Whaling body agonises over moves to lift ban

8.15am


SORRENTO, Italy - The International Whaling Commission (IWC), struggling to heal a rift between hunters and conservationists, edged towards agreeing new rules on Tuesday that could allow a return to commercial whaling.

On the second day of sometimes ill-tempered talks, the 57 member countries examined a draft plan that alarms green groups because, if adopted, it could signal the eventual end of the IWC's 18-year-old whaling ban.

The proposal, drafted by IWC chairman Henrik Fischer of Denmark, suggests ways of ensuring whalers do not exceed quotas by such measures as on-board inspectors and DNA sampling.

Major whaling nation Japan urged delegates to use Fischer's paper as a basis for negotiation.

"The completion of the RMS (revised management scheme) is the most important mission for the IWC," Japanese delegate Minoru Morimoto said. "If it does not (agree) the IWC's raison d'etre is at stake."

The package is unlikely to be adopted this week because it needs approval by 75 per cent of members. But if the IWC agrees to use the text as the basis for further talks, it would bring an agreement and a possible resumption of wide-scale hunting much closer.

Fischer hopes the proposal will be agreed at the next IWC meeting in South Korea next year. Japan has said it will quit the body if the proposal is not adopted.

Japan has applied to hunt more than 3000 minke whales, a species it says is plentiful, for meat that could be worth US$300 million ($463.1 million).

That request has no chance of being approved under the current ban but is an example of hunting that might be allowed under a return to commercial whaling.

Moderates in the anti-whaling camp -- countries such as Ireland, Brazil and the Netherlands -- said the compromise proposal was not stringent enough to prevent cheating and abuse but that it could be a starting point for negotiations.

Hard-liners Britain, New Zealand and Australia rejected it. "We find the proposal fatally flawed, we will strongly oppose it in its present form," New Zealand delegate Geoffrey Palmer said.

Animal welfare groups say whaling should never be allowed because of the risk to species and the cruelty to creatures believed to be intelligent and highly sentient.

Earlier in the day, the IWC agreed a motion saying the oil and gas industry threatened the survival of a tiny colony of endangered grey whales near Russia's Pacific coast.

"The onset of oil and gas development programmes is of particular concern with regard to the survival of this population," the IWC said.

The resolution focused on the Sakhalin Island region where two consortia led by Royal Dutch/Shell and Exxon Mobil are already producing oil and gas and a third including BP is starting to drill.

The IWC said it was "a matter of absolute urgency" to protect the grey whales, of which there is only one other colony in the world, off the western coast of North America.

The sonar used during seismic surveys to locate oil and gas reserves interferes with the sounds whales use to communicate and to navigate, and possible oil spills threaten to pollute their habitat.

The barnacle-encrusted grey whales, which grow to about 40 tonnes, have a huge migratory pattern, swimming some 24,000km in a round trip from their Arctic habitats to mating grounds in the south.

- REUTERS