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Ban On Commercial Whaling Unlikely To Be Addressed At IWC Conference In Portugal

The 61st annual International Whaling Commission meeting got started yesterday in Madeira, Portugal, and, for the most part, it looks like it’s shaping up to be a great big waste of time and money.

The IWC has spent the last 12 months exploring compromises that would allow relaxed restrictions on commercial whale hunting. Neither pro-whaling nor anti-whaling nations are likely to find this deal acceptable, and no significant votes are expected to be taken during this conference. The best anyone seems to be hoping for is another 12 months of stalling and failed compromising. The worst case scenario is that more and more nations bail on the IWC entirely and decide to regulate their own whaling industries.

Basically, anti-whaling western nations (USA and EU), plus Australia, seem to have a political and cultural mandate to end entirely commercial whaling. It seems to be a matter of debate whether or not these countries could call a successful vote to place further restrictions on whaling. Some commentators don’t believe they have enough votes to get the three-quarters majority needed to enact major policy change. However, others, like Greenpeace, disagree and think that the time is now.

Japan leads the pro-whaling nations, seemingly by the sheer force of its political and economic influence in the Pacific - even in Australia.

During all this, Iceland caught its first whale of the season, but the CEO of the whaling company responsible said it was likely that the EU would do what the IWC could not. He believes that the EU will require Iceland to stop commercial whaling as a condition of membership.

And Paul Watson claims he was almost arrested on his way to the IWC meeting, but the warrant had expired.

Send A Greenpeace Origami Whale To Japan

I did…

My whale is of a certain whiteness

Greenpeace has been nominated for a Webby award for this nice little web protest application. It allows you to create a virtual origami whale to send to the Japanese prime minister, along with a note asking him to reconsider his country’s stance on “research” whaling. Upcoming applications will allow you to send other virtual items of protest sure to hit close to home in Japan; sake, sushi, sumo wrestlers, weird porn, robots, and schoolgirls.

Fact: three of my own web projects have been been nominated for Webby awards. But, oddly enough, WhalesAndWienerDogs.com was not among the nominees. Some people like to say the Webby awards is “the Oscars of the Internet.” It reminds me more of merit badge night at a local Boy Scouts meeting. (I’m bitter about the WhalesAndWienerDogs.com snub…).

But anyways…I’m pretty happy with this whale.

Greenpeace “Whaling On Trial” Video

Greenpeace just released this 10 minute mini-doc about the Tokyo two, who they say “face trial and a potential ten year prison sentence for exposing a scandal striking at the heart of Japan’s government whaling operation.”

Watch it. Highlights below, after the video.

Some highlights:

Whistle blowers told Greenpeace that crew on scientific whaling expeditions routinely throw whale meat overboard and keep choice cuts for themselves.
Greenpeace also received info that crew routinely kept meat for themselves and sold it on the black market, essentially embezzling from the government
Greenpeace activists discovered many markets and restaurants that freely admitted to buying whale meat on the black market
Greenpeace activists intercepted boxes sent from Japanese whaling factory ships to private addresses of crew. The boxes were labeled as being filled with cardboard, but they were actually full of choice cuts of whale meat.
Greenpeace asserts that few Japanese eat whale meat and that few know the program is paid for by taxes.
After being arrested, Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, were held over three weeks without being charged, and they were tied to chairs and interrogated up to 12 hours at a time without their lawyers present. (I honestly have no idea whether or not either of these things is allowed, or not, under Japanese law.) After 26 days in jail, they were charged with trespassing and theft and released on bail.
If convicted, Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki could get up to ten years in prison.

The “Tokyo Two” Get Another Day In Court

Junichi Sato of the Tokyo Two holding up a censored whaling document released by the Japanese government. (Greenpeace)

Nice “just the facts” news primer here about the Tokyo Two, Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, who were arrested in June for allegedly stealing whale meat from a transport company in Japan. According to Greenpeace, the pair did what was necessary to expose corruption in Japan’s whaling industry.

Greenpeace says the above photo (click here for the larger, more hilarious, version) is proof of how desperate Japan is to cover up their whaling industry’s corruption, an industry that is funded, in part, by taxpayers.

More from the Bloomberg article.

Greenpeace last May showed reporters a box containing 23.5 kilograms (52 pounds) of whale meat it said was smuggled ashore by a crew member on Japan’s whaling fleet for sale on the black market.

The group handed the box to prosecutors along with documents that showed whale meat worth as much as 15 million yen ($156,000) had been stolen.

Taking the box was justified to convince prosecutors to investigate the corruption, Greenpeace told reporters on May 15. Hajime Ishikawa, deputy head of Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research, which oversees the whaling program, said at the time the meat was a gift to crew members and presented “no legal problem.”

A police investigation into the allegations yielded no charges.

The pre-trial hearing today is the third since the pair’s arrest last year. The trial is expected to begin in June.

Japan conducts annual hunts using a rule under a moratorium on whaling agreed in 1986 that allows “lethal research” on whales. The hunts are necessary to prove whale populations have recovered enough to justify a return to commercial whaling, the government says.

The Japanese government spends as much as $60 million a year on its whaling program, including on expeditions to Antarctica, and relies on sales of whale meat to fund 85 percent of its costs.

Australia, the U.S., New Zealand and other countries, along with environmental groups, say the research program is a sham and is commercial whaling in disguise.

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Ban On Commercial Whaling Unlikely To Be Addressed At IWC Conference In Portugal

Send A Greenpeace Origami Whale To Japan

Greenpeace “Whaling On Trial” Video

The “Tokyo Two” Get Another Day In Court

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