LIMA, SEPT 27 – A four-decade moratorium on commercial whaling will remain in effect after a proposal to repeal it was withdrawn yesterday at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Peru’s capital, Lima.
Another proposal to declare whaling as a source of global food security was also scrapped in the plenary session after failing to get consensus from delegates from 60 countries.
“We are relieved that the dark and dangerous resolution to resume commercial whaling has been withdrawn,” said Grettel Delgadillo, Latin America representative for Human Society International (HSI).
The first proposal was put forward by Antigua and Barbuda, which is not a whaling nation, but has said it will pursue the issue at the next IWC meeting in Australia in 2026.
Delgadillo said the pro-whaling stance by non-whaling countries “shows how Japan continues to influence the IWC despite no longer being a member.”
Food security proposals were presented by several African countries, which according to NGOs, also do not have a tradition of whaling but are allies of Japan.
Japan is one of three countries that continue to hunt whales, along with Norway and Iceland.
It continued the practice on the grounds of ‘scientific purposes’ after a moratorium was introduced in 1986, killing hundreds of whales in Antarctica and the North Pacific Ocean.
After years of tensions affecting its international reputation, Japan withdrew from the IWC in 2019 and resumed commercial whaling in its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
An estimated 1,200 whales are killed by hunters every year.
Climate change is also a threat to the species, with whale populations in the North Pacific Ocean declining by 20 percent between 2012 and 2021 due to a lack of their main food source, plankton, according to a study from Australia.
In the 20th century, nearly three million cetaceans were hunted by humans, according to figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), leaving several species endangered. – AFP
