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JAPAN: Stricken Whaler Upsets Gov't Gourmets
By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Feb 21 (IPS) - The stranding of a Japanese whaler off the Antarctic
coast may have wrecked plans by the government to promote whale meat as part of
the country's traditional diet and resume commercial whaling on that
basis.
''The ship will have to return minus its full catch which will cause a
blow to Japan's plans to renew commercial whaling that is partly based on
increasing the public sale of whale meat,'' Junichi Sato, a volunteer with
Greenpeace Japan, told IPS.
The Nisshin Maru left Japan's Shimonoseki port in mid-November with plans
to hunt down 850 minke whales and 10 fin whales, approved by the
International Whaling Commission (IWC), as a ‘scientific expedition'.
Sato said the ship, that caught fire and is refusing international help,
will have to undergo extensive repairs - a situation that will further
delay its return. Questions are now being raised at home about continuing
government subsidies for a programme that already has dwindling public
support.
The Antarctic expedition alone costs 4.7 million dollars and public funds
to support scientific whaling expeditions are being criticised at home and
abroad as a guise for commercial whaling.
New Zealand, an anti-whaling country, has extended help to the stranded
crew members, one of whom has died. There is also the danger of an
environmental disaster in the event of an oil spill.
The incident comes on the heels of an informal conference on whaling,
organised by the Japanese government, to make ‘'the IWC viable again
because it is split between pro- and anti-whalers,'' said Jiro Hyugaji, an
official at the resources management section at the ministry of fisheries.
Hyugaji explained to IPS that Japan must work to ‘'normalise'' the IWC, by
restoring what he insists is restoring the original goal of the
organisation - to function as a resource management centre rather than as
a conservation group.
The IWC issued a whaling moratorium in 1982, but Japan has been conducting
limited whaling since 1987 under the stated purpose of collecting data.
The Japanese government argues that populations of some whale species have
increased to point where harvesting is possible under a sustainable policy
but activists say that this will seriously endanger the largest mammals in
the world.
Proposals for revamping the IWC at the conference included introducing
secret balloting, increasing public education on whaling and building a
middle group between the two polarised positions.
Anti-whalers disagree. ‘'The conference in Tokyo wanted to start
commercial whaling on the pretext of sustainability. But we think that
despite that the conference was just a massive public relations exercise
for Japan,'' said Nanami Kurosawa of the Dolphin and Whale Action Network,
a non-governmental group.
She pointed out that anti-whaling countries like the United States and
Australia have not attended the meeting despite invitations from Japan.
The aggressive stance in Tokyo, according to experts, has pitched the
issue of conservation against ‘management' of marine resources, already a
headache for Japan with its fish resources threatened by over-fishing.
During an international conference on tuna conservation held in Japan last
month, the government voluntarily decided to reduce tuna fishing bowing to
reports of steadily depleting stocks.
Jun Sakamoto, a wild life expert and lawyer, says Japan's attempts to
‘normalise' the IWC can also be linked to a diplomatic challenge for
officials who have been faced with a series of humiliating defeats at the
IWC with Tokyo failing to gain approval to resume hunting.
‘'I view the latest conference as a show held by the Japanese fisheries
officials to increase public approval for whaling. It is a waste of tax
money which could have been better spent on conservation,'' he told IPS.
A Greenpeace release pointed out that 53 countries received about 820
million dollars in fisheries aid between 1994 and 2007 but this was
conditional only recipients maintaining alignment with Japan on fisheries
issues.
Bruno Maini, a delegate from Switzerland, said the conference was a chance
to search for an agreement between the two opposing camps against the
reality of scientific whaling expeditions that allows hunting. ‘'There is
a need to be realistic as scientific whaling increases the number of
catches and shows that the moratorium is not working,'' he said.
Japan will be present at the next IWC conference to be held in Alaska in
May. Tokyo will argue that populations of certain whale species,
especially minke whales, have recovered and that the time is right for a
different, sustainability-based approach.
Officials also insist that whale meat is a traditional diet of the
Japanese people and that they have been forced to forgo this only because
of the IWC ban.
But such a stance, argue conservationists, has only kindled nationalistic
sentiment and isolated Japan internationally.
(END/2007)
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