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  PlanetArk 24 Apr 06
Norway Slams Whaling Critics, Says Stocks Robust
Story by Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

PlanetArk 21 Apr 06
Dozen Nations Urge Norway to Stop Commercial Whaling
Reporting by Adrian Croft, Editing by Matthew Bigg
Additional reporting by Alister Doyle

LONDON - A dozen countries including Britain, France, Germany and Australia called on Thursday for an end to commercial whaling by Norway, which plans to step up whale hunts this year to the highest in two decades.

A senior British diplomat in Oslo delivered a formal statement to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry on behalf of the 12 countries, Britain said. "The UK and many other countries remain strongly opposed to Norway's existing and unnecessary lethal whaling activities and we urge Norway to stop them," British Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw said in a statement. "We shall continue to register our disapproval of all these whaling activities, which undermine the moratorium on commercial whaling...," he said.

Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain were the other countries to back the statement, issued soon after the start of the Norwegian whaling season on April 1.

The move comes two weeks before British local elections in which the main parties are vying to demonstrate their environmental credentials.

David Cameron, leader of the opposition Conservatives, was visiting a Norwegian glacier on Thursday to see the effect of global warming.

Norwegian officials said in December the country's 2006 whale catch will be the biggest since the early 1980s. It plans to harpoon 1,052 whales despite an international moratorium.

Norway, in a move hailed by whalers but blasted by environmentalists, also said it would expand hunts into international waters in the North Atlantic from its own zone for the first time since the 1980s.

"Any announcement of an increase in the 2006 quota is premature and not based upon the best scientific advice. It is disappointing that the Norwegian government are putting pressure on their scientists to justify the wide-scale destruction of this species," Britain's Bradshaw said.

A Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokesman was not immediately available for comment on Thursday. But the government said in December that its 2006 quota was a step towards an "ecosystem-based" regulation of the whale hunt. It said the hunt would be a conservative catch from a stock Norway estimates at 107,000 minke whales in its hunting areas in the North Atlantic.

Minkes are relatively plentiful compared to endangered blue whales. Norway hunts whales for food as part of its coastal tradition. It has long said that whale stocks have grown uncontrollably since the moratorium was introduced in the mid-1980s while fish stocks are dwindling.

Japan, the other main whaling nation, also raised its target catch for minke whales last year to 850 in Antarctic waters, up from 440 despite opposition from anti-whaling nations.

Minke whales are eaten as steaks.

The International Whaling Commission agreed a global moratorium in 1986 to help prevent extinction.

Norway resumed commercial whaling in 1993, breaking with the moratorium.

PlanetArk 24 Apr 06
Norway Slams Whaling Critics, Says Stocks Robust
Story by Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO - Norway hit back on Sunday at 12 nations led by Britain for urging an end to whale hunts, saying a plan to raise catches to the highest in two decades in 2006 would not damage stocks of the giant mammals.

"The charges are baseless ... They have failed to do their homework," Norway's whaling commissioner Karsten Klepsvik told Reuters of the call for an end to whaling on Thursday by nations including France, Germany, Australia and Brazil.

British Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw said on behalf of the 12 that an increase in Norway's quota to 1,052 whales in 2006 "is premature and not based on the best scientific advice". Britain's embassy in Oslo handed in the formal protest.

Norway, which broke with a global moratorium on commercial whaling in 1993, has harpooned about 750 minke whales each year in recent years and the 2006 will be the highest since the 1980s. The whales are eaten as steaks in Norway.

Klepsvik said the quota was based on theoretical guidelines for whaling agreed in 1992 by a panel of scientists at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) -- including experts from nations which signed the protest. "The quota is based on cautious estimates," said Klepsvik, a foreign ministry official who oversees Norway's whaling.

Norway says there are 107,000 minke whales in the north Atlantic. The 2006 catch, which includes a basic quota of 745 along with 307 that were not caught in 2004-05 quotas, represents about one percent of the stock.

He also slammed Bradshaw for saying in a statement that Oslo's government was "putting pressure on their scientists to justify the wide-scale destruction of this species". "Casting doubt on the integrity of our scientists goes over the limit of political criticism," he said.

Lars Walloe, a professor at Oslo university who is chief scientific advisor to the government on marine mammals, also told Reuters: "It's frightening that they make such statements."

Both Walloe and Klepsvik said, however, that Norway was working on a new way of setting quotas. Parliament has said it wants catches back to higher historical levels, of about 1,800.

Oslo says that minke whales are plentiful, eat commercial fish stocks and do not need to be kept on endangered lists -- unlike species like the sperm whale or blue whale, the biggest creature ever to have lived on the planet.

Animal welfare groups say hunting whales with exploding harpoons is cruel and that all nations should stick to a 1986 IWC moratorium on hunts.

Along with Norway, both Japan and Iceland catch whales. Argentina, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain were the other countries to back the statement, issued soon after the start of the Norwegian whaling season on April 1.
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