IWC takes negotiations behind closed doors

File photo / Mark Mitchell

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has opened what has been described as its most important meeting in decades and almost immediately adjourned behind closed doors.

The commission, meeting in Agadir, Morocco, is pondering whether to suspend the porous 25-year ban on commercial hunting in favour of a more enforceable regime of limited whaling.

A proposal before the 88-member IWC aims to get Japan, Norway and Iceland to reduce the number of whales they kill each year in exchange for ending their rogue status.

Many nations oppose sanctioning whale hunting, while others would agree if the Antarctic whale sanctuary is respected and the number of whales killed drastically reduced.

Within minutes of the conference opening Monday, the commission chairman suspended regular sessions and called for two days of closed bilateral meetings to see whether a compromise is possible.

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully, who is attending the meeting, said today that the commissioners agreed to suspend the plenary session for the next two days so that there could be informal consultations and negotiations amongst the players.

"You can take that to be a sign that there remain serious and potentially intractable differences between the parties," Mr McCully said.

Bridget Vercoe, New Zealand manager for the World Society for the Protection of Animals, who is attending the conference as one of many international non-government organisations observers, said the suspension had come as something of a shock.

She said it was an unusual step, but was essentially so governments could have more closed door meetings to try and negotiate the proposal.

"Our understanding is that there have been some changes to it and there will be some more bigger changes before it is presented again," she said.

Ms Vercoe praised the New Zealand delegation and said it had been keeping interested parties informed.

"We've just had a meeting with Murray McCully and they have been speaking to us on a regular basis to keep us informed," she said.

Mr McCully said New Zealand was taking part in the informal discussions.

"I've had an intensive bilateral with the Japanese delegation, the Japanese minister, this afternoon and there will be more dialogue," he said.

"It's fair to say if we are to see a resolution here Japan's position is important, and the issues remain challenging but the alternatives are sufficiently unattractive that it's worth us exploring all of these areas as much as possible before putting it in the `too hard' basket, so we're give it a thorough working over," Mr McCully said.

He said the NGOs were taking a realistic and constructive approach to the meeting.

"I take my hat off the to the NGOs we've been dealing with.

"They've understood that this is a very challenging problem, and that if we want concrete outcomes that represent a significant improvement then we are going to have to be realistic, hard-headed and creative.

"We are keeping in touch and trying to make sure we are working together," he said.

Earlier Japan and the European Union staked out opposing positions on commercial whaling, underscoring how hard it will be to hammer out a compromise deal, Agence France Presse reported.

"We cannot accept the strong opinions to eliminate all whaling activities. Compromise must be found from both sides," Japanese negotiator Hideki Moronuki, said.

Despite a 1986 moratorium on the commercial hunting of whales, Japan, Norway and Iceland have flouted the ban and still kill the animals, more than 1500 in the 2008-2009 season alone, not including those netted incidentally "by catch".

"We think the proposal on the table is a good starting point," said Moronuki.

Led by Germany and Britain, European countries have welcomed Japan's apparent willingness to trim its kill quotas, but said that was not enough.

"Japan has signalled that they are ready to reduce their catch by about 50 per cent over 10 years," said Gert Lindermann, leader of the German delegation.

"But the numbers should lay out the path so that step-by-step commercial whaling should be finished."

The proposed deal would require the gradual reduction of kill quotas over a 10-year period, but says nothing about what happens after that.

Anti-whaling nations and conservation groups have said the quotas are too generous, only a few percentage points shy of what the three nations harvest already unilaterally.

"We can agree on a compromise, but it should say what the situation will be after the 10-year period. At the end of the interim period, at the latest, whaling in the sanctuaries has to be finished," Lindermann said.

New Zealand's commissioner to the IWC, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, has been critical of the IWC in the past and has expressed concerns that it could collapse and leave no organisation to regulate the killing of whales.

- NZPA