The resumption of commercial whaling stopped

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It is a Signal for the preservation of endangered species: Japan has failed before the International whaling Commission on commercial whaling. Animal rights activists can breathe again.

It could be a fateful day for the world’s largest and most endangered mammals in southern Brazilian Florianópolis. However, the International whaling Commission (IWC) rejected a meeting with 41 votes to 27, the Japanese request for the lifting of the whaling moratorium.

The European Union voted against the Japanese proposal. Thus, the main decisions of the conference. The Japanese had advocated the re-introduction of commercial whaling on the grounds that the extinction of the sea’s mammals is a current risk. After 32 years of fishing moratorium, a “sustainable” whaling is possible.

Economic use of limited

The IWC has, however, decided at their meeting a re-orientation that you want to move from hunting-control of a permanent protection of the world’s whale stocks. According to the adopted on Thursday “Florianópolis Declaration” is supposed to be the economic use of Walbeständen exclusively in the tourist-oriented “Whale-Watching”. “The IWC has today prevented a relapse in the whaling Era, and retains the protection of the whales a clear view,” said Arnulf Köhncke of the environmental Foundation WWF. Japan was a failure. “First of all, there is no economic demand for whale meat, and secondly, a number of whale stocks still not out of the commercial whaling recovered.”

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Hunting endangered whales

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Hunting endangered whales

The fight against threats such as ship traffic, underwater noise and by-catch should be continued and intensified. “Commercial whaling again, would have drawn a repeal of the prohibition of Trade in whale products,” said Nicolas Entrup of ocean care. Whaling moratorium and prohibition of trade were closely linked. Japan hunts under the loophole of the approved scientific whaling each year, about 600 whales. Norway and Iceland, which does not acknowledge the Moratorium to hunt whales for consumption.

sam/hf (afp, dpa)