Japan's whaling ships in August 2016, specifically not to physically attack Japan's whaling vessels or crew, nor to approach within 500 yards of the vessels on the high seas. Sea Shepherd's Australian branch however said they were not affected by the court ruling since the US court had no jurisdiction over Australian law. International opposition On March 6, 2008, members of the International Whaling Commission met in London to discuss reaching an agreement on whale conservation rules. Japanese whalers and anti-whaling activists clashed in the waters near Antarctica on March 7, 2008, with each side offering conflicting accounts of the confrontation. The IWC called upon the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to refrain from dangerous actions and reiterated its condemnation of any actions that are a risk to human life and property in relation to the activities of vessels at sea. Japan has continued to face accusations of vote-buying within the IWC, as an increasing number of developing countries with little or no tradition of whaling join. On March 8, 2008, Solomon Islands' Prime Minister Derek Sikua said that Japan had offered to pay for his country's delegates to attend the March 6, 2008, IWC meeting in London, and that he had refused the offer. The whaling chief at Japan's Fisheries Agency denied the allegation. A week before that IWC meeting, Japan hosted delegates from Angola, Cambodia, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ghana, Laos, Malawi, Palau, Tanzania and Vanuatu in Tokyo. The delegates also visited the traditional whaling town of Taiji in western Japan. Commercial viability Due to its low food self-sufficiency rate, around 40%, Japan relies on stockpiling to secure a stable food supply. As of 2009, Japan's 1.2 million ton seafood stockpile included nearly 5000 tons of whale meat. In 2005, the Japanese government began encouraging public schools to serve whale meat in school lunches as part of an initiative to reduce the country's stockpiles. A reported 18 percent of public elementary and junior high schools offering lunches served whale meat at least once during the 2009/2010 fiscal year. However, there has been criticism of serving whale meat to school children due to allegations of toxic methylmercury levels. The World Wildlife Fund has also estimated that the Japanese government has had to invest $12 million into the 2008–09 Antarctic whale hunt alone just to break even, and that subsidies in total have amounted to about $150 million since 1988.