Japan’s whaling ambitions were dealt a symbolic blow on Wednesday when the International Whaling Commission voted to urge Tokyo to cut its scientific whale hunt.
Although the vote puts more political pressure on Japan, it will be still able to expand its scientific whaling as the project is not regulated by commission rules. Critics say Japan’s program is a commercial hunt dressed up as data collection.
The resolution passed by a majority vote in Ulsan -- a former whaling port in the southeast of the Korean peninsula -- is just one of several dozen passed over the years at commission meetings that have chastised Japan for its scientific whaling program.
“This means that Japan has no moral authority to go whaling in the southern ocean,” said Chris Carter, New Zealand’s conservation minister.
“It is a statement that a majority of countries at the IWC do not support scientific whaling, which we see as a cover for commercial whaling,” Carter told Reuters.
Japan could pull out
After the defeat on this issue and other proposals brought by Japan, a senior official from Japan’s delegation said Tokyo will consider leaving the IWC, a threat Japan has made before.
“One of our options is is withdrawing from this organization,” said Joji Morishita, senior international affairs officer at Japan’s Fisheries Agency and Japan’s alternate commissioner at the IWC.
Japan’s well-flagged plan to expand its research work made public at the start of the IWC’s annual meeting on Monday includes nearly doubling its annual catch of minke whales to about 900 and eventually hunting 50 fin and humpback whales a year -- two types of whales conservationists say are threatened.
Commission member states voted 30 for and 27 against, with 1 abstention, to support a non-binding resolution brought by Australia that calls on Japan to scrap the expansion.
Morishita said the science is real and the debate over its program has become overheated.
Much of the meat from whales killed under Japan’s scientific programs ends up on store shelves or in up-scale restaurants, rather than in laboratories. Japan maintains that killing whales helps them study what they eat, among other things.
“Science and law should prevail over emotions. We believe our research has been supported by science,” said Morishita.
Sanctuary saved
Anti-whaling countries also thwarted a Japanese-led attempt to abolish a whale sanctuary in the southern seas by a five-vote margin.
Japan proposed abolishing a “Southern Ocean Sanctuary” set up by the commission to protect whales in southern seas from commercial whaling. Japan can still conduct its scientific whaling in those seas because of loopholes in the rules.
Conservationists say the southern oceans are an essential breeding and feeding ground for endangered whale species.
Whaling states such as Japan and Norway say whaling is a cherished part of their culture.
Yet any major shift in Ulsan seems unlikely because the commission is nearly evenly divided and it takes a three-quarters majority to approve any policy change.
On Tuesday, Japan lost a vote on its proposal to resume commercial whaling under regulations it advocated.
The north Asian country has argued the commission is focusing too much on conservation and not enough on its original mission of regulating commercial whaling.
Latin American countries and South Africa won a majority on Wednesday to set up a South Atlantic sanctuary to prohibit commercial whaling, but the majority was not large enough to implement the plan.
