综合一区欧美国产,99国产麻豆免费精品,九九精品黄色录像,亚洲激情青青草,久久亚洲熟妇熟,中文字幕av在线播放,国产一区二区卡,九九久久国产精品,久久精品视频免费

USEUROPEAFRICAASIA 中文雙語(yǔ)Fran?ais
China
Home / China / World

Japan may submit smaller whale hunt quotas after ruling

By Agencies in Tokyo | China Daily | Updated: 2014-04-02 07:43

Japan could try to rescue its Antarctic whaling program by sharply reducing catch quotas after the highest UN court ordered a halt, rejecting Tokyo's argument that the catch was for scientific purposes and not mainly for human consumption.

The judgment by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, was a blow to Japan's decades-old "scientific whaling" program, but Tokyo might be able to resume Antarctic whaling if it devises a more persuasive program that requires killing whales.

"Deeply disappointed", Tokyo said it would honor the ruling but did not exclude the possibility of future whaling programs. New Zealand expressed concerns that Japan may try to circumvent the order.

The Japanese government was likely to submit to the International Whaling Commission a new "scientific whaling" program with sharply reduced catch quotas in an effort to resume the annual hunts, the Asahi newspaper reported on Tuesday

The outlook was tough, however, as more than half of the whaling commission's members oppose whaling, the newspaper said.

The International Court of Justice's ruling agreed with plaintiff Australia's position that the scientific research resulting from the Antarctic whaling did not justify the number of whales killed.

Japan also conducts separate hunts in the northern Pacific, and Japanese fishermen carry out small-scale coastal whaling. An annual dolphin slaughter has also been the object of harsh global criticism.

On Tuesday, a Japanese minister defended whaling - seen by some as an important cultural practice -and pointedly stopped short of detailing what next steps Japan could take.

"Whale meat is an important source of food, and the government's position to use it based on scientific facts has not changed," Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said.

The UN tribunal said no further licenses should be issued for scientific whaling, where animals are first examined for research purposes before the meat is sold to consumers.

"The research objectives must be sufficient to justify the lethal sampling," said Presiding Judge Peter Tomka of Slovakia.

Japan signed a 1986 moratorium on whaling but has continued to hunt up to 850 minke whales a year in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean, as well as smaller numbers of fin and humpback whales, citing a 1946 treaty that permits killing the whales for research. Japan has said research whaling is needed to assess whether whale stocks are recovering from overfishing.

Whaling was once widespread around the world, but Japan is now one of only a handful of countries, including Iceland and Norway, that continue the practice on a large scale.

While some Japanese view whale meat as a delicacy, and whalers and the government argue whaling is an important tradition, consumers' appetite for the meat has shrunk even as the hunts made Japan a target of much international reproach.

Reuters-AFP

Editor's picks
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
宝兴县| 成武县| 固镇县| 东台市| 莱芜市| 射阳县| 雷山县| 玉山县| 镇安县| 乌兰察布市| 深泽县| 新沂市| 富蕴县| 红安县| 台江县| 哈巴河县| 达州市| 静安区| 诸城市| 莆田市| 砀山县| 宁国市| 襄垣县| 吴旗县| 韶山市| 耒阳市| 翼城县| 常德市| 张家港市| 秀山| 庄浪县| 泗水县| 紫阳县| 利津县| 晋宁县| 遵义县| 崇阳县| 普兰店市| 盐城市| 舒兰市| 榕江县|