Editorial: The whale has time on its side

Opinion

Japan has been left chasing symbolic victories after the early stages of the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting. That does not mean, however, that anti-whaling countries can take much heart from events this week in Ulsan, South Korea. Attitudes are growing harder, and a crucial trend is running against them. Cynical Japanese vote-buying is on the verge of providing a slim majority for those nations wanting a resumption of commercial whaling.

That voting bloc will not be enough to secure an end to the moratorium established in 1986. A three-quarters majority is required for that. But a simple majority is enough to allow pro-whaling countries to set the agenda for IWC meetings and close down the likes of the commission's conservation watchdog, which monitors environmental issues.

At Ulsan, Japan has tried to move in that direction, bolstered by the latest additions to its list of allies - Cameroon, Togo, Gambia and Nauru. Most significantly, it sought the introduction of secret ballots to take pressure off countries making unpopular decisions. The likes, for example, of Tuvalu, the Solomons and Kiribati, whose support for whaling flies in the face of their traditional Pacific ties with New Zealand and Australia.

Japan's move failed, 30 to 27. Nauru failed to show up and Denmark and Finland placed their disdain for this attempted discarding of accountability above Scandinavian solidarity with pro-whaling Norway.

But the Japanese have also advised the meeting that they will continue to use a loophole in the IWC rules for a new, open-ended "research" programme (commercial whaling in disguise). As well as more than doubling the minke whale kill in Antarctica to 935, they will begin harvesting endangered fin whales later this year, and humpbacks from 2007-8, building up to 50 of each of these species.

The naming of the humpback represents an obvious threat to the whale-watching industries of New Zealand and Australia. New Zealand alone reaps $120 million annually from this activity, which features some of about 2000 humpbacks making their northern migration. It is notoriously difficult to assess whale numbers, but the humpback is generally considered a vulnerable species. Clearly, Japan's activity will not benefit that status.

Until recently, a compromise might have been possible. But the Ulsan meeting has been marked by a bitterness that leaves no immediate prospect of that. There is even a risk that Japan will walk away from the IWC and resume uncontrolled harpooning.

The likes of New Zealand and Australia must, therefore, be measured in their response, and keep their eyes on the long-term picture. Obviously, they can place pressure on Pacific nations who support Japan. Yet even if this was successful, the Japanese have other options; think of the many products of the former Soviet Union. Thus, the Anzac nations would be wise to pull back a shade. They should not, for example, be totally scornful of the proposed management scheme for future commercial whaling, which was to have been a focus at Ulsan.

In the end, the answer may lie not only in international opprobrium but in the increasing conservation awareness of Japan's young people. Eating whale meat remains largely a habit of elderly Japanese, despite the Government's efforts to encourage its consumption as a means of increasing self-sufficiency in food.

Time, therefore, may be the final saviour of the whale. Some breathing space has been gained in Ulsan. Clever boxing would achieve more, and the survival of our biggest marine mammals.