Japan, Norway fail to overturn whale ban
NAIROBI: Japan and Norway failed on Saturday in their controversial bid to
overturn an international ban on the commercial trade in whales.
Government delegates from 150 nations at the U.N. Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) rejected four separate
proposals to allow trade in specific populations of gray and minke whales.
Japan presented three proposals and Norway one. They needed a two-thirds
majority but were in a minority in each vote.
Both countries said opening controlled trade would have done nothing to
endanger the whale populations in question and that CITES was being led by
``fundamentalists'' opposed to the whale trade under any circumstances.
``This is a very small defeat for Norway but a very large defeat for science
and international cooperation,'' said Peter Schei, who led Norway's team at
the meeting in Kenya. ``The fundamentalists have decided they will not
reopen whaling trade despite any scientific evidence that any whale
population can withstand it,'' he said. Opponents were delighted by the
votes, pointing out that Japan and Norway won less support this time than
for almost identical proposals at the last CITES meeting in 1997. Japan
wanted approval for the trade in gray whales of the north Pacific and minke
whales of the southern hemisphere around Antarctica, and of the west
Pacific.
Norway's proposal referred to the minke whale population of the north
Atlantic. Conservationists Warned Of Disaster Conservation group Greenpeace
International said trade in any whale population would have an impact on all
others. ``Allowing trade would only encourage illegal whaling and spell
disaster for whale populations the world over,'' spokesman John Frizell
said.
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) imposed a worldwide moratorium on
commercial whaling in 1986, but Norway objected to the ban and has continued
hunting. It caught almost 600 minke whales in its coastal waters last year
and Japan took over 400 minkes, mostly in Antarctica, under a clause
allowing catches for scientific research. Norwegians eat whale meat as
steaks or in stews but do not consume the blubber, which in Japan is a
delicacy, eaten raw. Blubber oil is also used in burning lamps and the oil
of sperm whales, when they were hunted, was used in making perfume. Norway
has a ``blubber mountain'' in stocks which it would have exported to Japan
if the trade ban had been lifted. Neither country exports whale products
elsewhere.
The two nations bring up the issue at every IWC and CITES meeting but have
been unable to overturn the hunting and trade bans despite developing
monitoring systems, including DNA tracking schemes, which they say would
prevent the formation of an illegal market in whale meat. Schei said Norway
may now consider ignoring the trade ban when the whale hunting season starts
later this month. The gray whale, which can grow to 15 meters (yards) in
length and 35 tons in weight, is best known for its annual round-trip
migration to the warm bays of Baja California in Mexico -- where they mate,
give birth and nurse -- and subsequent return to the waters of Alaska.
Trade in the gray whale has been outlawed since 1949 because uncontrolled
whaling had put it on the verge of extinction. Its numbers have since
recovered to anywhere between 22,000 and 32,000, the vast majority of them
in the eastern north Pacific between Russian and Siberia. Minke whales are
the most abundant of the great whales with more than a million swimming the
world's oceans. They have pointed heads and can grow to 10 meters (yards)
and 10 tons. (Reuters)
For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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