Is diplomacy making gains against Japanese whaling?

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2009:

 

 

Is diplomacy making gains against Japanese whaling?

 

ROME--Some International Whaling Commission insiders believe

the IWC is close to brokering a deal that would allow the Japanese

government to end so-called " research whaling " without losing

political credibility.

Others believe Japanese actions against whaling opponents

show that the Japanese government believes it has the upper hand and

can force the IWC to reopen commercial whaling, after a 23-year

suspension.

After initially refusing to honor the 1986 commercial whaling

moratorium, Japan in 1988 accepted the moratorium but began killing

whales in the name of " scientific research, " continuing to sell

whale meat. The 2009 self-allocated Japanese " research " quota

includes 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales.

The 63rd annual IWC meeting, to be held in Madeira,

Portugal, in June 2009, appears likely to open with the U.S. and

Australian delegations taking ambiguous positions. Nominally opposed

to whaling, both the U.S. and Australian governments appear to

endorse concessions that are mostly not supported by anti-whaling

advocacy groups.

" It is our view that any package, to be acceptable, must

result in a significant improvement in the conservation status of

whales, " White House Council on Environmental Quality chair Nancy

Sutley told Gina Dogget of Agence France-Presse on March 11, 2009,

after the inconclusive end of an IWC intersessional meeting held in

Rome.

The present IWC chair, serving until the end of the June

2009 meeting, is Florida Atlantic University professor William

Hogarth, a George W. Bush administration appointee. Hogarth is

believed to be the chief author of a trade-off that would allow IWC

member nations to authorize commercial whaling in their territorial

waters in exchange for the end of " research whaling. "

That deal would allow the annual Taiji dolphin massacre and

other hunts of small whales in Japanese waters to continue without

the risk of the IWC claiming an expanded mandate to protect smaller

whales. The IWC has historically regulated only hunting of baleen

and sperm whales.

Whether the rumored deal would actually reduce the numbers of

regulated species that the Japanese fleet kills is unclear. Such a

deal would formalize IWC acceptance of the Norwegian assertion of a

right to kill minke whales in coastal waters, with a 2009 quota of

885. An IWC rule allowing coastal whaling would also almost

certainly bring other nations back into commercial whaling.

South Korea, in particular, already has a small

whale-butchering industry, which processes the meat of whales

nominally caught by accident by fishing vessels. South Korean

fishers have clamored to be allowed to hunt whales legally.

Iceland, not currently an IWC member, will allow whalers to

kill 150 minke whales and 150 endangered fin whales this year, under

a quota allocated by a former coalition government on the day it left

office. The new government has hinted that it may cut the quota next

year.

" We have been warning all along that if Japan gets a deal,

other countries are going to want part of the action, " Whale &

Dolphin Conservation Society policy director Sue Fisher told Andrew

Darby, covering whaling issues for the Sydney Morning Herald and

Melbourne Age.

Japan's " political will is far greater than the combined

political will of the pro-conservation governments, " Fisher added,

to Dogget of Agence France-Presse.

The IWC Rome intersessional meeting adopted a resolution

deploring " acts of violence against ships " and calling for " action to

be taken by the relevant authorities " in response to the efforts of

the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in particular, to obstruct

Japanese whaling within the Southern Oceans Whale Sanctuary,

declared by the IWC in 1994.

Australian federal police on February 20, 2009 seized 157

video rolls from Discovery Channel personnel aboard the Sea Shepherd

flagship Steve Irwin, along with Sea Shepherd navigational records,

as the ship docked in Hobart.

" The videos show the Sea Shepherd clashes with Japanese

whalers, " including a collision between the Steve Irwin and the

Japanese whale-catching vessel Yushin Maru #2 on February 6, 2009,

" and may be given to the Japanese government, " wrote Andrew Darby.

" A federal agent said yesterday's raid resulted from a formal

referral from Japanese authorities. Australian National University

law professor Don Rothwell said international legal obligations meant

evidence of alleged maritime offences could be forwarded to Japan.

" People actively opposing whaling could be persecuted or

worse because of video evidence if it is sent to the Japanese, " said

Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson. " I wish the Australian Government

would apply the same diplomatic pressure on Japan to end their

illegal whaling operations, " Watson added in a written statement.

" The Japanese ships have not been boarded by the Australian federal

police. They have not had their video and navigational data

confiscated. They have not been questioned, nor will they be, yet

they violently attacked my ship and crew. "

Noted Darby, " Attempts by Green Party Senator Bob Brown to

obtain information on Japanese whaling gathered by the Australian

patrol ship Oceanic Viking last year have been rejected. The

Environment Department has ruled that releasing images or data would

" adversely affect the confidence Japan would have in our diplomatic

efforts to achieve an end to 'scientific whaling.' "

In Japan, meanwhile, Greenpeace on March 20, 2009 asked

the Fisheries Agency of Japan via Japanese legislator Shokichi Kina

for uncensored copies of whale meat sales documents. Copies obtained

through a 2008 Freedom of Information request were " supposed to

detail whale meat sales, as well as contracts between the FAJ and

the Institute of Cetacean Research, " said a Greenpeace press

release. " However, copies of the documents released on January 19,

2009 were so heavily redacted that they were worthless. "

The request was made as Greenpeace Japan members Junichi

Sato, 31, and Toru Suzuki, 41, face trial for allegedly stealing

whale meat.

Sato and Suzuki " tracked a package of whale meat to a mail

depot in northern Japan, summarized Los Angeles Times Tokyo

correspondent John M. Glionna, " after tipsters told them it

contained whale meat bound for the Japanese black market, smuggled

by crew members of a ship commissioned to kill whales for scientific

research. But when they held a cameras-flashing news conference to

turn the meat over to police, the officers instead arrested the

activists for trespass and theft. Japanese officials say the men are

eco-terrorists who stole the meat from a legitimate transporter to

falsely malign the nation's whaling establishment. The pair could

receive up to 10 years in jail if convicted. "

" Our activists handed over a box of whale meat as evidence of

the whale meat smuggling operation, and the Tokyo public prosecutor

agreed there was sufficient evidence of wrongdoing, " said Greenpeace

oceans campaigner John Hocevar on June 20, 2008, after Sato and

Suzuki were arrested. However, the Tokyo District Public

Prosecutor's Office in July 2008 cleared the implicated employees of

the whaling company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd and the Institute of

Cetacean Research of the Greenpeace allegations against them.

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

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