Following Japan’s lead, the Cambodian delegation to a UN conference on wildlife trade backed a losing bid last week to ease restrictions on the commercial trade of minke whales, a species believed by many to be endangered.
Cambodia was one of a few countries to back the measure, which was overwhelmingly defeated during the annual meeting on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, held over the past two weeks in Bangkok.
Also voting in favor of the measure were Norway and Iceland—two of the world’s largest whaling countries—as well as some Caribbean nations, reports said.
Conservationists say the minke whale population is in doubt and cannot afford to be left open to whalers. The International Whaling Commission first imposed a moratorium on hunting minke whales in 1986. But Japan, citing scientific data, has pushed hard to scale back the CITES classification of minke whales as endangered.
Cambodia, which has no whaling industry nor minke whales in its waters, supports that scientific argument, said Nao Thuok, the director of fisheries at the Ministry of Agriculture.
“We supported Japan based on the scientific data,” he said. “We need to extract some for sustainable use; the people need it.”
The current moratorium is evidence of Western countries’ “double standard” in the face of Japan’s scientific research regarding the whale’s numbers, said Japanese Ambassador to Cambodia, Fumiaki Takahashi.
“On the one hand you kill cows and eat them but on the other you cannot kill whales,” Takahashi said Sunday. “It is not rational.”
Japan is Cambodia’s largest provider of donor aid.
