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Japan Launches Whale Meet Reform Drive
Frigate Bay (AFP) Jun 20, 2006 Japan engaged its pro-whaling partners in a spot of disco diplomacy Monday, but said it was not promoting separatism in the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Representatives from 37 IWC members showed up at a special meeting in a dimly lit basement nightclub during a lunchbreak at the luxury Caribbean resort hosting the polarised body's annual meeting. Most attendees supported Tokyo's call to return the IWC to what Japan sees as its original 1946 mandate -- regulating sustainable hunting. "We are not trying to exclude, or separate, or divide this organisation," said Joji Morishita, Japan's IWC alternate commissioner. Japan called the meeting to discuss a date and time for what will likely be three days of formal talks -- outside the IWC and before its next annual meeting in Alaska -- for nations that support its drive to reform the body, a process Tokyo calls "normalisation." Attendees at the event included members who often vote with the pro-whaling bloc including St Kitts and Nevis and Russia. New Zealand, Britain and Australia, which are vehemently anti-whaling, also sent along observers, but did not intervene. Morishita said he expected the formal talks would take place early next year, probably in Japan. "We will not welcome the repetition of the polarisation of the IWC in this meeting -- that will be very clearly stated and underlined," he said. Anti-whaling nations however accuse Japan of souring the atmosphere at the IWC, by "bribing" small nations with aid to back its pro-whaling stance, and with its relentless campaign for a return to commercial hunts. Japan denies the claims, and accuses anti-whaling states of stalemating the IWC with their refusal to allow any form of for profit hunts. Environmental campaigners took a dim view of Morishita's meeting, which came a day after the pro-whaling bloc scored its first-ever victory since a moratorium on commercial hunting was enforced 20 years ago. "The fact that it is being held in a disco, is no small irony, as some countries are willing to dance to any tune Japan comes up with," said a member of a leading anti-whaling NGO on condition of anonymity. But Eugene Lapointe, of the sustainable use environmental group International Wildlife Management Consortium, which supports whaling, said the meeting showed there was a "willingness to recognise the problems and tackle them among most IWC countries."
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Japan Takes The Helm At World Whale Talks
Frigate Bay (SPX) Jun 20, 2006Japan pledged Monday not to use a new power base to destroy the International Whaling Commission (IWC) after pro-hunting states grabbed a majority in the body for the first time in 20 years. |
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