Japan to continue push for commercial whaling

2.30pm

SHIMONOSEKI, Japan - It was business as usual at the Karato fish market on Thursday as early morning customers picked over the boiled whale and whale bacon on offer, just a short taxi ride away from the opening session of the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission.

Japan, long criticised for its "scientific" whaling programme, will push again with fellow whaler Norway for a lifting of a ban on commercial whaling at the meetings, being held in one of Japan's oldest whaling ports.

A lifting of the ban is unlikely this time, but Japanese officials hope to win more support for sustainable use of whale species such as minkes, which they say are numerous.

"Before the actual resumption of commercial whaling, we have to overcome many hurdles," Joji Morishita, deputy director of the Fisheries Agency's Far Seas Fisheries Division, told Reuters.

One of the biggest hurdles is that a three-quarters majority of the 43 IWC members would have to vote for lifting the ban.

Morishita said, however, that the balance between the two sides was narrowing steadily.

"For a long time, the anti-whaling side has had a simple majority, but this is changing. The two sides are in a similar power balance, and the voting is very close now.

"At the Shimonoseki meeting, we'd like (to gain) a simple majority," he added. "If that happens, the message from the IWC will change substantially."

Japan abandoned commercial whaling in 1986 in line with an IWC moratorium, but began what it claimed was scientific research whaling the following year.

Japan has announced plans to expand its "research" whaling programme to include sei whales, said by conservationists to be endangered, and this too is likely to stir controversy.

Local authorities were braced for trouble in Shimonoseki, a gritty port city some 825km southwest of Tokyo.

The Coast Guard has increased boat and helicopter patrols near the meeting site overlooking the narrow and busy Kanmon Strait, but activists say any protests would likely be low key.

Some in Shimonoseki hope commercial whaling will resume, remembering boom days when the harbour was full of fishing boats.

"Maybe Shimonoseki would regain some life and the economy would improve," said taxi driver Masaji Yamataka.

"It's pretty sad now."

A key issue for both sides of the whaling debate is just how many whales there are. This is especially true of minkes, which Japan says are no longer in danger and could be safely hunted.

The figure usually quoted is some 760,000 in the Antarctic -- agreed by the IWC in 1990.

"More recent surveys are suggesting slightly lower numbers," said Ray Gambell, a British whale biologist and longtime IWC secretary until he retired two years ago. "But there are still hundreds of thousands of minkes. They're pretty abundant."

Japan says the evidence is conflicting, but that any fall in minkes could be because other whale stocks are growing.

Japan's quota for Antarctic minkes is around 400 a year.

Its northern Pacific fleet also hopes to take 150 minkes, 50 Bryde's whales, 50 sei whales and 10 sperm whales.

Answers on numbers, though, must wait another year since a key survey this spring was postponed due to bad weather.

This vagueness angers conservationists.

"The issue not clear," said Motoji Nagasawa, whale campaigner at Greenpeace Japan. "While there is even the slightest danger, nobody should be whaling."

The IWC meeting begins with the Minke Whale Assessment Group, then continues with a meeting of its Scientific Committee until May 7, followed by sub-committee meetings.

The main plenary session is from May 20 to May 24.

- REUTERS

nzherald.co.nz/environment