Whaling commission to extend negotiations for a year

Yahoo News 24 Jun 09;

FUNCHAL, Portugal (AFP) – International Whaling Commission members agreed Wednesday to extend negotiations over the disputed hunting of the marine mammals for a year, avoiding a disastrous split in the group.

Spokeswoman Jemma Miller said the IWC, which regulates world whaling between hunters and conservationists, recognised that it "is at a crossroads beset by fundamental disagreements as to its nature and purpose."

By consensus the 85-nation IWC agreed to reconstitute a working group set up last year which would "intensify its efforts to conclude a package or packages" by the 2010 IWC conference "at the latest," Miller said at the meeting held on the Portuguese island of Madeira.

IWC chairman William Hogarth supported the call for more consultations.

"There is a will, now we have to find the way. If in 2010 we haven't had any progress, set a course and made some changes, there will be no more delays," he said.

Whales are protected by a moratorium on hunting dating back to 1986 with some exceptions limited by quota.

Regardless of the moratorium, almost 40,000 whales have been killed worldwide since 1985 by countries which refuse to sign up to the IWC treaty, or use loopholes allowing scientific or "lethal" research, or maintaining "aboriginal" or subsistence hunting.

However, some members voiced reservations about more talks, warning that "we're not writing a blank cheque for endless consultations," said Australian Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, a key opponent of the scientific whale hunting practiced by Japan.

The main stumbling block in the negotiations is a proposal to let Japan resume commercial whaling off its coast in exchange for a cut in its scientific whaling in the Antarctic.

Japan, which says whaling is part of its culture, kills more than 1,000 whales a year through a loophole in the treaty that allows the ocean giants to be killed for research, although the meat still ends up on dinner tables.

The Japanese delegate to the conference defended his nation's position.

"We are not asking other countries to eat whale, but to agree to disagree," said Yoshimasa Hayashi.

A delegate from New Zealand warned that unless an agreement is reached by 2010 the whaling organisation is in trouble. "If we fail, the IWC will die," he told the meeting.

Iceland, looking to join the European Union, has significantly raised its self-imposed quotas for this year in a move condemned by countries including Britain, France, Germany and the United States.

Denmark on Tuesday officially requested permission from the IWC to resume hunting humpback whales off Greenland, with a quota of 10 per year for the 2010-2012 period, in a move that has angered environmentalists.

The hunting would be carried out under so-called "aboriginal" or subsistence hunting to support local communities, but opponents say it is unnecessary.

Conservationists also were sceptical about another round of IWC negotiations.

"There has been a year of talking already and no evidence from the new proposal that there will be anything more than talking for another year," said Sara Holden, Greenpeace International's whales campaign coordinator.

Meanwhile, a Norwegian fisheries organisation said Wednesday that Norway's whalers had suspended their hunt mid-season this year with less than half a government quota of 885 whales killed because demand was saturated.

Whaling peace talks 'to continue'
Richard Black, BBC News 23 Jun 09;

Peace talks on whales and whaling are to continue for a further year.

Delegates to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) annual meeting here agreed it was worth extending reform talks that began a year ago.

Pro- and anti-whaling countries emphasised that fundamental differences remain between the two blocs.

Earlier, animal welfare groups released a new report arguing that whaling countries would gain economically by switching to whale-watching.

They calculate that whale-watching
around the world, dwarfing income from whaling, which is measured in tens of millions of dollars.

Potential benefits

In recent years this has become one of a battery of arguments the anti-whaling camp has assembled against the industry.

But with attempts to end hunting in Iceland, Japan and Norway showing little sign of success, anti-whaling countries led by the US embarked last year on talks with Japan and its pro-hunting allies aimed at finding a compromise that everyone could live with.

For the anti-whaling side, potential gains include a possible reduction in the total number of whales being killed each year, greater oversight of hunting, and reform of the IWC's scientific whaling clause under which any country can set its own catch quotas irrespective of the 1982 global moratorium on commercial hunting.

Whaling nations, particularly Japan, see political benefits in making a deal that would reduce the barrage of criticism they receive from whaling's opponents.

Japan also wants to secure quasi-commercial quotas for four coastal communities with a history of whaling.

Divided rules

The talks were supposed to conclude a package deal at this week's meeting, but it became clear last month that this was not going to happen.

Most member nations wanted to continue for another year, but some delegates said before this meeting began that the process could collapse - which, in some people's eyes, would have meant the end of the IWC.

Of the six countries involved in small group talks aimed at developing the compromise "package", Australia has been the most hawkish.

Environment minister Peter Garrett laid out his government's condition for the talks - that they must bring an end to scientific "special permit" whaling as it is currently practiced.

"I do not believe it will be possible to reach any package predicated solely on reductions in the size of certain special permit programmes," he said.

"While Australia certainly wishes to see fewer whales killed under special permit programmes, reductions in catch cannot solve the fundamental problem."

Japan has agreed to refrain from including humpback and fin whales in its annual Antarctic hunt and reduce the number of minke whales targeted from 935 to 600.

However, it is adamant that at this stage it will not concede on the principle, enshrined in the 1946 whaling convention, that each country can set its own quotas for special permit catches.

Japan's whaling commissioner Akira Nakamae responded that his country had made the running so far.

"In the last year during the small working group meetings, Japan declared to make the major concessions including a reduction in the sample size of scientific whaling," he said.

"Even though we disagree with the principle, we could also agree to including a South Atlantic whale sanctuary (a key demand of Latin American countries) as part of the package.

"But we cannot accept that some contracting parties... continue to demand the phase-out of scientific whaling."

The gulf between Australia and Japan may prove hard to bridge over the coming year.

Although on the surface Australia has the backing of its traditional allies - New Zealand, the EU and the US - in private, some members of this bloc are concerned that successive Canberra governments have made whaling into such an emotive public issue that Australia now has no room for diplomatic manoeuvre.