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Threat To Humpbacks Fuels Australian Anger Over Japanese Whaling
Sydney (AFP) Jun 14, 2006 The small dorsal fins on the huge, curving backs now regularly parting the winter seas just off Sydney symbolise a new front in the war against Japanese whaling. These are humpbacks on their annual breeding migration from the icy waters of the Antarctic, and Australians call them "our" whales. Japan's plan to add humpbacks to the list of whales it kills in the name of scientific research has outraged a nation already strongly opposed to the annual slaughter in the Antarctic. With the International Whaling Commission due to meet Friday, the cries of delight the giants of the deep elicit from growing numbers of whale-watchers add a populist dimension to ecological arguments against the harpoon. And with 1.5 million whale-watchers pumping 300 million dollars (225 million US) into Australia's economy each year, they also translate into official scorn for Japan's argument that it kills whales for research. "What is it after 20 years that they've discovered? That whales go well with soy sauce?" asked the leader of Australia's Greens Party, Senator Bob Brown. Whalemeat is popular in Japan and critics of the research programme, including the Australian government, say it is a cover for the commercial killing of whales, which was banned in 1986. Despite international protests, Japan last season more than doubled its target catch of minke whales to 935 - and said that next year it would start killing rare humpback whales, with an initial target of 50. Australia has declared a whale sanctuary in a large swathe of the Southern Ocean that it considers to be its Antarctic territory but the refuge is not recognised by Japan. "This is arguably the largest migration of any animal on the planet," International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) Asia-Pacific director Mick McIntyre told AFP as a pod of humpbacks cruised past a whale-watching boat off Sydney Harbour recently. "It's a migration of between 3,000 and 6,000 whales travelling about 6,000 kilometres (3,750 miles). The Japanese will take them in the Antarctic, and the impact on the humpbacks will be very dramatic." At the IWC meeting in the West Indies, running from June 16 to June 20, Japan is expected to make a new push to legalize commercial catches, arguing that whale stocks have recovered sufficiently during the 19-year ban. Japan has heavily lobbied small Pacific island nations to back its position and environmentalists have accused Tokyo of using aid to buy votes in the IWC, a charge Japan denies. Australia, in turn, despatched Environment Minister Ian Campbell to three of the tiny Pacific states last week in a last desperate bid to win their support for the anti-whaling bloc. While Japan may muster a simple majority at the IWC meeting, this would not be enough to overturn the current whaling ban, which would require the support of 75 percent of IWC members. But McIntyre says the International Fund for Animal Welfare wants the Australian government to take the fight to Japan through the courts, after a panel of legal experts reported this month that Japanese scientific whaling is unlawful under international law. "It's time to stop the charade - this is commercial whaling in disguise which threatens the recovery of whale populations in our region," he said. "Diplomacy is failing to save a single whale. There is a clear case for legal action through the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea." The opposition Labor Party has supported the call for the government to take legal action against Japan, saying "the time for talking is through". "We will not stand by while Japan kills our humpbacks," shadow environment minister Anthony Albanese told a news conference on a "National Day of Action to Protect our whales" last Wednesday. On the boat just a few hundred metres (yards) from Sydney's famed Manly Beach, McIntyre said the city of more than four million people was the "largest metropolitan whale-watching centre in the world". The whales migrate northwards along Australia's east coast from late May, traveling about 30 kilometres a day, and spend three months in breeding grounds in warmer waters before heading back to the Antarctic along the same route. When they return home, the Japanese whalers will be waiting.
Source: Agence France-Presse Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links - Follow the Whaling Debate
New Zealand Hopeful Japan Can Be Beaten In Whaling Vote
Wellington (AFP) Jun 14, 2006New Zealand is still hopeful that moves by Japan to overturn a two decades old moratorium on commercial whaling can be thwarted, Conservation Minister Chris Carter said Tuesday. Japan has been encouraging allies to sign up to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and is now believed to have the numbers for a majority in the organisation. |
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