Whaling Commission Rejects ‘Sanctuary’ Proposals

Whaling Commission Rejects ‘Sanctuary’ Proposals

The Whaling Commission’s rejection – again – of proposals to create so-called “sanctuaries” in the South Pacific and South Atlantic were the only common sense decisions made so far at the annual meeting in Berlin, the Government of Japan said today.

Japan’s alternate Whaling Commissioner, Masayuki Komatsu, said today: “The proposals are completely contrary to the globally-accepted notion of sustainable management and would deny the legitimate utilization of whale resources for food.”

He said it was clear anti-whaling members would use the Berlin initiative and proposed “Conservation Committee” to further other unnecessary protection measures. “Anti-whaling members want the disputed Conservation Committee to endorse and pass their proposals. They will attempt to subvert the Whaling Convention by the back door – extremist New Zealand has already admitted as much,” Mr Komatsu said.

In contradiction to his remarks at the Berlin meeting, the New Zealand Conservation Minister yesterday admitted on Radio New Zealand the “Conservation Committee … will provide a framework in which the IWC will focus on issues like whale sanctuaries [and] eco-tourism opportunities for countries that haven’t got them at the moment.”

Mr Komatsu said: “New Zealand will become more and more the sustainable-use pariah through its anti-whaling agenda. Anti-whaling is not the majority worldview – it’s the opinion of only 25 nations that belong to the Whaling Commission and who are blocking the resumption of sustainable commercial whaling.”

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