Japan on Friday insisted that it no longer hunts endangered sei whales in international waters, but faced accusations of still contravening a wildlife treaty by allowing commercialization of meat from past catches.
In October last year, the standing committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) found Japan in breach of the treaty and ordered it to rectify the situation or face trade sanctions.
The elected panel, which handles the treaty’s compliance and enforcement, dismissed Japan’s claims that the cull since 2002 of about 1,500 North Pacific sei whales was only scientifically motivated.
Instead, it found that the hunt was primarily commercially motivated, and thus constituted international trade in a protected species and a clear breach of the treaty.
Japan told the committee meeting in Geneva on Friday that it no longer permits the hunting of sei whales on the high seas and is therefore in compliance with CITES.
“This matter should be considered closed,” a member of the Japanese delegation said, a day before a global conference of all 183 countries that have signed the treaty begins in Geneva.
However, committee members from a range of countries, including the EU, Israel, Niger, Peru and the US, disagreed.
Many voiced outrage at the continued sale of meat and blubber from the whales deemed to have been illegally culled and imported over a 16-year period.
According to conservationists, 1,500 tonnes of meat from 131 sei whales killed last year alone have been commercialized in Japan, and sei whale meat remains widely available in shops and restaurants in the country.
“It is truly shocking,” the representative from Niger told the meeting, maintaining that when illegal international trade is detected in other endangered species, such as elephant ivory, the stockpiles are ordered confiscated and destroyed.
The EU representative agreed, pointing to Article 8 of the convention, which he said “requires ... confiscating specimens traded, or in this case introduced from the sea, in violation of CITES.”
Japan meanwhile said that it had immediately followed the committee’s October ruling, but balked at the idea that it should be applied retroactively.
In the end, the committee ordered Japan to report back on its use of the sei whale stockpiles, but put off the thorny discussion on confiscation until next year.
Juan Carlos Vasquez, in charge of legal affairs at the CITES secretariat, told reporters that the issue was complex and would likely spark a lengthy debate, but said he did not think it was fair to compare Japan’s sei whale meat stockpile with stockpiles of illegal ivory.
The illegal ivory trade is “clearly conducted by criminal syndicates,” he said, stressing that Japan’s sei whale hunt is conducted by scientific institutes.
“Everything is traced, registered, controlled,” he said, adding that while CITES had rebuked Japan over its motives for the whaling, it was clear that “these are not criminals hunting whales.”
While Japan remains bound by CITES international wildlife trade restrictions, it has withdrawn from the International Whaling Commission, enabling it last month to resume commercial whaling in its territorial waters for the first time in decades.
It has allotted itself a hunting quota of 227 of the giant sea mammals this year, including 25 sei whales.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
RSS