Whaling Commission rocked by shock vote

The 20-year-old ban on commercial whaling remained intact today, but the International Whaling Commission entered unknown territory after a majority of its members voted to overturn the moratorium.

With a vote of 33-32 late last night, Japan and a collection of supporters in the Caribbean and Africa pushed through a symbolic resolution embracing a return to commercial whaling.

And while they still lack the 75% majority needed to overturn the ban, the victory has energised pro-whaling countries like never before.

Now Japan, Norway, Iceland, Russia and other whaling nations are setting their sights on returning the IWC to its roots as a group that manages the world’s whale population, rather than trying to prevent the killing of whales altogether.

“We will not take revenge against anti-whaling nations,” Joji Morishita, chief spokesman for the Japanese delegation. “This is the beginning of a rational process of returning the IWC to a management organisation.”

Vassili Papastavrou, a whale biologist for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said nothing would change, since Japan and Iceland already hunted whales under the auspices of scientific research and Norway ignored the 1986 IWC ban altogether.

“Vote or no vote, 2,400 whales will be killed in the next 12 months,” he said.

The leading pro-whaling nations revelled in their symbolic victory at the IWC meeting on St Kitts in the Caribbean. After years of encouraging small and developing nations to join the IWC – while also financing and building their seafood industries – these countries gained legitimacy in an organisation long dominated by whaling opponents.

Australia’s Minister for the Environment, Ian Campbell, one of the IWC’s most vocal critics of whaling, said he welcomed a public battle for the future of the organisation after the meeting ends tomorrow.

“The anger expressed by the world when they see the first humpback hauled on board of a Japanese whaling ship will make my job a lot easier,” said Campbell, referring to Japan’s plan to kill 50 humpback whales in 2007 and 2008 as part of its scientific whaling programme.

Japan and other countries will hold a meeting later today to set a strategy for recasting the organisation’s mission.

Both camps maintain a core group of supportive nations. And both Campbell and Morishita said they would encourage new countries to join the IWC between now and next year’s meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.