Japan says small-scale, coastal whaling is vital for its four traditional coastal whaling communities, which have been hit hard by the curbs on whaling and are estimated to number some 50,000 families. Tokyo has been lobbying the IWC to acquire special status for these communities, akin to that of whaling communities in Alaska and Greenland. But the commission rejected the appeal. Sixteen anti-whaling members that included the U.S., Australia, France and Brazil maintained that the quota sought by Japan smacked of a resumption of commercial whaling. We will keep on fighting.
Conservationists argue that the risks in allowing Japan to resume whaling are too big.
Mariko Abe of World Wildlife Fund Japan says scientific evidence produced by Tokyo does not match those of other scientists who say concrete data is still hard to produce. Still, Yagi indicated that Japan, buoyed by what it hopes may be a new line of thinking among members, will also continue to push for a resumption next year of a limited catch of minke whales in the Southern Ocean above Antarctica, which was declared a sanctuary in 1994. Japan will not change its stance for a scientific management basis in IWC decisions. Under a provision in the IWC's rules that allow countries to issue permits to take whales for scientific research, Japan is able to each year harvest hundreds of minke whales, the smallest of the baleen whales, from Antarctica. Last month, the IWC issued a resolution urging Japan to stop the practice, though Tokyo is pressing ahead.