NZ may support whale killing deal

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Long-running talks over the future of whales appear to have brought Japan closer to victory, proposing a deal to entrench its Antarctic whaling.

A reform package will legitimise the controversial "scientific" kill in the Antarctic for 10 years in exchange for a slight quota cut, sources told The Age yesterday.

The confidential proposal came out of talks between 12 key International Whaling Commission nations which had their final session in Honolulu last weekend.

Japan’s Fisheries Minister, Hirotaka Akamatsu, was reported to have confirmed that his government was studying a new proposal to seek international endorsement for continued whaling operations.

The IWC package raises pressure on Australian's Rudd Government on two fronts.

Other anti-whaling nations, including the United States, and possibly New Zealand, are understood to favour the deal for the good of the troubled IWC.

But a recent UMR poll showed 94 per cent of Australians opposed the Japanese hunt. The poll found overwhelming numbers in favour of a boycott of Japanese products, and international legal action.

Over the past three years, Australian officials have tried to advocate a conservation-based reform agenda inside the secretive IWC talks, but observers said Japan refused to abandon, or phase out, its self-awarded Antarctic quota.

In the last round of talks a plan to legitimize this hunt for the next 10 years was adopted in a report to the IWC chairman, Cristian Maquieira, anti-whaling group sources said.

They said that in exchange there would be a slight global cut on all commercial whaling quotas, including those of Norway and Iceland.

Mr Maquieira said in a statement that the group of 12 nations explored issues including "creating a co-operative environment for managing current whaling, while at the same time reducing the overall number of whales killed each year".

He will release his report publicly later this month, and take it to a larger group of 34 IWC member countries in Florida in March before a final decision is made at the IWC’s annual meeting in June.

The reform package also proposes a series of changes to the way the IWC operates, and offers conservation gains such as a South Atlantic whale sanctuary.

A spokesman for the Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, said after the Honolulu meeting that the Government was continuing to advocate a reform agenda, strong in its resolve to end so-called "scientific whaling".

"As the government has repeatedly made clear, it is a process through which we want to see real progress as part of our diplomatic efforts on this issue. If we cannot make progress diplomatically, we will take legal action.’’

The International Fund for Animal Welfare said while the closed door talks continued, thousands of whales had been openly killed.

"The problem with the whaling commission isn’t the commission — it’s the whaling," IFAW’s global whales campaigner, Patrick Ramage, said.

"The only terms that should be negotiated are the terms under which commercial whaling will end, not under which it will be allowed to continue in the 21st century."

- © Fairfax NZ News