Pro-whaling countries led by Japan failed to muster a majority yesterday at the annual whaling commission meeting, in a setback for their hopes to control its agenda and eventually overturn a nearly two-decade ban on commercial whale hunts.
A pair of Japanese proposals were defeated. The first, to delete discussion of whale sanctuaries from the five-day meeting's agenda, was voted down 29-28 while the second, to introduce secret balloting, failed 30-27. Both tallies were seen as a test of whether whaling advocates have built a majority among the 66 members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
A majority would give pro-whaling countries broad authority to set the commission's agenda. However, it would still fall far short of the three-fourth's vote required to overturn the moratorium on commercial whaling.
The Cambridge, England-based commission that regulates whaling banned commercial hunts in 1986, handing environmentalists a major victory in protecting species that were near extinction after centuries of whaling.
Norway holds the world's only commercial whaling season in defiance of the ban. Japan kills whales for what it describes as scientific research, but sells the meat. Japan, Norway and other nations this year are expected to take more than 1,550 whales.
New Zealand, Australia and conservationist groups such as Greenpeace oppose any expansion of whaling.
Japan is against new whale sanctuaries and proposed that this issue -- and others opposed by pro-whaling countries -- be pushed off the agenda at the opening of the commission's annual general assembly in South Korea.
"That was a defeat for Japan," New Zealand Conservation Minister Chris Carter said after the first vote.
IWC Commissioner Henrik Fischer of Denmark ruled that the meeting's agenda was to be adopted as is.
A simple majority of pro-whaling nations would be able to pass resolutions favoring their stance, including ones that express support for Japan's research program or voice backing for the resumption of limited kills.
"Transparency and democratic principles at the IWC are safe for another year," said Patrick Ramage, director of communications at the US-based International Fund for Animal Welfare, after the motion on secret ballots was rejected.
Japan and its allies, which include many small nations such as the Solomon Islands and St. Kitts and Nevis, say secret ballots protect smaller countries from intimidation by larger ones.
Anti-whaling countries, including the UK, rejected that view. Secret ballots "are against the tradition of transparency," Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw said during the pre-vote debate.
The US earlier this month urged against any expansion in what Tokyo calls its research hunt, with its research agency National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration saying any increase in the "number or type of whales killed and marketed under the guise of science is unacceptable."
Last year's whaling panel meeting ended with a resolution for Japan to halt its research program. That generated angry calls in Tokyo for the country to retaliate by quitting the group, or at least withhold funding.
"More and more people are starting to say, `Why do you stay in the IWC?,'" Japanese lawmaker Yoshimasa Hayashi said earlier.
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