Comment

Comment by Boris on September 11, 2018 at 1:01pm

Delegation at the International Whaling Commission argues stocks have recovered enough to allow ‘sustainable’ hunting

Justin McCurry in Tokyo and Graham Readfearn in Brisbane

Tue 11 Sep 2018 00.17 EDT
Last modified on Tue 11 Sep 2018 02.57 EDT

Shares
510
A minke whale is landed at a port in Kushiro on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido on in 2017
A minke whale is landed at a port in Kushiro on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido in 2017. Photograph: Kyodo News/Kyodo News via Getty Images

Japan has launched a controversial bid to end the ban on commercial whaling, claiming that populations of certain types of whale have recovered sufficiently to allow the resumption of “sustainable” hunting.

Representatives of Japan’s 70-strong delegation at this week’s International Whaling Commission [IWC] meeting in Florianópolis, Brazil, argued that the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling was intended to be a temporary measure, and accused the IWC of abandoning its original purpose – managing the sustainable use of global whale stocks.

“Science is clear: there are certain species of whales whose population is healthy enough to be harvested sustainably,” the Japanese proposal, titled Way Forward, said. “Japan proposes to establish a committee dedicated to sustainable whaling (including commercial whaling and aboriginal subsistence whaling).”
Japan killed 50 whales in Antarctic protected area, data shows
Read more

The proposal called for a change to the IWC’s decision-making process in an attempt to end what it called years of “intolerance” and “confrontation” between pro- and anti-whaling countries.

It would allow https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/11/japan-launches-bid-to...