Tokyo
Japan this week won an important, if symbolic, victory for whaling countries. After a vigorous lobbying campaign, Japan mustered enough votes at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission to pass a resolution, 33-32, declaring the ban on commercial whale hunting “no longer necessary.” The resolution doesn’t overturn the ban—a three-quarters majority is needed for that—but it does demonstrate that pro-whaling forces now outnumber environmentalists on the commission. “They’ve been kicking us down all the time,” said Norwegian whaling lobbyist Rune Fervet. “Now we can kick back.” The commission ordered a halt to whaling in 1986, although Norway has ignored the ban completely while Japan and Iceland have exploited a loophole to harvest about 1,000 whales a year each, ostensibly for scientific research.
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