April 17th, 1998
GLAND, Switzerland -- WWF-World Wide Fund For Nature today
appealed to Russian President Boris Yeltsin to maintain a firm stand
against commercial whaling during his forthcoming visit to Japan. The
Russian leader is due to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro
Hashimoto tomorrow (Saturday).
It is feared that Russian officials may have cleared the way for Russia to
begin commercial whaling in the Pacific. The Japanese media reported
earlier this week that Japan and Russia had agreed to set up a 'Cetacean
Management Committee' to promote whaling and work towards national
catch limits. China and Korea were also named as members of the
committee.
"Russia is a critical player on the world stage, " said Dr. Claude Martin,
Director General of WWF International. "We hope that President Yeltsin
will not allow Russia's name to be linked to a practice that most nations
of the world abandoned long ago."
The USSR stopped commercial whaling in 1987, two seasons after the
International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium went into effect. But
Russia still holds the USSR's formal 'objection' to the moratorium and so
is not bound by it.
Japan continues to hunt under the guise of "scientific whaling" and has
been reprimanded by the IWC for doing so. It has been reported as
opposing a proposal put forward to the IWC by the Irish Government
which would ban whaling on the high seas but allow strictly limited
coastal whaling. Japanese whalers are reported as having killed 438
minke whales in the Antarctic sanctuary this year.
A letter to President Yeltsin signed by WWF, together with others from
other international environmental organisations, asked the Russian leader
to ensure that Russia did not join the Cetacean Management Committee,
did not promote whaling and maintained its policy of no commercial
whaling.
The letter also urged President Yeltsin to reinforce Russia's support to
the international moratorium on commercial whaling by withdrawing the
USSR's formal 'objection' to the moratorium. Russia is a long-standing
member of the IWC.
For more information, please contact
Cassandra Phillips at
+ 44 1386 88 20 55
or
Someshwar Singh at
+41 22 364 95 53