Sir Geoffrey Palmer: Japan's whale policy a mystery to us all

[Barrett808]

Sir Geoffrey Palmer: Japan's whale policy a mystery to us all

Sir Geoffrey Palmer, New Zealand's Commissioner to the IWC, says that contrary to Japanese assertions whale stocks remain severely depleted.

I am pleased my colleague, Japan's Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission Mr Morimoto, has laid before the New Zealand public his justification for Japan's policy on whaling.

I shall be surprised if the New Zealand public agrees with it.

The moratorium adopted by the IWC in 1982 was adopted because unbridled commercial whaling had destroyed whaling stocks and brought many species to the brink of extinction.

Japan dislikes the moratorium and wishes to overturn it and resume commercial whaling. But that requires a 75 per cent majority of the members. Japan does not have sufficient support from the member nations to achieve this goal.

Japan therefore resorts to a loophole in the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, Article VIII, which allows a nation to give itself a quota to kill whales for the purposes of scientific research. These killings are exempt from regulation by the convention.

No one could reasonably believe it was ever the intention of this provision in the convention to allow a nation to take 1000 whales each year as Japan is now in the course of doing.

Indeed, if all nations in the world took 1000 whales each year, the stocks would soon be exhausted. What gives one nation the right to a larger portion of the resources of the planet that all nations hold in common?

...

The motivations for Japan's policies are a mystery to us all. Japan and New Zealand have an important and harmonious bilateral relationship. It is a pity the issue of whaling divides us.

(more)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/466/story.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10488638

[ladjf]

1. Arrogance based upon greed and stupidity.