The whaling Compromise creeps on apace
The International Herald Tribune is reporting that 'Pro- and anti-whaling lobbies want to end their acrimonious disagreements of recent years and pursue a more diplomatic solution to Japan's annual whale kill, a senior official said Friday'.
The article goes onto say 'The deal could involve New Zealand and Australia dropping their threat to take action against Japan in international courts to try to prove the country's so-called scientific whaling program is a sham that breaches International Whaling Commission rules.
New Zealand's IWC Commissioner, Geoffrey Palmer, told The Associated Press that legal action against Japan's scientific whaling was not off the table but would be difficult to pursue.
"The solutions to these problems that are very deep-seated in the IWC I think lie in diplomatic channels," said Palmer, a former prime minister'.
WDCS believes that the solution does not rest with giving in to Japan and giving them commercial whaling in any guise, be it so-called 'coastal whaling' or any other form of whaling. It's still the industrial slaughter of whales, - it's just that some countries can get off the hook of having it their back yards if some sort of 'diplomatic' deal is struck.
Keep watching, this one is going to get rough as we progress through the next IWC.
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