LONDON, (Reuter) - Fourteen years after agreeing a global moratorium on commercial whaling, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) will come under pressure to ease the ban when it meets next week. The gathering, which starts in the Scottish city of Aberdeen on Monday, could be acrimonious. The ban's staunchest supporter, the United States, will put itself in a tricky position by asking for special exemption allowing a North American Indian tribe to revive a ceremonial whale hunt.
Norway and Japan, where whalemeat is eaten, are pushing for a relaxation of the moratorium, arguing that whale populations would not be damaged by limited hunting. Norway was the only country to opt out of the moratorium. Japan has openly flouted it under the guise of whaling for permitted "research."
The North American Makah tribe wants to hunt five grey whales a year to revive a ceremonial tradition it dropped in the 1920s after the whales had been hunted almost to extinction. The Makah, who used to hunt the 50-foot (15-metre) whales in eight-man canoes using hand-held harpoons, say they are entitled to catch the whales under an 1855 treaty and are only asking to save the government embarrassment.
The U.S government is torn between its commitment to upholding tribal rights and its forceful anti-whaling stance. The Makah argue that stocks of grey whales have recovered and, at 23,000, are no longer on the endangered list. This is also the argument used by Japan and Norway for their hunting of minke whales, the population of which numbers several hundred thousand.
The IWC moratorium allows exemptions for aboriginal groups which rely on whaling for subsistence. Environmentalists argue the Makah have managed without whalemeat for 70 years.
"The precedent this could set is extremely worrying," said Ginette Hemley, director of international wildlife policy at the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF).
"We should be reviewing what other approaches might satisfy that cultural gap they're facing."
Australia, New Zealand and some European governments are expected to oppose the U.S. request. But Japan has already cited it as justification for its own plans to ask the IWC meeting for an annual catch quota of 50 minke whales. Norway has set its own quota of 425 minke whales for this year's catch. In its campaign to win support for its whaling industry, it flew a group of journalists to the Lofoten Islands above the Arctic Circle and showed them a mountain of whale blubber.
Though Norwegians love whalemeat, they do not touch the blubber that makes up 50 percent of the creature. For the Japanese on the other hand, blubber is a delicacy, fried and served as sashimi.
Oslo, afraid of further vilification, will not allow the blubber to be destroyed, nor will it permit its export. Instead, tonnes and tonnes of whalemeat are being frozen in readiness for the moment when the moratorium is lifted and it can be shipped to Japan. That is unlikely to be this year. No government has actually submitted a proposal for lifting the ban. But Japan and Norway are convinced things are moving their way.
"International public opinion is much less of a problem than just a few years ago," said Norway's whaling commissioner Kaare Bryn.
The whaling countries tookheart when a leaked document showed that South Africa favoured a relaxation of the moratorium, though the government later backtracked. South African commissioner Guillaume de Villiers has urged his government to take a "clear position" on the hunting of minke whales. He linked conservation of whales to elephants, an endangered species which is nevertheless culled in some areas.
Denmark, whose Faroe Islanders annually catch hundreds of pilot whales, which are not protected by the IWC, by chasing them on to the beach, also says it is sympathetic to traditional whaling.
Apart from such controversies, the IWC meeting will look at a number of issues linked to whale conservation, including the rapidly growing whale-watching tourist industry. The WWF estimated that more than four million people went on whale watching trips somewhere in the world in 1992.
Harmless though it may seem, the IWC fears the industry could be posing a new threat to endangered whale populations. The increase in boat traffic can affect the behaviour of whales and could disturb their breeding patterns, said Martin Harvey of the IWC. The boats bring pollution and noise -- distressing to whales who are believed to have highly tuned hearing enabling them to communicate using eerie, underwater cries.