Togo cosponsors proposal to review commercial whaling ban

Filed 53m ago · Via Mongabay · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Miri's Magic Dance

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: William Merritt Chase · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Togo is cosponsoring a draft resolution to review commercial whaling quotas ahead of the International Whaling Commission's 70th meeting in late September, becoming the only African nation to back a push led by Antigua and Barbuda. Neither cosponsoring nation hunts whales commercially.

The West and Central African Coalition for Whales condemned the move, noting the region's real marine concerns are bycatch and habitat loss, not whaling quotas, and that whales are economically more valuable alive through tourism. Past African-nation support for similar reviews has helped block a proposed South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary, and Japan has previously admitted using aid money to buy developing-country votes at the IWC.

Togo did not respond to requests for comment on its position, even as it has domestically listed several commercially hunted whale species as threatened. The coalition has asked Togo to reconsider before the October meeting.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Funny how the countries with zero stake in commercial whaling keep finding reasons to defend everyone else's right to do it. If the pattern holds, someone somewhere is getting paid to care this much about a quota system they'll never use.

Source: Read the original at Mongabay → Scored: Miri's Magic Dance · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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