Tokyo had hoped to resume commercial whaling of relatively abundant species such as minke whales, but anti-whaling countries including Australia and New Zealand opposed the motion
The International Whaling Commission voted down Friday a Japanese proposal to resume commercial whaling, prompting Japan to hint that it may withdraw from the organisation.
Japan’s vice-minister for fisheries Masaaki Taniai said he “regretted” the vote’s outcome, and threatened Tokyo’s withdrawal from the 89-member body if progress could not be made towards a return to commercial whaling.
“If scientific evidence and diversity is not respected, if commercial whaling is completely denied… Japan will be pressed to undertake a fundamental reassessment of its position as a member of the IWC,” he said.
Japan’s IWC commissioner Joji Morishita declined to comment when asked if this would be Japan’s last appearance at the IWC, an organisation which he has chaired for the past two years. His term ended Friday.
Minutes after the meeting he said that differences with anti-whaling nations were “very clear” and Japan would now plan it’s “next steps”.
Anti-whaling nations led by Australia, the European Union and the United States, defeated Japan’s “Way Forward” proposal in a 41 to 27 vote.
Japan had sought consensus for its plan but had been forced to push the proposal to a vote “to demonstrate the resounding voices of support” for a return to sustainable whaling for profit, said Taniai.
Pacific and Caribbean island nations as well as Nicaragua and several African countries, including Morocco, Kenya and Tanzania, voted with Japan, as did Asian nations Laos and Cambodia. Korea abstained.
The Russian Federation, which like several states allows IWC-monitored aboriginal subsistence whaling, said it abstained because it did not want to exacerbate an already “deep split within the commission”.
The body’s identity crisis was clear in a week of often robust exchanges between pro- and anti-whaling nations.
Morishita said a decision lay ahead over whether whaling could be managed in the future by “a different organisation or a combination of different organisations?”
The large Japanese delegation here would “assess the result of this meeting very carefully back in Japan,” said Morishita.
