The International Herald Tribune is reporting that 'Pro- and anti-whaling lobbies want to end their acrimonious disagreements of recent years and pursue a more diplomatic solution to Japan's annual whale kill, a senior official said Friday'.

The article goes onto say 'The deal could involve New Zealand and Australia dropping their threat to take action against Japan in international courts to try to prove the country's so-called scientific whaling program is a sham that breaches International Whaling Commission rules.

New Zealand's IWC Commissioner, Geoffrey Palmer, told The Associated Press that legal action against Japan's scientific whaling was not off the table but would be difficult to pursue.

"The solutions to these problems that are very deep-seated in the IWC I think lie in diplomatic channels," said Palmer, a former prime minister'.

WDCS believes that the solution does not rest with giving in to Japan and giving them commercial whaling in any guise, be it so-called 'coastal whaling' or any other form of whaling. It's still the industrial slaughter of whales, - it's just that some countries can get off the hook of having it their back yards if some sort of 'diplomatic' deal is struck.

Keep watching, this one is going to get rough as we progress through the next IWC.

I think I may have written on this issue before, but its actually incredible that when you begin to investigate behind the rhetoric, the Japanese arguments for whale meat being an integral part of 'being Japanese' start to waver and then crumble. The Ashai Shibun, a respected Japanese newspaper, earlier this month tackled this very issue.

I quote the article directly here;

‘Hiroyuki Watanabe, a researcher of environmental sociology at Kyoto University, said the practice of eating whale meat began to spread across Japan around 1900, following the introduction of the Norwegian-style whaling method using harpoon guns.

The new whaling technique triggered strong opposition in some parts of Japan.

In 1911, up to 1,000 fishermen in Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture, staged a demonstration against a whaling company because they considered whales sacred creatures.

Similar protests took place in Chiba and Ishikawa prefectures.

Despite government support for the whaling industry, whale meat accounted for only 10-20 percent of Japan's total meat supply in the 1930s.

Eating whale meat became more common during the U.S.-led occupation of Japan after World War II when whaling in the Antarctic Ocean gained the approval of the General Headquarters of the Allied Powers.

Between 1946 and 1965, whale meat accounted for 23-46 percent of Japan's meat supply. But after that, whaling restrictions caused the supply to shrink, and the meat was replaced by chicken and pork.

Watanabe said eating whale meat became common during limited periods in certain parts of the country.

"(Eating whale meat) is a dietary habit developed in part because of government policy," Watanabe said.’

The full article can be found at the Ashai Shimbun

National Geographic online is suggesting some promoters of a compromise deal with Japan on commercial whaling believe that Japan is finally willing to come to the table and negotiate.

But just who should they be talking to?

It would appear that it's the Fisheries Agency (FA) who have the almost exclusive power to decide on Japanese whaling policy - it would appear that even the prime minister can rarely intrude upon it's 'turf'. In Japan it appears the 'bureaucratic-political' decision making model still holds sway, (as it has doen for many years); so no elected individual minister or elected grouping are willing to take decisions to change policy without the agreement of the bureaucrats of the FA. And where does the FA get its money for its whaling campaign that takes its civil servants around the globe (I understand the Caribbean is very piopular)? - from the annual revenues that so-called 'scientific whaling' produces!

Japan has never seen the IWC as a negotiating forum; it has always approached it as combat, creating as many barriers to discussions as they can.

So why should they (if one could work out who 'they' are) negotiate? 'They' have no interest in changing the status quo and certainly no interest in reducing their budgets inflated by Japanese tax payers 'donations'.

Negotiate!, - Japan's Fisheries Agency - dream on I say!

In the life of being an NGO we have just reached the stage where WDCS's websites, in all their guises, are about ten years old. We shall be putting the various databases that we hold onto the various expressions of the site including ten years of news stories and features that we have accumulated.over that time. So bear with us and keep coming back and we shall be delivering more and more for you as soon as we can

In the meantime, going back to the news stories of April 1998 I came across this story about the pressure Norway was putting on Iceland to resume commercial whaling. And why were Norway so keen? Well it seems they wanted to take the international pressure off themselves and onto Iceland; and looking at what has happend since, it would seem Norway's strategy has been highly successful!


This is what was said all those years ago on the 27th April 1998

The Icelandic Government has, over the last week, been considering a proposal to resume commercial whaling. The initial proposal is believed to have consisted of a programme to unilaterally grant a scientific whaling permit. On 24 April, Icelandic TV reported that the Icelandic Government had decided at its cabinet meeting that whaling would NOT be resumed this summer. Icelandic TV stated that the reason given was that Norway is developing a new type of harpoon and it will not be ready until late this summer (1998). As a result, Iceland will not consider a proposal submitted to the Icelandic Government to catch 100 minke whales under a scientific permit.

The Icelandic Government, whilst coming under vocal pressure from a minority of pro-whalers within Iceland to start whaling for commercial gain, has also come under substantial pressure from Norwegian authorities keen to see Iceland resume whaling in order to alleviate the international pressure that currently falls on Norway. Norwegian authorities know that Iceland would draw considerable pressure away from Norway - the last official commercial whaler in the northern hemisphere.

Iceland is not a member of the International Whaling Commission, having left in 1992. Iceland ceased whaling in 1989.