BRITAIN: Anti-whaling nations will today argue against a return to commercial whaling amid fears that the body which regulates the industry is swinging back in favour of hunting the marine mammals 20 years after the practice was stopped.
Legal loopholes mean that more whales will be killed this year than at any time since 1985 and pro-whaling nations are hoping for the first time to have a majority in favour of resuming the hunting when the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meets this morning.
Britain, along with the United States, New Zealand and Australia, has fought hard for 20 years to prevent the resumption of whaling, but the hunters - Japan, aided by Norway and Iceland - have been recruiting a large number of small nations to their cause.
Fourteen of the 62 members of the commission are small developing countries which receive aid from Japan and vote the same way as their benefactor on the majority of issues.
Using loopholes in the IWC rules which permit "scientific" whaling" to assess stocks, the Japanese will kill an estimated 1,315 whales this year for sale in restaurants. The Norwegians, using a different rule made possible because of their objection to the original moratorium on commercial whaling in 1985, are expected to harvest 797, and Iceland 25.
South Korea, which has switched sides more than once in the whaling votes and is hosting this year's meeting, has just scrapped plans to build a whalemeat factory. Although the country does not officially hunt whales, there are a number of whalemeat restaurants within a few hundred yards of where delegates will be meeting in the city of Ulsan.
There is no dispute that the largest whale, the Blue Whale, is still on the verge of extinction, and many other are scarce. However, Japan and Norway argue that many species are recovering, and the minke whale in particular is eating more than its fair share of fish stocks, so numbers need to be controlled.