IWC begins talks on compromise plan for Japan's coastal whaling+

ROME, March 9 Kyodo - The International Whaling Commission started a three-day informal meeting
Monday in Rome to discuss a proposal that would allow Japan to hunt whales in
its coastal waters in return for scaling down or ending its so-called
''research whaling'' in the Antarctic Ocean.

''We will seek an agreement based on the spirit of compromise,'' a Japanese
negotiating source said before the meeting.
A panel of external experts, set up by the IWC to break the long impasse in
negotiations caused by antagonism between whaling and anti-whaling members,
drafted a proposal in February to allow catcher boats from four traditional
whaling ports in Japan -- Abashiri in Hokkaido, Ayukawa in Miyagi Prefecture,
Wada in Chiba Prefecture and Taiji in Wakayama Prefecture -- to catch minke
whales in coastal waters.
In return, the draft calls for Japan to phase out the catching of Antarctic
minke whales in stages over five years or to set an annual limit for such
catches for five years.
The draft also calls for Japan to cut back on its research whaling in the
northwestern Pacific.
The IWC will reach a final conclusion on the compromise plan at its general
meeting in Portugal in June.
Japan has proposed cutting its annual catches for scientific purposes by 150
whales if it is allowed by the IWC to catch the same number of minke whales in
its coastal waters each year.
Japan, which launched the scientific whaling program in 1987 ostensibly to
monitor the whale population, is due to catch 765-935 minke whales and 50 fin
whales between last November and April this year.
While scientific whaling is permitted internationally, the anti-whaling camp
has criticized it as a front for commercial whaling.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the majority
of whale meat consumed in Japan comes from whales caught in the Antarctic Ocean
and the northwestern Pacific under the scientific whaling program.
==Kyodo