Japan is unsure whether it has the votes to start chipping away at a two-decade-old ban on commercial whaling, a Japanese official said on the eve a global whaling group's annual meeting.
FRIGATE BAY, St. Kitts and Nevis — Japan is unsure whether it has the votes to start chipping away at a two-decade-old ban on commercial whaling, a Japanese official said on the eve a global whaling group's annual meeting.
Anti-whaling nations such as Australia and environmental and animal welfare groups had feared that Tokyo might finally have rustled up sufficient support in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to pass measures that would turn the agency's mission away from protecting the Earth's largest creatures.
"Actually we don't know, and that's the problem," Japan's alternate commissioner to the IWC, Joji Morishita, told Reuters Thursday, when asked if he expected to secure a majority at the June 16-20 meeting in the Caribbean island state of St Kitts and Nevis.
Morishita said that on paper the IWC now had 70 members, and that some observers calculated from 33 to 36 of them would vote to support Japan.
But as at the last IWC meeting in South Korea, some would undoubtedly be disqualified from voting for not having paid their membership dues, while others might not turn up.
"So until tomorrow morning we just cannot tell how many countries they have or we have. My general feeling is 50-50," Morishita said.
Japan has abided by the moratorium on commercial whaling since it came into force in 1986, but uses a loophole that allows for scientific whaling. Its fleets brought back 850 minke whales from Antarctic waters last season and 10 fin whales, and it plans to start hunting humpbacks soon.
Iceland also conducts scientific whaling while Norway, the only nation to defy the international ban, has set its hunters a quota this year of 1,052 minke whales, a small species whose meat is eaten as steaks.
Japan has long sought to wrest control of the IWC away from protectionists who have dominated it for three decades, and to turn it back into an organization that regulates whaling in a sustainable manner. It needs 75 percent of votes to overturn the moratorium itself but can use a slim majority to water down the ban by changing the focus of the IWC.
Anti-whaling nations, led by Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, argue that whale-watching is more lucrative than killing them, and that the majestic creatures still need protection after being almost hunted to extinction.
The pro-whaling nations say some species, like the minkes, are plentiful, but acknowledge others need protection.
The anti-whaling lobby gathered in St Kitts was as cautious as the Japanese about placing bets on the meeting's outcome.
"Oh, I think it's really a line ball," Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell told Reuters as he arrived. Campbell was referring to a ball in rugby, or tennis, hitting the line and just as likely to be called in as out.
Environmental activists Greenpeace, who face a Japanese censure motion at the IWC meeting for harassing Tokyo's whaling fleet, concurred that the balance of power was more precarious than had been thought a week before.
Guatemala, for example, is a new member expected to side with Japan, but it dropped plans to attend due to a sudden outburst of public opposition to the government's intention to back whaling, said Greenpeace International spokesman Mike Townsley.
"I think they (the Japanese) are feeling more nervous. They're not as bullish," Townsley said. "At the end of the day, it'll come down to bums on seats Friday morning."
Source: Reuters
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