WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) – Anti-whaling campaigner Sandra Lee, New Zealand’s minister of conservation, announced Monday she will step down after nine years as a lawmaker and not run for re-election July 27.
“After holding public office continuously, at local then central government level, for nearly 20 years, I have opted to spend more time with my family and to have some time that is my own,” the 49-year-old grandmother of four said in a statement.
As an outspoken conservation minister since 1999, the indigenous Maori legislator helped champion the drive by nations like New Zealand, Australia, Britain and the United States to set up a whale sanctuary in the southern hemisphere.
When that move was defeated for the third time at the International Whaling Commission meeting in Japan last month, Lee appealed to all South Pacific nations to establish sanctuaries in their national waters, which are breeding grounds for a host of whales.
Despite her heritage as a Maori, who are traditionally whale hunters, Lee strongly opposed any return to commercial whale killing by whaling nations like Norway and Japan.
She accused Japan of buying the votes of developing nations in its efforts to restart commercial whaling and block proposed whale sanctuaries. Japan vigorously denied the claims.
Lee also resigned Monday as deputy leader of the Alliance, the junior partner in the governing coalition, which split into two factions this year after its four Cabinet ministers voted to support New Zealand special force commandos joining the war in Afghanistan.
