a result, Japan decided to exit the IWC by the end of 2018 and discontinue its scientific whaling program entirely. Instead, Japan will hunt whales in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a vast amount of ocean territory stretching far to the south of the main islands of the Japanese archipelago.

The Japanese government said the hunt will focus on three species, all of them baleen whales: minke, sei and Bryde's whale. The new hunt will still continue to follow catch limits calculated “in accordance with the method adopted by the IWC to avoid negative impact on cetacean resources.”

Smaller species of whales including dolphins and pilot whales, which, unlike larger cetaceans such as baleen whales, are not covered under IWC catch guidelines, will continue to be hunted in Japan's EEZ.

Commentatorlocated up and down Japan's Pacific seaboard, from Hokkaido to Honshu. Many of the communities, such as Taiji, which hosts a controversial dolphin hunt, already participate to some extent in smaller-scale whaling. One of the seven communities included in the new plan is Shimonoseki, located on the southwestern tip of Honshu.

Represented in the Japanese Diet by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, Shimonoseki is the headquarters of Japan's pelagic whaling fleet and was the base of operations for the country's scientific whaling expeditions to the seas around Antarctica.

Shimonoseki is also the home port of the Nisshin Maru, the world's only whaling factory ship. More than thirty years old, the Nisshin Maru does not conform with relatively recent international environmental standards adopted for Antarctic waters and must be replaced. The sheer