Maori are unlikely to meet international criteria allowing whaling by indigenous groups, the New Zealand commissioner to the International Whaling Commission, Jim McLay, told MPs yesterday.
New Zealand, through the commission, opposes the resumption of commercial whaling. However, it has consistently supported requests by indigenous people for subsistence whaling quotas, where they meet commission criteria.
Waitangi Fisheries Commission member Archie Taiaroa has said Maori oppose whaling commission rules limiting indigenous harvesting to subsistence levels.
Subsistence means no trade and no possibility of investing in humane methods of killing the whales.
Mr McLay told a parliamentary committee that Maori faced two hurdles to being granted indigenous whaling rights.
"The first is the New Zealand legislation that protects marine mammals, which is very clear and unequivocal.
"Secondly, they would have to meet the criteria of the commission."
That meant proving that Maori had a tradition of whaling, and establishing that they needed whale meat to subsist, he said.
"I think it would be very difficult to meet those criteria - any indigenous people who made a request would have to meet those two criteria."
Mr McLay, making it clear that he had no domestic mandate, said Maori had historically harvested stranded whales for carving bones and, less often, for meat.
There was no particular history of Maori whaling, but a considerable history of access to stranded whales.
Maori had consistently indicated they had no interest in whaling, Mr McLay said. He had met the fisheries commission to discuss the issues.
The Waitangi commission and several South Island iwi intend to co-host the third assembly of the World Council of Whalers, a pro-whaling organisation, in Nelson in November.
Asked if Japan was seeking to advance its commercial interests through the World Council, Mr McLay said he was unwilling to speculate.
"But it is correct to say I for some years have expressed concern ... at the attempt to blur the distinction between aboriginal subsistence whaling and commercial whaling."
The committee met briefly in private to allow Mr McLay to expand his views.
New Zealand and Australia last month failed in a bid for a South Pacific whale sanctuary.
The vote, at the whaling commission's annual meeting in Adelaide, needed a 75 per cent majority and the result was seen as a major victory for Japan, which led the opposition to a sanctuary bordering those in the Indian and Southern Oceans.
- NZPA
Maori whaling faces two hurdles
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