By Lamine Ghanmi
Rabat - Replacing a whaling moratorium with a controlled cull will be discussed by negotiators who gather next week to forge a compromise between nations who say hunting whales is their birthright and those who call it a crime against nature.
A moratorium has been in force for 24 years but Japan, Norway and Iceland have caught thousands of whales since the 1980s, arguing that they are not bound by a total ban despite international condemnation.
A proposal to be debated when the 88-nation International Whaling Commission (IWC) meets in the Moroccan city of Agadir offers a compromise: the moratorium would be lifted for 10 years but in return whaling would be subject to strict control.
That idea has been given qualified support by some in the anti-whaling camp who say if the killing cannot be stopped for now, the pragmatic approach is to try to limit it.
"I would rather there were no whaling but wishing something were true doesn't make it true," said Susan Lieberman, of the anti-whaling Pew Environment Group. "A good decision (in Agadir) could be better than the status quo."
But the proposal has provoked a furious response on both sides of the whaling debate.
Some green campaigners say lifting the moratorium is a sell-out.
"(We have) given the proposed 'deal' fair and careful reading, but no matter how you look at it, it's a 'whalers' charter'," Chris Butler-Stroud, CEO of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, said in a statement.
The pro-whaling camp says the proposal to be debated at the meeting in Agadir on June 21 is a ruse to outlaw all whaling.
"The Norwegian authorities run legal, commercial whaling which is based on a scientific and sustainable catch," said Geir Wulff-Nilsen, head of Norway's High North Alliance, which represents communities where whaling is part of the way of life.
"To say that we can do this for 10 years is a backdoor way of stopping the hunts," he told reporters.
The compromise proposal, put forward by the Chilean diplomat who chairs the IWC and his deputy, would give quotas to allow Japan, Norway and Iceland to hunt whales for 10 years while the IWC works out a longer-term solution.
Its supporters say the number of whales that could be killed under the quotas would be substantially less than now, when the three whaling nations set their own quotas and hunt whales outside the IWC's control.
Whaling campaigners say the outcome of the debate could come down to the position taken by Japan, which hunts hundreds of whales each season for what it says are research purposes.
What stance Japan chooses to take will depend on the outcome of horse-trading at the meeting, in particular over the size of the quotas and the species of whale to which they apply.
For now at least, the Japanese government is giving away few clues on its negotiating position.
"We will discuss patiently with other member nations to achieve an acceptable agreement that is based on the proposal by the chairman and co-chairman," said Takashi Mori, an official at the Fisheries Agency's department overseeing deep-sea fishing. - Reuters