JAPAN: Tokyo Persists with Bid to Lift Whaling Ban

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Nov 13 1997 (IPS) - Japan may have lost the latest round in its quest to have an 11-year-old international moratorium on commercial whaling lifted, but the country is far from giving up on its controversial campaign.

In fact, Japan sees a positive, if modest, step forward in last month’s talks on the issue during the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which enforced the ban in 1986 to curb the overhunting of whale populations especially in the Antartic Ocean.

Though the commission voted to uphold the moratorium on whale fishing in the Antartic Ocean, Japanese officials are quick to point out that more members voted for reviewing the ban than at previous meetings. Twelve of the 32 participants at the IWC meeting in Monaco voted in favour of an easing of the moratorium, compared to eight last year.

“This is a sign of the fact that the whaling issue is being considered on a sustainable harvesting basis and not the emotional wrangling that takes over discussions usually,” said Nobuyuki Yagi, head of the whaling division in the Fisheries Agency.

At the Monaco meeting in late October, Japan requested a catch of 50 minke whales on its coasts, saying stocks of the species have grown enough over the years to allow sustainable harvesting.

Japan says small-scale, coastal whaling is vital for its four traditional coastal whaling communities, which have been hit hard by the curbs on whaling and are estimated to number some 50,000 families. Tokyo has been lobbying the IWC to acquire special status for these communities, akin to that of whaling communities in Alaska and Greenland.

But the commission rejected the appeal. Sixteen anti-whaling members that included the U.S., Australia, France and Brazil maintained that the quota sought by Japan smacked of a resumption of commercial whaling.

Of the decision, Yagi said: “The IWC continues to ignore our requests despite growing scientific evidence that points to the possibility of a gradual resumption of sustainable whaling. We will keep on fighting.”

Conservationists argue that the risks in allowing Japan to resume whaling are too big. Mariko Abe of World Wildlife Fund Japan says scientific evidence produced by Tokyo does not match those of other scientists who say concrete data is still hard to produce. “Against a background of uncertainty we believe he best possible decision is to continue the ban,” she said.

Still, Yagi indicated that Japan, buoyed by what it hopes may be a new line of thinking among members, will also continue to push for a resumption next year of a limited catch of minke whales in the Southern Ocean above Antartica, which was declared a sanctuary in 1994.

“The latest meeting is cause for optimism,” Yagi said. “Japan will not change its stance for a scientific management basis in IWC decisions.”

Under a provision in the IWC’s rules that allow countries to issue permits to take whales for scientific research, Japan is able to each year harvest hundreds of minke whales, the smallest of the baleen whales, from Antartica.

This practice has come under fire from conservationists who accuse Tokyo of using “scientific research” as a cloak for commercial whaling to fill market demand.

Last month, the IWC issued a resolution urging Japan to stop the practice, though Tokyo is pressing ahead. On Nov 11, Greenpeace said a five-ship fleet, including three catcher boats and a factory ship for processing whales, left Japan for the Antartica to do “scientific whaling”.

“To call this research is an insult to science,” Greenpeace campaigner John Frizzell said in a statement. “This is a fleet without a scientific mission. The real reason for this voyage is to provide whale meat to keep the market open in Japan.”

The IWC meeting highlighted a debate between those who think it best not to tamper with the whaling ban, and those who say limited commercial whaling may be allowed after some whale populations have recovered from overexploitation seen in the sixties.

Japan presented evidence that it said showed the number of minke whales in the Southern Ocean to be growing, so that a limited catch would not endanger stocks.

In 1995, an international whaling policy paper by the U.S. estimated the minke population in the Southern Ocean at some 760,000. In the North Atlantic, populations are estimated to be around 110,000 animals. Conservative models, reportedly including one by the IWC itself, have estimated a sustainable harvest level of at 2,000 minkes annually.

Between them, Japan and Norway — a country that has an old whaling culture and rejects the IWC ban on commercial whaling — harvest more than 1,000 whales a year. Norway took more than 500 minkes from the North Atlantic during this year’s whaling season, and Japan takes some 540 minkes from the Antartic each year.

Some critics say the IWC misses the point that many whale species are recovering from overhunting. Even with a world population of more than one million minkes, “the IWC still considers them threatened with extinction”, argued Michael de Alessi of the U.S.-based Centre for Private Conservation.

“Norway and Japan are maligned for their continued whaling, but their hunts hardly pose a threat to whale populations,” he said in a published commentary.

Japan’s case does not seem to be aided any by the fact that meat from “scientific catches” have been sold in its markets. Tokyo officials have said this did not indicate commercial whaling but was in keeping with an IWC rule that whales killed for research purposes should not be wasted.

The rare meat fetches high prices and is bought by primary schools for school lunches and some restaurants, where a dish of whale meat costs some 42 U.S. dollars. Conservationists say some whale meat sold in the market have come from illegal catches by other countries, such as Norway.

The consumption of whale meat goes back a long way in Japan. It was cheap, popular food just after the Pacific War, when desperately poor people could not afford other types of meat. But critics argue that as its economic strength has grown, Japan has no reason to depend on whale meat any more for food.

Changing attitudes are also evident from younger Japanese’ enthusiasm for recently introduced whale-sighting tours.

Still, the Japanese government’s position is supported by some of its scientists who say the IWC is unfair to nations like Japan and Norway. Professor Rinristu Kawakami of Kyoto University advised Japan not to buckle under the IWC, which he argued has been “overtaken by countries like the U.S. and Britain”.