At the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, a deal between whaling nations and conservation groups fell through at the last minute after the Australians pressed for stronger language. Japan and Norway had been persuaded to adopt a resolution which said there was not enough data to support the claim that culling whales could raise fisheries yields. This would have made it more difficult for them to use the “whales eat fish” argument in the future to justify hunting whales.
Australia were involved in the earlier negotiations on the motion, which is why some of the anti-whaling countries were apparently unhappy with Australia for destroying the consensus at the last minute.
At the 2006 International Whaling Commission meeting which included Japan and Norway among its sponsors, a resolution was produced that said: “Scientific research has shown that whales consume huge quantities of fish, making the issue a matter of food security for coastal nations and requiring that the issue of management of whale stocks must be considered in a broader context of ecosystem management.” which they use as an argument for culling the whale population. By the same token, since Japanese and Norwegians also eat huge quantities of fish, does that mean there is an argument for culling their populations too?
More on this from the BBC’s environment correspondent.
