In Japan, 2018 ended with a rather anachronistic piece of news that nonetheless caused a minor shock in the international community. In a bid to resume commercial whaling, Japan announced its withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission.
The Japan Times noted that legislators with large whaling communities pushed through the move with the acquiescence of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, despite a continued decline of whale meat consumption among the Japanese general public and refusal among major retail and restaurant chains to carry whale meat-based products. The article noted that the reluctance of younger Japanese to consume whale meat means any rebound in demand for whale meat after the resumption of commercial whaling is unlikely.
The entire fiasco concerning the rights of the whaling community is illustrative of the disproportionate political power wielded by Japan's shrinking foodstuff producers both on land and in the seas. While the presence of the whaling industry has shrunk to a few coastal communities surviving on government subsidies, the larger Japanese agricultural population has also fallen below 2 million as of 2016.