Though frustrated by strident opposition to its campaign to overturn a 17-year international ban on commercial whaling, Japan should remain a member of the global whaling commission, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Wednesday.
Japan, one of the world’s top whaling nations, has long argued that the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) mandate is to work toward sustainable whale hunting by setting quotas.
At the IWC’s annual meeting last month, Tokyo’s efforts to reinstate commercial whaling and win a quota were stymied by anti-whaling nations, prompting Japanese officials to announce that they might withdraw from the commission.
But Koizumi said he is firmly against that.
”It is not a good idea to pull out just because Japan is against the IWC’s anti-whaling stance, ” Koizumi told reporters after meeting with Hiroyuki Kinoshita, chief of the Fisheries Agency, to discuss the IWC.
”I’ve instructed [Kinoshita] to make efforts so Japan’s position would be made understood, without pulling out.”
Hours earlier, Fisheries Agency official Shuya Nakatsuka criticised the IWC for not fulfilling its mandate.
”The IWC was formed to preserve whales while permitting hunting.
”That should be the goal, and if it isn’t, there’s no point in taking part in the commission,” said Nakatsuka.
Nakatsuka said Tokyo was examining several options, such as withholding membership dues, boycotting IWC committees and forming another whaling commission separate from the IWC.
Japan is the largest contributor among the IWC’s 50 member countries, paying about Â¥20-million ($167 600) annually. The United States and Norway are also major contributors.
The IWC banned commercial whaling in 1986. But Japan has been allowed to catch hundreds of the animals a year since 1987 for research purposes.
Critics call the programme commercial whaling in disguise, because the meat is sold later to wholesalers and ends up in Japanese restaurants.
At the IWC meeting in Berlin, Tokyo had requested approval to catch limited numbers of Bryde’s whales and minke whales in the North Pacific between 2004 and 2008.
Anti-whaling nations rejected the request, saying that too little is known about whale stocks, which for years were severely depleted by excessive and illegal hunting.
On Wednesday, the eastern Japanese fishing town of Wada caught its first Baird’s beaked whale in coastal waters under a government-approved catch quota of 26 whales per year, town official Hiroshi Kamiyama said.
Forty-six fifth graders from local schools were invited to watch the skinning of the 9,9m whale, he said.
Baird’s beaked whales are not covered under the IWC ban. -Sapa-AP