By 3 News online staff
New Zealand and Australia are criticising South Korea’s plans to start whaling.
It announced its plans to do the whaling through a loophole that allows the killing of whales for scientific research, in a similar way to what Japan does, AFP reports.
South Korean delegates made the announcement at the International Whaling Commission in Panama.
New Zealand, Australia and other anti-whaling nations have criticised the announcement, despite South Korea’s vow to submit the plans “in the spirit of trust, good faith, and transparency”.
Foreign Minister Murray McCully says it's a serious setback to whale conservation.
"The portrayal of this initiative as a `scientific programme' will have no more credibility than the so-called scientific programme conducted by Japan, which has long been recognised as commercial whaling in drag," he said on Thursday.
"Whales in these waters are already heavily targeted by Japan, and large numbers are also caught as by-catch by Korea."
Mr McCully has instructed New Zealand's ambassador in Seoul to immediately register "serious concerns" with the Korean government.
New Zealand’s representative to the International Whaling Commission says the move will put whale populations at risk and claims Japan has not contributed to science after years of expeditions in the southern ocean.
South Korean delegate Park Jeong-Seok says the country is under no obligation to inform the world of their actions in advance.
“We do not accept any such categorical, absolute proposition that whales should not be killed or caught,'' he told AFP.
South Korea did not give numbers or a timeline on the proposed whaling.
The International Whaling Commission imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986 in order to stop whales from dying out.
Norway and Iceland are the only nations that defy the moratorium entirely. Iceland used to describe its whaling as scientific but shifted its position in 2006 and said it was commercial.
3 News / NZN