Chile declared a permanent ban on whaling in its waters, as
conservation groups feared an International Whaling Commission
meeting it is hosting will fail to halt world No 1 whaler
Japan.
Speaking at a former whale processing plant that Chile closed in
1967, President Michelle Bachelet also sent a bill to Congress
proposing a whale sanctuary along Chile's coastline and declared
the whale a national monument.
"We have chosen this place, the Quintay whale plant, to highlight
the Chile and the world of the past, in which there was no
awareness of social and environmental consequences," Bachelet
said.
"Chile ... wants to give the world a clear sign of its will to
protect whales in its waters," she added. "This initiative is a
pledge to the world of the future."
Chile's whaling moratorium had been set to expire in 2025.
In the capital Santiago, the annual whaling commission meeting
began with nations from the Americas to Europe voicing concern
about rising catches of Minke whales in the north pacific, namely
in Japanese and Korean waters.
Outside the venue, protesters flanked by a giant blue inflatable
whale chanted Murderers, it's your fault, and held aloft banners
emblazoned with Stop the slaughter and No blood for
tradition.
Police said they detained 15 protesters.
"The species is going to be extinct, because they are catching a
lot of whales," said 14-year-old schoolboy Martin Lopez, holding a
Greenpeace leaflet as music blared out. "We are here to say we are
against whaling."
"What Japan is doing is bad."
Japan defiant
Japan says it is misunderstood, denies the 1,000 whales it hunts
each year for scientific purposes despite a 1986 moratorium are
making it to the dinner table, and says it is also in favour of
conservation.
But it also sees whaling as a cultural tradition of its coastal
communities and believes in sustainable commercialization of the
world's biggest mammals.
Japanese supermarkets and restaurants offer whale meat, though
demand for the delicacy is declining.
Japan has presented the IWC with a resolution to legalize coastal
whaling.
It is the same resolution that anti-whaling countries blocked a
year ago, leading to threats from Japan that it would abandon the
62-year-old IWC.
"We don't look at (scientific whaling) as a loophole, because we
don't see anything wrong in commercialism per se as long as it is
sustainable," Ryotaro Suzuki, senior co-ordinator of the ocean
division of Japan's Foreign Ministry.
"Scientific research that we are conducting down under in the
southern ocean or in the northern pacific areas, we are doing it
for research purposes and we are not doing it for food," he added.
"(IWC) is supposed to regulate whaling, and be managing the whale
stocks, not protecting all stocks of whales."
The IWC meeting, attended by some 80 countries, is focused on the
body's inner workings rather than the big picture issues like
debating continued whaling and suitable penalties, and some groups
fear it will be much ado about nothing.
"There is a risk ... that by the end of the week, nothing
substantial will have changed and it will be business as usual for
the Japanese whalers," said Mick McIntyre, director of conservation
group Whales Alive.
"Scientific whaling will continue to go on and in some ways the
Japanese will walk away from here with everything that they already
had," he added. "Whales are worth more alive than dead."
The meeting, the IWC's first in South America in 23 years, will run
until Friday.
