David @ Tokyo

Chojin Tairiku has released another series of videos featuring people in the know about the results of IWC 59 from Japan's perspective. The videos are all in Japanese of course.

IWC 59 wasn't evaluated entirely pessimistically, with happiness expressed that the IWC was able to adopt the resolution criticising Sea Shepherd by consensus. This is presumably what led the Netherlands to strike the Sea Shepherd vessels off their register (although I'm still to see an explicit confirmation of this).

Still, the speakers were basically unhappy with the results (although this wasn't unexpected).

There was no great enthusiasm expressed for actually withdrawing from the IWC (Japan still hopes to see the IWC "normalized", but none of the speakers expressed optimism for the future).

Nonetheless Joji Morishita stated in relation to Japan's approach to the IWC, words that I would translate as "make no mistake that IWC 59 will mark a turning point".

The question for the strategists is how best to achieve something positive for the principle of sustainable use without abandoning the IWC altogether. This shouldn't be impossible - Iceland and Norway are both whaling commercially already, after all. There were no IWC resolutions forced through in relation to the commercial whaling hunts of either of those two nations.

If Japanese commercial whaling of species under the IWC's jurisdiction does begin in the near future, my guess is that it will come first with minke whaling within Japan's EEZ, and second in relation to the Western North Pacific Bryde's whale, for which the IWC Scientific Committee recently completed it's RMP implementation work.

Labels: Chojin Tairiku, IWC 59