NZ Renews Whale Haven Bid Ahead of Koizumi Visit

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NZ Renews Whale Haven Bid Ahead of Koizumi Visit

Tue Apr 30, 3:31 AM ET

By Graeme Peters

 

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand on Tuesday outlined

a new push for a whale sanctuary in the vast South

Pacific Ocean, only two days ahead of the visit of the

leader of Japan, its biggest pro-whaling opponent.

 

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi arrives in

Wellington on Thursday for talks that will include

whaling, seen as a marked point of difference in an

otherwise warm relationship between the two Pacific

Rim nations.

 

A New Zealand government minister on Tuesday released

the joint NZ-Australia submission on the agenda for an

international whaling meeting next month in Japan,

which opposes the sanctuary and instead wants to

resume commercial whaling.

 

It's the fourth attempt to establish the world's third

whale sanctuary in the region. The submission also

says the South Pacific's whale population remains

seriously depleted.

 

" The proposed sanctuary would protect these

populations and allow their recovery, " the submission

said.

 

Whale numbers in the southern hemisphere were

decimated by commercial whaling in the last two

centuries, with an estimated 1.5 million whales killed

in the last century alone, the submission says.

 

Rampant whaling left southern right whales virtually

extinct by 1850, and whalers also severely affected

blue whales and the larger population of sperm whales.

 

 

TUG OF WAR

 

Neither the whale conservation nor whale-hunting

factions is expected gain the necessary three-quarter

majority at the 54th annual meeting of the

International Whaling Commission (news - web sites)

(IWC) starting May 20.

 

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, a long-time

whaling opponent, said New Zealand and Japan had

well-rehearsed differences over whaling and she did

not expect any major breakthroughs during her one-hour

meeting with Koizumi.

 

" We will run our arguments again. I don't expect

instant conversion on that, " Clark told reporters.

 

New Zealand's IWC commissioner Jim McClay said the

latest bid had been refined since last year's

submission, criticized by Japan for a lack of proven

support from countries within the proposed sanctuary.

 

" It draws attention to the very substantial support

that the proposal now has from the Pacific Island

countries that are not members of the IWC, " McClay

told Reuters.

 

A forum of Pacific Island leaders last October backed

the sanctuary, and some are establishing whaling-free

areas within their 200-mile economic zones.

 

Japan abandoned commercial whaling in 1986 after an

IWC moratorium, but since then has taken several

hundred whales a year of various species in what it

calls scientific whaling.

 

2002 Reuters Limited.

 

 

 

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