KOROR, Palau -- New Zealand is to ask Palau to stop blocking the creation of a whale sanctuary in the Southern Pacific Ocean. Foreign Minister Phil Goff will use a visit to the tiny Micronesian country to try to persuade it to back the sanctuary, or at least abstain from an international vote on it. New Zealand and Australia will next month propose for the fifth time to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) that a South Pacific Whale Sanctuary be created. The proposal has had wide support, though has so far failed to get the 75 per cent majority of votes needed to pass. Environmentalists have blamed pro-whaling Japan for buying the votes of small countries with offers of aid. Palau, a western central Pacific nation of 20,000 people, is one of those to have voted down the move. Mr Goff said he hoped to persuade it to change its stance. "Palau has always been supportive of Japan's stance on both whaling and fishing," he said. "There have always been quite close ties – not all of them happy ones." Japan invaded Palau in World War 1 and retained control until United States troops took the islands in World War 2. "Palau has voted in favour of whaling in the past and we will ask Palau to abstain from the coming vote on southern Pacific whaling," Mr Goff said. He hoped Palau would follow the course taken by the Solomon Islands, which had voted with Japan in the past but abstained last time. "I am not confident of any success, but we will try to persuade and if that fails it will not harm our overall relationship." | | ACT NOW: BOYCOTT PALAU >> Japan was still very active in signing up new countries that supported its stance, Mr Goff said. The sanctuary is intended to protect the breeding grounds of the great Southern Hemisphere species such as blue, fin, sei, humpback, southern right, pygmy right, minke and sperm whales. Whale feeding grounds in the Southern Ocean are already a sanctuary. Small Pacific nations such as Niue and Samoa have created whale sanctuaries in their exclusive economic zones. Japan and other whaling nations argue that whales eat great quantities of fish so their numbers should be controlled. They say whale numbers have recovered since large reductions were imposed on whalers. Mr Goff is heading a New Zealand delegation on a week-long visit to Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Solomon Islands. The IWC, which banned commercial whaling in 1986, is due to meet next month in Sorrento, Italy. SOURCE - Stuff |
