Pro-Whaling Countries Criticize IWC
Posted on February 17, 2007
Posted UnderSVG News |
More than 30 pro-whaling countries are pointing fingers at the International Whaling Commission for not allowing small-scale whaling in Japan while authorizing such whaling in four other countries. The pro-whaling countries say the actions show the multilateral body’s “double standard.”
The participants in what is called the “Conference for the Normalization of the International Whaling Commission,” which ended the same day, endorsed a statement saying that “all members of the IWC should be treated with respect” and that “allowing aboriginal subsistence whaling quotas while rejecting Japan’s small-type coastal whaling and rejecting available scientific advice demonstrates the dysfunctional nature of the IWC.”
The IWC authorizes small-scale whaling known as “aboriginal subsistence whaling” of bowhead whales in Alaska and gray whales in Washington, of bowhead whales and gray whales in Chukotka in Russia, of fin whales and minke whales in Greenland and of humpback whales in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
Japan wants to catch a limited number of minke whales every year in areas 10 nautical miles or more off the Pacific coast of northern Japan, excluding the Okhotsk Sea, in order to support small communities which the government says once thrived on coastal whaling but have suffered from being unable to catch minke whales.
Japan halted commercial whaling in line with an IWC moratorium, which was decided in 1982 and became effective in 1986. It started research whaling, as allowed by the IWC, in Antarctic waters in late 1987 and in the northwestern Pacific in 1994, but critics say this is a mere cover for commercial hunting.
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.