IWC plenary session set to begin

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20020520a4.htm

 

IWC plenary session set to begin

Japan's prowhaling stance likely to meet fierce

resistance

 

By NATSUMI MIZUMOTO

 

SHIMONOSEKI, Yamaguchi Pref. (Kyodo) Government

delegations and nongovernmental parties from both pro-

and antiwhaling camps are set for a full-scale battle

as the International Whaling Commission begins its

annual plenary session Monday.

 

The parties gathering in Shimonoseki, a former whaling

town in Yamaguchi Prefecture, are expected to express

their opinions in and out of the Kaikyo Messe

convention center, the venue for the 54th IWC meeting

through next Friday.

 

But just as in past IWC meetings, the 47 member

countries of the whaling body are unlikely to vote for

any major changes in the ballot-casting assembly open

to the media.

 

On Monday, a prowhaling group of 30 local Japanese

governments, including those of former whaling

communities, plans to hold a forum to discuss the link

between whaling, local culture and the economy, and to

call for a resumption of commercial whaling.

 

Some of the government delegates have already been

involved in heated exchanges in the precedent

committee and working-group sessions. The sessions

began April 25 and their outcomes are to be reported

to the plenary assembly.

 

Japan, the only country seeking to resume commercial

whaling far into the Antarctic Sea, plans to argue

that some whale stocks have recovered enough to allow

well-controlled hunting for commercial purposes.

 

It will present purportedly scientific evidence

gathered in its whaling programs to back up its claim,

Japanese officials said.

 

This will likely spark controversy, however, as

antiwhaling governments and groups already say Japan's

so-called research whaling programs themselves are a

cover for commercial whaling.

 

Japan's plan to expand one of the two programs came

under strong criticism in the April 25-May 9 Science

Committee session, indicating a rough road for Japan

in the upcoming meet, said Seiji Osumi, the director

general of Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, who

took part in the committee meeting.

 

Tokyo also aims to complete a new resource-management

system called the Revised Management Scheme and to get

approval for four local whaling communities to hunt

minke whales along Japan's coast as a relief measure.

 

But given discussions at the RMS working group

meetings last Monday and Wednesday, Masayuki Komatsu,

a Fisheries Agency counselor and No. 2 of the Japanese

delegation, was pessimistic about reaching an accord

on the issue this year.

 

IWC Secretary Nicola Grandy said in a recent interview

in Shimonoseki with Kyodo News that members are

divided over whether completing the RMS would pave the

way for commercial whaling, as well as over some

details of the system.

 

Antiwhaling nations are expected to again propose new

whale sanctuaries in the South Pacific and South

Atlantic seas, which would increase pressure on

Japanese whaling activities. They have so far failed

to get enough support to set them up.

 

Japan, in a bid to win more support, is also

prioritizing procedural matters such as reviving

Iceland's IWC membership, reviewing the IWC's

financial contribution system to alleviate burdens on

small countries, and introducing secret balloting.

 

Prowhaling Iceland quit the IWC in 1992, angry at the

organization's overall conservationist stance, and

resumed commercial whaling the following year.

 

The IWC had five new members this year in the runup to

the general assembly, but Iceland's bid to rejoin the

body last year was reduced to observer status due to

its refusal to comply with the IWC's 1982 moratorium

on commercial whaling.

 

Adversaries face off

 

SHIMONOSEKI, Yamaguchi Pref. (Kyodo) Advocates and

opponents of whaling launched separate campaigns

Sunday ahead of the plenary session of the

International Whaling Commission to be held here from

Monday to Friday.

At Dream Square, adjacent to the convention center

where the IWC meeting will be held, whaling advocates

sold canned whale meat and T-shirts with the slogan,

" Whales increase. Fishes decrease. People are in

trouble. " Antiwhaling nongovernmental organizations

held a concert promoting whale conservation.

 

The slogan on the pro-whalers' T-shirts reflects the

Japanese government's claim that increasing numbers of

whales threaten global fish stocks. An NGOs banner

read, " We Japanese don't need contaminated whale meat

and blubber! "

 

The NGOs say whales store toxic substances, such as

polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) -- a carcinogen and

endocrine disrupter -- and mercury, in their blubber

and organs. They accuse the Japanese government of

only being concerned with promoting whale consumption.

 

Greenpeace, a major international antiwhaling

environmentalist group, released a statement the same

day saying that Tokyo may have secured a simple

majority of countries within the IWC that will vote in

favor of resumption of commercial whaling for the

first time in 15 years.

 

The Japan Times: May 20, 2002

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