TOKYO: Japan announced Wednesday it is leaving the International Whaling Commission to resume commercial hunting of the cetaceans, but said it will no longer go to the Antarctic, where it has been heavily criticised for annual hunts harvesting hundreds of whales.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the hunts will be limited to Japan's territorial waters and its 200-mile exclusive economic zone along the country's coasts. Japan will stop its annual whaling expeditions to the Antarctic and northwest Pacific oceans.
Japan will resume commercial whaling in July 2019 after a 30-year absence "in line with Japan's basic policy of promoting sustainable use of aquatic living resources based on scientific evidence", he said.
"Regrettably, we have reached a decision that it is impossible in the IWC to seek the coexistence of states with different views,'' Mr Suga said.
Mr Suga said the IWC was dominated by conservationists and Japan was disappointed with its efforts to manage whale stocks. The IWC had a treaty mandate for both whale conservation and development of the whaling industry, he said.
The IWC imposed a commercial moratorium in the 1980s due to a dwindling whale population. Japan switched to what it calls research whaling and says stocks have recovered enough to resume commercial hunting.
The research programme was widely seen as a cover for commercial hunting as the meat is sold on the market in Japan.
Japan has hunted whales for centuries, but reduced its catch following international protests and declining demand for whale meat at home. The withdrawal from the IWC may be a face-saving step to stop Japan's ambitious Antarctic hunts and scale down the scope of whaling to only around the Japanese coast.
Fisheries officials have said Japan annually consumes thousands of tonnes of whale meat from the research hunts, mainly by older Japanese seeking a nostalgic meal. But critics say they doubt commercial whaling could be a sustainable industry if Japanese young people do not see whales as food.
Mr Suga said Japan will notify the IWC of its decision by Dec 31 and remains committed to international cooperation on proper management of living marine resources, even after its IWC withdrawal.