Commission rejects proposal to scrap whaling ban

Jun 23, 2010, 14:22 GMT

Agadir, Morocco/Hamburg - A proposal to ease the 25-year moratorium on commercial whaling has been rejected at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), a delegate told the German Press Agency dpa on Wednesday.

Practically all 88 IWC nations gathered for the meeting in the Moroccan resort of Agadir were against the lifting of the ban, which is aimed at protecting the species.

'For this session, the compromise proposal is no longer on the table,' German delegation leader Gert Lindemann told the German Press Agency dpa in a telephone interview.

'All the governments maintained their positions,' Lindemann 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 have re-legalised commercial whaling in exchange for the three countries cutting down on the number of whales they capture over the coming decade.

The whaling countries regarded the proposal as too restrictive, while environmentalists and a group of heavyweight anti-whaling countries - Australia, France, Germany and Britain - felt it did not provide a sufficient basis for protecting whales.

The proposal could, however, be debated again after a cooling period of at least one year, Lindemann said.

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

The debate was overshadowed by corruption allegations, with British media reports and environmentalists claiming that Japan used bribes to win the support of poorer IWC members.

Seventeen member countries had their voting rights suspended on several grounds, including failing to pay their membership fees.

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.

The meeting in Agadir, which will run through Friday, was now expected to focus on lower-level subjects such as whale sanctuaries, whaling by indigenous peoples and financial questions.