The International Whaling Commission (IWC) on Tuesday agreed to renew quotas for whale hunts by natives in the US and Russia, but deferred Greenland's bid for a quota expansion.
A unanimous decision endorsing the five-year quota extensions for the Alaskan natives in the US and the indigenous Chukotka people in Russia as well as natives in the St Vincent and the Grenadines was made at the IWC annual talks in Anchorage, Alaska.
The 75-nation commission manages whaling and is in charge of conservation of the large creatures.
Even though it imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986, it has a policy of allowing so-called subsistence hunts for natives in the four nations to satisfy longstanding cultural and subsistence needs.
Officials said Greenland's bid was put on hold as it sought a quota increase from 175 to 200 minke whales and its fin whale hunt from a voluntary cap of 10 to 19 per year.
The semi-autonomous Danish territory also wanted to add 10 humpbacks per year and two bowhead whales, neither of which have been hunted in Greenland for decades.
IWC chief William Hogarth urged Denmark to review its proposal in a spirit of "compromise" and return to the meeting for further discussions.
Amalie Jessen, Denmark's alternate commissioner to the IWC, said: "We will negotiate," but declined to provide any possible new quota numbers.
The US heaved a sigh of relief with its renewal of the bowhead whale hunting quotas for the Inupia and Yup'ik peoples of Alaska after intensively lobbying among IWC members.
Hogarth, who is also the US chief representative at the commission, thanked IWC members states for the unanimous decision and called on them to maintain the spirit of consensus.
The US quota has been used in the past as a bargaining tool by Japan to try to gain approval for its community-whaling quotas.
There were speculations Japan had tried to win US support for its plan for Japanese traditional coastal communities to catch whales under the same rules allowing aboriginal peoples to hunt whales.
A large number of pro-whaling countries vote with Japan at the IWC and green groups had warned the US not to cave in to pressure.
The scientific basis for the US proposal is good and "it is sustainable hunt and we support sustainable whaling," Japanese alternative commissioner to the IWC, Joji Morishita, said as he backed the US request.
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