Japan threatens whale conference walkout

The International Whaling Commission ignored threats of a Japanese walkout today and voted to step up efforts to protect whales, adopting a proposal “strengthening the conservation agenda” of the group.

National delegates passed the resolution by 25 votes to 20 after a day long debate opening the commission’s annual meeting in Berlin.

The vote highlighted a split between whaling nations such as Japan, Norway and Iceland, who lined up against the conservation proposal backed by countries including Britain, the US, Mexico, Australia and conference host Germany.

The 31 page proposal, dubbed the Berlin Initiative, calls for forming a committee within the 50 nation IWC to work with wildlife groups and bolster efforts to protect the marine mammals.

Supporters say it would be the commission’s most decisive action since it imposed a global ban on commercial whaling in 1986.

“This initiative marks a milestone in the history of the International Whaling Commission,” said Australian envoy Conall O’Connell adding it would lead to ”a strengthened commission with whale conservation at its heart.”

Japanese officials earlier called for an end to the whaling ban and had threatened a walkout if the measure passed, saying the proposal focuses too much on conservation at the expense of attaining sustainable harvests. Whether Japan would follow through on its threat was not immediately clear.

Shiro Asano, the governor of Japan’s Miyage prefecture, told the meeting that “commercial whaling should be resumed without further procrastination.”

Norway’s chief envoy, Odd Gunnar Skagestad, called the conservation proposal “inappropriate and unfortunate.”

“We fear that this proposal will turn out to be yet another divisive issue which the commission could well do without,” he said.

Objections were backed by Iceland a number of Caribbean and African nations but rejected by the United States, other European nations and South Africa.

“What we want is to strengthen the conservation agenda, no more,” said German delegation leader Peter Bradhering. ”It’s not directed against anyone.”

Japan and other pro-whaling nations like Iceland have often found themselves at odds with the IWC’s majority. Norway has ignored the global ban.

Japan says it will also ask the IWC in Berlin for a special quota on minke whales to be hunted in the country’s coastal waters. Japan likens the proposed quota to those granted to aboriginal whale hunters in places like Alaska and Greenland.

Japanese kill hundreds of whales annually under an IWC exemption for limited “research” hunts.

The government says the hunts help gauge the impact of whale herds on fisheries stocks and provide data on their migration patterns and population trends.

Critics call the programme commercial whaling in disguise because the meat from the slaughtered whales is sold later to wholesalers and ends up in Japanese restaurants, where it is considered a delicacy.

Iceland also is expected to seek permission to kill whales in the name of scientific research.

A new study unveiled before the IWC meeting suggests that accidental captures may be the biggest immediate threat to whales’ survival – even more than ship collisions and pollution.

More than 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises are believed to die unintentionally every year in fishermen’s hauls, according to the study by American and Scottish biologists published by the World Wildlife Fund.