I’m somehow up very early this morning, still very tired, but couldn’t get back to slep , so I did some reading on the net, when I came across this article, and now it’s time to start banning japanese products. I’m sick of it, and their pathetic excuse of "scientific research" allowing them to kill 50 humpbacks, that’s right, you heard right, humpback whales , which are on the protected list and haven’t been hunted for nearly 40 years, are about to come in the harpoon scope of those damn japanese. Ban Japanese products now. I can’t believe this has happened,and for once Australia has voiced strongly opposed this latest development.
Japan Seizes Control of Whaling Group After Historic Vote
By David McNeill
The Independent UK
Monday 19 June 2006
The environment movement suffered one of its greatest reverses late last night when pro-whaling countries, led by Japan, gained control of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and immediately began undermining the 20-year-old international whaling moratorium.
In a stunning diplomatic coup, Japan and its allies, including Norway and Iceland, won a voting majority in the IWC for the first time, as a result of a remorseless 10-year Japanese campaign to secure the votes of small African and Caribbean countries in exchange for multimillion-dollar foreign aid packages.
At the IWC meeting at St Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies, the pro-whalers scraped home on a catch-all resolution that condemned the moratorium as invalid, blamed whales for depleting the fish stocks of poor countries, and attacked environmental pressure groups campaigning against whaling such as Greenpeace.
The vote on the so-called "St Kitts and Nevis Declaration" was won by 33 votes to 32, with one nation – China – abstaining. The Japanese had been widely expected to achieve a majority in the meeting after bringing three new states into the IWC this year to vote on their side – Cambodia, the Marshall Islands and Guatemala – but they had lost four earlier votes by narrow margins.
Yet that does not matter now. The simple 51 per cent majority they have now secured will not allow them to scrap the moratorium directly – for that they need a majority of 75 per cent. But for them it is an enormous moral victory, and its significance was immediately realised by opponents and supporters of whaling alike.
"The conservation of the world’s whales has taken a huge blow today," said a spokesman for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. "The ban on commercial whaling, brought into effect 20 years ago by the IWC to save whales decimated by decades of unregulated and unsustainable whaling, is now dangerously close to being overturned.
"With Japan and other pro-whaling nations now holding the majority of votes, the IWC will be driven to abandon its conservation and welfare mandate and refocus exclusively on whaling."
Britain, New Zealand and Australia immediately disassociated themselves from the declaration and said that it carried no policy weight. "This is simply a declaration of the views of pro-whaling nations, nothing more, nothing else," said Ian Campbell for Australia.
But the High North Alliance, the Norwegian pro-whaling pressure group, called it "a historic victory for the pro-whaling nations".
Denmark was one of 33 countries that voted in favour of a resolution by the host nation St Kitts and Nevis, declaring that the "IWC has failed to meet its obligations" and needed to be "normalised".
Pro-whalers erupted into spontaneous applause when the result of the vote was announced. The win stunned conservationists, many of whom believed that Denmark was in the anti-whaling camp.
The vote is largely symbolic and does not mean an imminent start to commercial whaling. But there was no hiding that it is a sign of the shifting balance of power within the IWC. The environmental group Whalewatch called it a "sea-change" in the two-decade-old struggle to end the 1986 moratorium protecting the world’s dwindling whale stocks from commercial hunting.
"The future of whales hangs in the balance," said Leah Garces of the Whalewatch coalition. "This is a wake-up call to the world."
Ms Garces said the result should alarm Denmark. "A majority of Danes oppose commercial whaling, so why is their government here promoting it?" she asked.
Conservationists said the vote showed that Japan could buy its way back to commercial whaling. "The vote is hugely significant but hardly surprising," said New Zealand’s Environment Minister, Chris Carter. "Japan has gone to enormous lengths to get this result."
Humpback Whales: License to Kill
By Geoffrey Lean and David McNeill
The Independent UK
Sunday 18 June 2006
Endangered humpback whales to be hunted for the first time in 30 years as Japan defies ban.
Humpback whales – the best loved and one of the most endangered of all the giant mammals – are to be slaughtered for the first time in more than 30 years, in defiance of an international ban.
Japan is to put plans to kill the humpbacks before a meeting of the International Whaling Commission, the body that regulates world whaling, on the West Indian island of St Kitts today. The Japanese claim the whales will be used for "scientific research", a loophole that gives a licence to kill.
Yesterday, the Australian government described the plans as an "outrage", and Britain has also protested.
But Tokyo has made it clear that it will press ahead with the slaughter – and the killing of increased numbers of other whale species – whatever the reaction.
Humpback whales – whose haunting songs and breathtaking leaps have fired the imagination of hundreds of millions of people around the world – are on the official Red List of Threatened Species.
The British government says that past hunting – which ended in the 1970s – "pushed them to the brink of extinction". By the time the whaling stopped they were reduced to 10 per cent of their natural populations.
Experts say that killing them is particularly cruel. They are much bigger than minke whales, the main species now hunted, and so the grenade-tipped harpoons used are much less likely to kill them outright.
Japan is to kill 50 a year – along with increased numbers of minke and fin whales – under the guise of "science", exploiting a loophole in the international moratorium on commercial whaling.
Japan – along with the other whaling nations, Norway and Iceland – has a long-term aim of overturning the 20-year-old moratorium. It has been busy recruiting small developing countries, often with the help of aid, to attend the St Kitts meeting and vote for a resumption of whaling. It hopes to get most of the votes, but this will not be enough to overturn the ban, which would require a three-quarters majority.
Nevertheless it can press ahead with the slaughter of the humpbacks, by classifying it as "scientific whaling", which is exempted from the ban. Since the moratorium on all commercial whaling came into effect in 1986 (the killing of humpbacks and other particularly endangered species was banned earlier), it has been killing hundreds of minke whales a year in the waters around Antarctica under this pretext, even though it has often been condemned by the commission.
Starting from last November it has doubled its quota of minke whales, and started killing highly endangered fin whales, the second biggest species. And from next year it will start slaughtering the humpbacks.
Yesterday Joji Moshita, the head of the Japanese delegation at the meeting, said that some stocks of humpbacks are increasing by 12 to 13 per cent a year. He added: "We know that the humpback has some sort of special status, even among whales, but we put priority on science rather than politics or emotions."
Environmentalists deny that the whale has recovered enough to be hunted safely, pointing out that, at best, it is at less than a fifth of its former abundance.
And an Australian minister, Ian Campbell, said: "Scientific whaling is just commercial whaling under another guise. To be hunting 50 of these endangered species is an outrage."
Leah Garcés, director of campaigns for the World Society for the Protection of Animals, added: "They will be using the same weapons that inflict a horrific death on minke whales. I cannot imagine what it will be like for humpbacks."
