Japan Condemned at International Whaling Commission

Earlier today in Anchorage, a resolution was approved by member nations of the International Whaling Commission condemning Japan's "scientific research" whaling program.

According to a report on Radio Australia's website, the resolution was supported by forty nations and rejected by two. It indicated that Japan and countries aligned with it did not participate in voting on the resolution. More recently, Radio New Zealand reported that there was an "acrimonious debate" at the IWC meeting, followed by a number of Japanese-aligned nations refusing to vote and calling the resolution "illegitimate."

A statement posted on the Greenpeace's Defending Whales Blog praised the resolution and referred to the countries which abstained from voting as "bought by Japan." It quoted the Greenpeace delegation's leader as saying that "any other scientific program in any other field that took this many samples without significant conclusions being reached would lose its funding," and called for the "JARPA II" whaling program to be "immediately ended."

Earlier in the month, an article in the People's Daily (China) newspaper reported that the British government accused Japan of bribing other countries to support whaling. It quoted British Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw as saying that Japanese aid to pro-whaling Caribbean nations is "clearly linked to whaling votes."

Although Japan earns about $20 million to $40 million per year from whaling, according to the website of All at Sea magazine, it has a significant impact upon foreigners' perceptions of Japan, in addition to Japan's history of colonialism and support for the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Some people are concerned with whaling based upon the possibility of extinction, while others worry that whale-watching (popular in Australia, the Caribbean, and other areas) will be harmed by it. Wikipedia.org indicates that anti-whaling groups and the whale-watching industry argue against it by pointing out that the economic benefits of whale-watching based tourism are greater than the income provided by whaling.