Friday, June 16, 2006

by Stephen Collinson

FRIGATE BAY, St Kitts (AFP): Environmentalists warned Thursday that Japan could send conservation efforts back 60 years, as Tokyo and its pro-whaling partners seemed set to seize control of the world body barring commercial whale hunts.

Global Green groups were braced for one of their worst defeats in decades, with pro-whaling nations on the verge of a longed-for majority on the 70-nation International Whaling Commission (IWC), which opens annual meetings Friday.

"What they will look to do is take the IWC back to 1946," said Susan Lieberman, a senior official at the WWF, referring to the date when the body was set up to check alarming overfishing of whales.

"The world has moved on from 1946, we don't want to go back to 1946."

A two-decades old moratorium on commercial whaling is not thought to be under threat -- it needs a 75 percent majority in the IWC to be overturned, but whaling opponents fear its days could eventually be numbered.

They believe that armed with a majority, pro-whaling nations could crush whale conservation efforts, revoke observer status for groups like Greenpeace that disrupt whales hunts and stifle transparency on the IWC.

Japan's delegation to the IWC immediately rejected Lieberman's comments about a 60-year roll back for conservation.

"To make that kind of claim is outrageous," said Glenn Inwood, a spokesman for Japan's IWC delegation, arguing that not in anyone's "widest imaginations" would a modern whaling operation resemble the mass culling of the past.

Japan argues the moratorium has been so successful that whaling of certain species can now be carried out in a sustainable manner, without harming whale stocks.

As they arrived in the tiny Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis hosting the meeting, delegates were furiously totting up how Friday's first votes could go.

"On paper, it appears that the Japanese, or the pro-whaling bloc has a majority," said Joth Singh, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

In terms of votes, pro-whaling nations seemed to have around 35 votes to 30 for the anti-whaling block, which includes Australia, New Zealand and Britain, he said.

The vote will still be a cliffhanger however, because although the IWC has 70 members, it is not sure if all will show up, or will have their paperwork in order.

Japan also hoped to take a grip on the IWC at last year's meeting in South Korea, but several states expected to vote with the pro-whaling block did not show up, or pay their annual dues, so could not vote.

The Japanese delegation refused to predict how the votes would go.

"We think it's too early to say ... we don't know who is going to come," said Inwood.

The new mathematics of the IWC will become clear on Friday, when the body takes a vote on its agenda for the meeting which wraps up on June 20.

The new fight over whaling has dismayed campaigners who joined up to "Save the Whales" in the 1970s and found themselves part of a nascent environmental movement.

Japan, along with Norway and Iceland, the only three nations to carry out significant whaling, argues the moratorium had done its job -- and that certain species are plentiful enough to hunt.

But there is sharp debate on the health of world whale stocks.

Currently, Japan conducts what is known as "scientific whaling," which is permitted by the IWC. In all, pro-whaling states take around 2,000 whales a year.

New IWC nations Guatemala, the Marshall Islands and Cambodia, with little whaling history, are expected to vote with Japan.

Israel has also signed up -- reportedly at the behest of the United States, which opposes a return to commercial whaling.

Japan's opponents accuse Tokyo of "bribing" small, impoverished nations with aid to join the pro-whaling bandwagon.

Tokyo denies this, pointing out that it also supports nations which oppose whaling, such as India and Argentina.

There are sharp disagreements about the health of whale stocks.

At the heart of the dispute is a clash on what exactly the IWC is for.

Pro-whaling nations hark back to the original purpose of the IWC, which was to ensure "proper and effective conservation and development of whale stocks."

But the anti-whaling lobby says there is no place in a modern world for an organisation which promotes the killing of whales.

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