Whaling Commission Panel Proposes Return to Commercial Whaling

"CAMBRIDGE, UK -- A working group of the International Whaling Commission today released a draft proposal that would allow the return of commercial whaling. An IWC moratorium on commercial whaling has been in place since 1986.

The compromise is aimed at unblocking the long-stalled negotiation process between IWC member countries opposed to commercial whaling and those that want to kill whales.

The draft Consensus Decision by the Small Working Group on the Future of IWC would allow only the countries that currently take whales under the 'research' provisions of the treaty to hunt them under the proposed management regime. Those countries are Japan, Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, which together kill some 1,500 whales a year. Indigenous subsistence whaling also would be allowed to continue."

Environment News Service had the story February 22, 2010.