Whale sanctuaries plan again defeated

Whaling nations believe sanctuaries are not needed

Proposals to create new whale sanctuaries were again vetoed on Tuesday, as pro- and anti-whaling advocates traded accusations at the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual meeting.

The proposals for South Pacific and South Atlantic sanctuaries, rejected last year, failed to achieve the necessary three-quarters majority among the 37 countries attending the London talks.

This buying of votes has gone too far. If it goes on like this we may be only months away from the resumption of full-scale commercial whaling

Greenpeace spokeswoman

"This wasn't a vote, it was an auction, and Japan was the highest bidder," Mick McIntyre of the International Fund for Animal Welfare said.

Japan has admitted using overseas aid to influence the voting, but also argues that some whale populations are big enough to withstand hunting.

Two whale sanctuaries already exist in the Indian and Antarctic Oceans, where the IWC says no whaling should take place, even for scientific research.

Despite this, Japan continues to catch several hundred minkes a year in Antarctic waters.

Vital need

Australia and New Zealand, leading the anti-whaling lobby, want two other safe areas created, arguing that the populations of some whale species are dangerously low and sanctuaries are vital to their recovery.

But although the proposal for the South Pacific sanctuary won the support of 20 countries, and the South Atlantic 19, it was not enough to pass.

Conservationists argue sanctuaries are needed more than ever

Australia's environment minister, Robert Hill, said they would not give up.

"Over the past two centuries of industrial whaling, whale populations in the South Pacific collapsed," he said.

Among the nations voting against the sanctuary were several small Caribbean islands, prompting accusations that pro-whaling Japan has been engaged in "vote-buying" to strengthen its position.

"This buying of votes has gone too far. If it goes on like this we may be only months away from... the resumption of full-scale commercial whaling," said a Greenpeace spokeswoman.

But Japanese delegation head Minoru Morimoto said the sanctuaries are unnecessary. "There is no scientific basis for sanctuaries," he said.

Japan and Norway would like to abolish the current moratorium on commercial whaling, introduced in 1986.

They are opposed by the UK, Australia and the United States among others, who say maintaining the ban is the only way to ensure depleted whale numbers can recover.

Killing continues

The moratorium's supporters are essentially fighting a rearguard action to keep it intact. In the 15 years since the prohibition came into force, thousands of whales have been killed.

IWC rules allow unlimited catches of any species in the name of scientific research, and Japan has been hunting the relatively abundant minke whales in the Antarctic for some years.

Saving the whale

IWC - established in 1946, now has 46 members

Britain ceased whaling in 1963

Minke whales number 750,000 in Antarctica alone

Whale-watching is a £710m industry worldwide

Norway is not bound by the moratorium because it objected to it in the first place.

It kills around 500 minkes in the north Atlantic every year. There is also some limited whaling by indigenous communities in the Arctic and the Caribbean, again permitted by the IWC.

The IWC was set up more than 50 years ago, charged with conserving both whales and whaling. Some whale populations appear to be recovering, such as the minke and grey whales.

But there is hardly any sign of growth in the numbers of blue whales, the largest creatures ever to have lived on Earth. Estimated at more than 250,000 in their prime, the blue whales are now thought to number perhaps as few as 5,000.