Whaling conference overshadowed by corruption allegations

Jun 21, 2010, 15:36 GMT

Rabat/Agadir, Morocco - A meeting of 88 countries on new proposals to regulate whale hunting was overshadowed by corruption allegations on Monday, with media reports and environmentalists accusing Japan of using bribes against pressure on it to reduce whaling.

The five-day annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) opened in the Moroccan city of Agadir on Monday.

The commission's deputy chair Anthony Liverpool accepted free flights and had his hotel paid by the Japanese government, Britain's Sunday Times newspaper claimed.

Such allegations undermined the credibility of the IWC, complained Sandra Altherr, a representative of the German environmental group Pro Wildlife.

'Over the past 20 years, Japan has paid billions of dollars to Caribbean, Pacific and African countries ... which backed Japan's whaling interests,' she claimed.

'I myself have seen Caribbean delegates at IWC meetings check their online bank accounts before making statements supportive of Japan,' Altherr said.

A moratorium has been in place on commercial whaling since 1986, but three countries circumvent it. Japan claims to whale for scientific purposes, while Norway and Iceland claim controversial special rights.

A proposal tabled by IWC chairman Cristian Maquieira would re-legalize commercial whaling in exchange for the three countries cutting down on the number of whales they capture over the coming decade. International trade in whale meat would remain banned.

'The aim would be to reduce the current wildcat hunting of up to 2,000 whales annually,' a source of the Moroccan Fisheries Ministry told the German Press Agency dpa.

Advocates of the new proposal say it would save thousands of whales over a decade, bringing whaling under control instead of allowing Japan, Norway and Iceland to set their own quotas unilaterally.

The IWC would set quotas for individual whale species, allowing it to protect endangered species, the Moroccan source explained.

However, the three whaling countries regard the proposal as too restrictive, while a group of heavyweight anti-whaling countries - Australia, France, Germany and Britain - feel it does not provide a sufficient basis for protecting whales.

'The document has some useful elements, but it is not acceptable to us as such,' said Gert Lindemann, leader of the German delegation.

The proposal would allow Japan to hunt even in the Southern Ocean, in a whale sanctuary, he complained. 'Whaling must also be reduced more than is being planned, and commercial hunting has to end entirely,' Lindemann told dpa.

The Moroccan source, however, was hopeful that an agreement might be reached.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney meanwhile led calls against the plans to allow commercial whale hunting.

'It is time to end the cruel slaughter of whales and leave these magnificent creatures alone,' McCartney said in a statement issued in London through the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA).

The IWC plans could allow almost 13,000 whales to be killed over the the next 10 years, WSPA's marine mammal programme manager Joanna Toole said.

The 1986 moratorium outlawed the killing of tens of thousands of whales annually. Nevertheless, about 35,000 whales have been hunted down since the moratorium was imposed, according to environmentalists.