A “peace plan” by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to legitimize, but reduce whaling drew fire yesterday as Japan demanded higher quotas and environmentalists warned of serious harm to the ocean giants.
The chairman of the 88-nation commission, seeking to end decades of bitter conflict between its pro and anti-whaling members, unveiled on Thursday the compromise proposal to be voted on at a June meeting in Morocco.
Under the draft proposal, Japan, Iceland and Norway would reduce their whale kills over the next decade, subject to tight monitoring, with Japan eventually cutting its Antarctic whale culls by three quarters.
The IWC said in a statement that the “10-year peace plan” would save thousands of whales and present “a great step forward in terms of the conservation of whales and the management of whaling.”
However, it was roundly criticized by anti-whaling nations and environmental groups, which charged that it would end the moratorium in all but name and risked reviving a dwindling industry in whale meat.
“It will be a major achievement if, despite some fundamental differences ... countries can put these differences aside for a period to focus on ensuring the world has healthy whale stocks,” IWC chair Cristian Maquieira said.
Japan reacted by saying it would push for higher cull quotas than those outlined in the proposal. Japan, which now targets more than 900 whales in its annual Antarctic hunts, would have to reduce that number to about 400 whales in the next season and to just over 200 a year from the 2015 to 2016 season onwards.
It would also be allowed to catch 120 whales a year in its coastal waters.
Japanese Fisheries Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu, while welcoming the endorsement of coastal whaling, said: “Regarding the total catch allowed, it is different from Japan’s position. We want to continue negotiating with patience.”
However, several environmental groups voiced deep concern.
“This is probably the biggest threat to the ban on commercial whaling that we’ve faced since it came into force,” said Nicolas Entrup of the Munich-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.
Greenpeace said the proposal would reward whaling nations.
“It’s a bit like a bank robber who keeps robbing the bank. You can’t actually catch him, so you decide to just give him a big pile of money,” its oceans campaigner Phil Kline said.
The World Wide Fund for Nature’s species program manager Wendy Elliott charged that the proposed quotas were “a result of political bargaining, which has little if anything to do with the whales themselves.”
Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett said Canberra could not accept the proposal and added that “the government remains resolutely opposed to commercial and so-called ‘scientific’ whaling.”
In Wellington, New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully called the catch limits unrealistic and said “New Zealanders will not accept this.”
The US, which helped spearhead the compromise, withheld a final judgment.
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