Greenpeace soldiers on in the face of Japan's intransigence

"The Japanese government said Monday that its state-sponsored whaling fleet had stopped hunting after 10 days of harassment by the environmental activist groups Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary near Australia."

Forbes report yesterday:

http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/22/japan-greenpeace-whaling-face-markets-cx_jc_0122autofacescan01.html

 

"The Greenpeace boat, the Esperanza, has attempted to block the Japanese whaling fleet from refuelling in Antarctic waters.

The fleet's factory ship, the Nisshin Maru, was trying to be refuelled by the Panamanian registered ship, the Oriental Bluebird.

Greenpeace says the refuelling goes against the Antarctic Treaty and that the Oriental Bluebird should not even be there, because it is not part of the Japanese fleet.

Dave Walsh from Greenpeace says after efforts by the Esperanza to get between the two other vessels, the protest became too dangerous.

"They've gone ahead with refuelling now - it was too dangerous for us to continue blocking them because they were pushing their two ships together, which was quite a dangerous manoeuvre with people sitting between on a boat," he said.

"So they are refuelling at this point and if they move on again, we'll be with them and if they try whaling again, we'll be there to stop them."

ABC New yesterday:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/22/2144004.htm?section=australia

 

 While Minoru Morimoto, Director-General of the Institute of Cetacean Research, Tokyo (which carries out Japan's research whaling in the Antarctic and western North Pacific) blasts Australia and New Zealand for their "cuddly" support of whales.

At the same time he runs with a tired old line on lethal research.

"However, since this is the purpose of Japan's research there are some kinds of indispensable data that simply cannot be obtained by non-lethal means. As a result of Japan's research programme, we now know more about the status of whale stocks and whale biology than at any time in history and this knowledge increases each year. One of the conclusions of the IWC Scientific Committee workshop in December 2006 to review the data and results of Japan's research in the Antarctic was "the dataset provides a valuable resource to allow investigation of some aspects of the role of whales within the marine ecosystem."

The New Zealand Herald opinion piece yesterday:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/466/story.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10488010&pnum=0

 

Mr. Morimoto of course neglecting to point out that "the dataset provides a valuable resource to allow investigation of some aspects of the role of whales within the marine ecosystem." is offset by the International Whaling Commission's own admission that "The difficult question then becomes one of whether the answers one obtains using such data are 'essential', 'reliable enough' or 'critical'? This calls for more than purely scientific judgement."

Nor does he mention that the December 2006 workshop dealing primarily with Minke whales (which had Japan with the largest bloc of participants ie., 29 individuals) shows "there was disagreement at the workshop regarding the analyses presented and the interpretation of some of these data."

International Whaling Commission:

http://www.iwcoffice.org/conservation/permits.htm

Report of the 2006 Intercessional Workshop:

http://www.iwcoffice.org/_documents/conservation/SC-59-Rep1.pdf

 

The 2007 final report, which supercedes Mr. Morimoto's quoted December 2006 Intercessional Workshop, is also critical of many aspects of Japan's lethal 'scientific' research.

A fact that North Coast Voices mentioned elsewhere in a January post "Just how 'scientific' is Japan's whale research?"

 

The last word should go to the International Whaling Commission which states; "In the discussion

of these permits in the Commission, an additional factor raised is that the catches take place within the Southern Ocean Sanctuary declared by the IWC in 1994 (to which Japan lodged an objection with respect to minke whales). If a Sanctuary is in place, it can be argued that information on improving management of whaling in that region is unnecessary. On many occasions, the Commission has (by majority vote) passed a Resolution urging Japan not to issue a permit for these catches."