ANTI-WHALING allies Australia and New Zealand announced a plan yesterday for a non-lethal whale research programme in Antarctic waters which conservationists say will challenge Japan's programme that kills up to 1,000 whales annually.
The South Pacific neighbours said they would host a gathering of whale scientists in February to draft a five-year research proposal before submitting it to the International Whaling Commission next year.
It is hoped the programme will begin in
late 2009 – just as Japan traditionally sends its whaling fleet into the icy waters at the southern tip of the globe.
Australia and New Zealand "are seeking to increase the global commitment to non-lethal research to better manage the recovery of whales," Australia's environment minister Peter Garrett said after meeting his New Zealand counterpart Steve Chadwick.
Bunny McDairmid the New Zealand executive director of Greenpeace said the proposal "will be a serious challenge" to Japan's supposedly scientific programme that kills whales while offering little of scientific value for the last 20 years.
"There is serious science involved in this (proposal]," she said.
"Most of the science Japan is gathering from its so-called scientific whaling programme in the southern ocean could be gathered without killing the whales," she said.
In a statement, the ministers said whale hunting during the past two centuries had dramatically reduced whale numbers in southern waters, with populations now also facing increased environmental threats, particularly from global warming.
Ms Chadwick said the International Union for the Conservation of Nature had recently reassessed the South Pacific humpback whale as endangered, "thanks in part to research undertaken by Australian and New Zealand experts".
"These new research efforts will provide further science on which to build strategies, to ensure that future generations are able to experience these magnificent creatures," she said.
Their statement did not specifically mention Japan, which kills about 1,000 whales a year under a programme that Tokyo says provides crucial data for the International Whaling Commission on populations, feeding habits and distribution in the seas near Antarctica. Opponents, including the Australian and New Zealand governments, have charged that the Japanese programme is a front for commercial whaling – despite the demand for whale meat in the country declining.
BACKGROUNDTHE Japanese whaling programme is conducted by the Institute of Cetacean Research, a privately-owned, non-profit institution. The institute receives its funding from government subsidies and Kyodo Senpaku, which handles processing and marketing of "by-products" such as whale meat.
Japan carries out its research in two areas: the North-West Pacific Ocean and the Antarctic Ocean.
Japan's whale consumption peaked in 1962 at 226,000 tons, then declined steadily to 15,000 tons in 1985, the year before the commercial whaling ban. Japan has maintained its interest in the resumption of commercial whaling, but has not succeeded in persuading the IWC to lift the ban.
