Secret plan to lift whale hunting ban

Twenty years ago, commercial whaling was outlawed. But hush-hush meetings between officials have paved the way for its return

Governments are preparing to breach the worldwide whaling ban, legitimising commercial killing of the giant creatures for the first time in more than 20 years.



Key whaling and anti-whaling nations have thrashed out a plan at a series of unpublicised closed-door meetings to allow Japan to kill the leviathans for gain, after outlawing it for two decades. It is to be presented to a special meeting of the official International Whaling Commission (IWC) early next month.

Environmentalists say that the plan amounts to “waving the white flag” to Japan and they fear that it will usher in a new era of legal whaling around the world.

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