May 16th, 1998

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Antarctic whaling operations
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MUSCAT, Oman -- As the 50th annual session of the the International Whaling Commission (IWC) opens here today, the conservation organization WWF called on the Government delegates to forge a united position to re-affirm the faltering authority of the IWC. The IWC is facing a deteriorating situation, with whaling growing rapidly and out of the IWC's control.
"The slide towards free-for-all whaling must be stopped now" said Cassandra Phillips, WWF Coordinator for Whales and Antarctica. "The IWC must seize the opportunity of its 50th anniversary meeting to find a way forward that will halt the increase in whales being killed, ban high seas whaling permanently and ensure that IWC decisions are enforced."
Although the IWC is the only international body competent to manage whaling, whaling outside its management is growing steeply every year, and additional challenges to the IWC are emerging including rival organisations set up by the whaling nations.
In 1998, twelve years after the IWC moratorium on commercial whaling came into effect, both Japan and Norway are exploiting legal loopholes in the moratorium. Over 1200 whales will be hunted this year. Japan will hunt a total of 538 minke whales under the guise of "scientific research", 438 of them from the Southern Ocean around the Antarctic in spite of this region being declared an IWC whale sanctuary in 1994. WWF campaigned for this vast sanctuary to protect the world's whales on their summer feeding grounds, but now hundreds of Antarctic whales are ending up as whale meat in Japanese markets.
The Norwegian whaling boats set off last week on May 3rd to hunt a total of 671 minke whales in the North Atlantic, using the loophole of Norway's formal "objection" to the moratorium which makes their whaling technically legal under IWC rules. Further, an increasing number of whales are being caught as bycatch in fishing nets and then entering the whalemeat market. WWF is concerned that some of these catches may not be accidental. South Korea reported 128 whales caught as bycatch in 1996.
The IWC is now also challenged by plans under discussion by Japan, Russia, China and South Korea to establish a "Cetacean Management Committee" to promote whaling and work towards national whale catch limits in the NW Pacific. Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the Faeroe Islands have already set up a similar body, the "North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission." Most whales migrate long distances through the oceans, so under the UN Law of the Sea Convention any whaling should be managed by the IWC as the global authority, not by regional groups.
At the 1997 IWC meeting in Monaco, the Commissioner for Ireland put forward a package of proposals which was further discussed at an intersessional meeting in Antigua in February 1998, and will be on the table at the IWC's Oman meeting. The proposals include ending whaling on the high seas by declaring a Global Ocean Sanctuary, limiting the use of whale products to domestic consumption, phasing out lethal scientific whaling, and completing a Revised Management Scheme which could be used for limited coastal whaling under IWC control for the countries now whaling.
The IWC meeting in Oman once again gives the whaling nations an opportunity to consider these proposals. "If the whalers reject proposals that go a long way to meet their concerns it will be clear that they are happy to see the breakdown of the IWC and a return to uncontrolled whaling," said Cassandra Phillips.
Contact:
Cassandra Phillips in Oman at:
+968 799 666 (up to 20 May, 1998) or
her mobile +44385 920 617 or
Someshwar Singh at +41 22 364 95 53.