The war of whales goes on. With the
whaling season about to begin in
the north Atlantic and the north
Pacific, leading conservation groups
recently urged US President Bill
Clinton to take immediate action to
protect the worlds endangered
whales. The groups including
Greenpeace and tW World Wide
Fund for Nature (WWF) are gearmig up to put up a fight against Japan
and Norway. Both countries have
been the targets of international
criticism for persistently violating a
global moratorimn on whaling.
During Clinton's tenure, global
whaling has almost tripled. Since
1992, Norway has increased it self
whale hunts by five times while
Japan continues to hunt whales in
an international whale sanctuary
established in the Antarctk in
1994. The Inter-national Whaling
Commission (IWC), a 43-nation
body, has been strongly opposing
whaling by these two nations. The
conservation groups have asked
Clinton to call upon Norway, as he
did upon Japan last month, to
demand their immediate compliance with international conservation agreements. "The international
whaling ban has never been more
threatened. We are truly on the
mercial whaling," said Bar]
Dudley, executive director
Greenpeace. The groups' conc
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whale meat trade in east Asia. DNA
tests have revealed that meat from
endangered whale species such as
fin and Bryde's whales, are openly
sold in Japanese markets.
Both Norway and Japan have
been pressing the IWC to allow regulated hunting of selected stocks of
whales. Recently, whalers across
the world established a World
Council for Whalers with its headquarters in Vancouver, Canada.
The whalers are seeking to remove
the minke whale from the list of
threatened species at the ongoing
Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species in Ziirnbabwe.
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