whale protection "is not a sprint – it is a marathon. "We need to strengthen our resolve and vigor and we need more effort, more organization and more resources to underpin our commitment to permanent global whale protection. Australia and the pro-conservation coalition will not give up the fight," he said.

Minke whale (Photo by Amy Van Atten courtesy U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service)

There was some positive evidence of increases in abundance for several of the populations of humpback, blue and right whales in the Southern Hemisphere, although they remain at reduced levels compared to their pre-whaling numbers, the IWC said. Information remains lacking for other populations.

Special attention was paid to the status of the endangered western North Pacific gray whale, whose feeding grounds coincide with oil and gas operations off Russia's Sakhalin Island.

"The population numbers only about 122 animals," the Scientific Committee said, "and although there is evidence that it has been increasing at perhaps three percent per year over the last decade, any additional deaths, for example in fishing gear as has recently occurred, put the survival of the population in doubt."

Confrontation Over Southern Ocean Whaling Shapes Up for Austral Summer 2006-2007

Greenpeace announced on Friday that it intends to return to the Southern Ocean this year "to oppose Japan’s continued ‘scientific hunt’ which will target 935 minke whales and 10 endangered fin whales."

Greenpeace ship confronts Japanese whaler in the Southern Ocean December 2005. (Photo courtesy Greenpeace)

"This year Greenpeace will once again challenge the whalers on the high seas, the question is what are the anti-whaling countries prepared to do?" challenged Rattenbury.

The Sea Shepherd also plans to be in the Southern Ocean confronting the Japanese whalers.

Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson said, "Japan will not make any gains this year at the IWC and for another year at least the whales are safe on paper under the law. However the renegade illegal activities of Japan and Norway will continue and once again we must voyage to the remote and hostile waters of the Southern Oceans to search out and stop the illegal slaughter.

"Japan’s failure to control the IWC keeps the legal credibility for our intervention solidly in our court," said Watson. "Once again we will be hunting criminal whalers in Antarctic waters."

Although Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd will both send ships to block Japanese whalers, and both groups sent ships to the Southern Ocean last year, the two organizations are not cooperating in this campaign.

Watson says the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society approached Greenpeace in June 2005 with a request to work in partnership to jointly oppose Japanese whaling in the Southern Oceans. "Greenpeace refused to communicate with Sea Shepherd and took the position that Sea Shepherd crews were overly aggressive towards whaling," Watson said Friday.

"I was hoping we could play good policeman and bad policeman with the whalers," said Watson. "Greenpeace told us they were not interested in cooperation and did not support our tactics of directly interfering with the killing of whales, preferring to 'bear witness' to the killing to report it to the world."

Crew members on the deck of the Sea Shepherd vessel Farley Mowat get ready to confront a Japanese research whaler. December 2005. (Photo courtesy Sea Shepherd)

Watson's involvement with the group that was to form Greenpeace began in 1969 when he was a Sierra Club member protesting on the U.S. and Canadian border against the nuclear testing at Alaska's Amchitka Island by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. He was a crew member on one of two Greenpeace ships that sailed to Alaska in protest of the testing in 1971.

In 1974, Watson, Bob Hunter and others organized the first Greenpeace campaign to oppose whaling. In June 1975, Hunter and Watson were the first people to put their lives on the line to protect whales when Watson placed his inflatable Zodiac between a Russian harpoon vessel and a pod of sperm whales.

Sea Shepherd is not officially present at the IWC meeting because it is the only organization banned from attending. Watson says "this is due to the fact that Sea Shepherd is the only organization that directly intervenes against illegal whaling."

"We don’t protest whaling," said Sea Shepherd International Director Jonny Vasic. "We intervene against illegal whaling by acting to uphold the international treaties and regulations protecting whales."

Sea Shepherd does have unofficial representation at the IWC. This year's IWC Vice Chair Horst Kleinschmidt of South Africa, is a director of the Sea Shepherd in South Africa and a member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's International Advisory Board.

Although the Japanese have not won any major votes at the IWC meeting, conservationists in Frigate Bay say they cannot relax.

"We are gravely concerned, but not disheartened," said Singh of IFAW. "The moratorium on commercial whaling remains and we may see further shifts in voting at this very meeting later this week. Whatever happens here in the coming days, we will continue working inside and outside the IWC to build a better world for animals and people and to protect whales for future generations to see."

The IWC meeting continues in St. Kitts through Tuesday. For next year, the commission accepted Chile’s offer to host the annual meeting.