Whale sanctuary proposal defeated

Environmentalists held protests outside the meeting

LONDON, England -- Efforts to create whale sanctuaries in the southern parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans have failed.

Member states of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) are gathered in London for a week-long meeting in London to decide on the future of commercial whaling.

Supporters of both sanctuary proposals failed to win votes on Tuesday from three-quarters of the countries at the IWC conference necessary to establish the sanctuaries.

Japan and its pro-whaling allies defeated the nations worried about dwindling whale populations.

Advocates said the special zones would have provided protection that depleted whale populations would need desperately if a 15-year-old moratorium on commercial whaling was ever overturned.

Twenty countries voted for the South Pacific sanctuary, 13 voted against and four abstained.

MORE STORIES Iceland isolated at summit   Whaling ban under threat   Whale populations at risk     RESOURCES Whaling: National positions

In the South Atlantic vote, 19 countries supported the sanctuary, 13 were against and five abstained.

"Over the past two centuries of industrial whaling, whale populations in the South Pacific collapsed," said Australia's environment minister, Robert Hill. The animals, he said, "require protection to allow them to recover to natural levels."

He said two million whales were killed in the southern hemisphere in the last century.

Whaling countries -- Japan, Norway, Iceland and their allies in the Caribbean and other poor areas -- say sanctuaries are unnecessary and have no basis in science.

"No-one should be surprised that the sanctuary proposals have failed again," said Minoru Morimoto, the Japanese representative. "They have no scientific basis (and) were not needed for conservation."

Daven Joseph, a representative of Antigua and Barbuda, a whaling supporter, said the sanctuary debate had divided the regulatory commission between "those who want to lock away a very important resource and those who want to propose the principal of sustainable use."

Australia and New Zealand, which offered the South Pacific proposal for the second time, said it would protect the breeding grounds of 11 great whale species.

Most, they said, have still not recovered from devastating population declines suffered before the commercial whaling ban was imposed in 1986.

Brazil, the main sponsor of the South Atlantic sanctuary proposal, said it was badly needed to protect the 10 whale species in the region, many of them hit hard by commercial hunting.

The South Atlantic, it said, was a hotbed of "pirate" killing of protected species until the 1970s.

"We envision a southern hemisphere zone, encompassing the Atlantic and Pacific sanctuaries for the express purpose of minimising the impact of man on the great whale," said American representative Rollie Schmitten, of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Japan and its allies believe whale populations in many parts of the world are strong enough to withstand some hunting.

"Sanctuaries are not only unnecessary but also obstruct science," said Morimoto, whose country supports the killing of some whales for research purposes. "Japan considers the proposal irresponsible."

Some conservationists suggested the vote was tainted by alleged Japanese vote-buying. A number of poor countries, including six Caribbean nations, voted with Japan and Norway.

Japan has been accused of using foreign aid to win their support, but it and the poor nations deny those charges and say their interests in whaling simply coincide.

"This wasn't a vote, it was an auction and Japan was the highest bidder," said Mick McIntyre of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Supporters say the sanctuaries would complement existing protection zones in the Indian and Antarctic oceans. They are due for review next year and in 2004 respectively.

The whaling countries lost a bid on Tuesday to weaken the Antarctic sanctuary.

Japan and Norway would like to abolish the moratorium and may force a vote at this week's meeting, but they seem unlikely to muster the necessary votes.

Whale meat is a popular food in Japan and elsewhere and its sale is lucrative. Norway, one of the few countries allowed to conduct commercial hunts despite the ban, recently lifted its voluntary prohibition on the export of wale blubber but has not yet granted any export licences.