Macron reports from quarantine with a video message
So far, whaling has only been possible through legal loopholes. If the Japanese were successful with their initiative, whale hunting would no longer be the exception, but the rule.
"Japan wants to convert the IWC into a whaling club. The member states must prevent this relapse", urges Stephan Lutter, marine mammal consultant at the environmental protection organization WWF. According to the Japanese Fisheries Authority, the IWC is divided: 48 member states are against whaling, 40 are in favor.
Only three countries still hunt whales. According to the environmental protection organization Pro Wildlife, the Japanese whaling fleet kills around 450 whales annually. The Japanese officially kill the marine mammals for research purposes, but the meat actually ends up in restaurants and supermarkets later.
Norway and Iceland have formally objected to the IWC moratorium of 1986 and are therefore not bound by the whaling ban. Norwegian fishermen kill between 600 and 700 whales per year, the Icelanders about 200. Some indigenous peoples in Russia, Greenland and the USA also go whaling on a small scale.
"If the whaling ban is overturned, other countries such as Russia and South Korea could also get involved again. That would be fatal"says Nicolas Entrup from the marine conservation organization OceanCare. "Commercial whaling is unsustainable and never will be. "Whales rarely breed and take a long time to grow. The populations often do not withstand industrial hunting."
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