JAPAN/ NEW ZEALAND: Greenpeace starts anti-whaling campaign as Japan defends it's stance

Record ID: 466085

  • Title: JAPAN/ NEW ZEALAND: Greenpeace starts anti-whaling campaign as Japan defends it's stance
  • Date: 25th January 2007
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE)(Japanese) KUNIO HIRATA, 70-YEAR-OLD FORMER TAXI DRIVER, SAYING: "I hope we'll soon be able to eat as much whale meat as we want. My generation grew up eating whale meat in stead of beef or pork."
  • Embargoed: 9th February 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations,Environment / Natural World
  • Reuters ID: LVA6R5EUBMUQYPIJ63Y6OYU5WZ9D
  • Story Text: International environmental group Greenpeace set to sail from New Zealand on Friday (January 26) to start its 2007 anti-whaling campaign, in a bid to stop Japan's whaling. International environmental group Greenpeace activists are set to sail from New Zealand on Friday (January 26) to start their 2007 anti-whaling campaign, trying to come between Japanese whalers and their prey in the Southern Ocean.
    The Greenpeace ship Esperanza will sail from Auckland on New Zealand's north island bound for the Southern Ocean Whale sanctuary in an expedition lasting up to seven weeks.
    "This year we're going to focus on making the Japanese government listen to the opposition from its own people. We'll be returning to the Southern Ocean, not just to show the reality of whaling, but to use non-violent direct action to protect individual whales as we did last year," Greenpeace expedition leader Karli Thomas, said.
    The campaign aims to prevent as many whale deaths as possible and to raise awareness in Japan of the whaling season, campaign leader Karli Thomas told reporters in Auckland on Thursday (January 25).
    Thomas added that 82 whales were saved during the 2006 campaign by Greenpeace by manoeuvring its small inflatable boats between the Japanese whaler's harpoon and the whale.
    A global moratorium on commercial whaling has existed since 1986, but Japan kills hundreds of whales each year under a scientific whaling programme. Iceland and Norway are the only countries to ignore the moratorium and conduct commercial hunts.
    Greenpeace said confronting Japanese whalers will only be part of its 2007 strategy, with an Internet and television campaign launched on Thursday to target Japanese society.
    Meanwhile, Japanese fisheries authorities counter-attacked a fresh champaign launched by anti-whaling activists blaming them for misleading the world by providing them with wrong information.
    A Japanese Fisheries Agency official warned that anti-whaling activists' efforts would accelerate a "food fight" among different species of whales and adversely affect the truly endangered ones.
    "It's a very sad fact that anti-whaling activists are disseminating misleading information which is not based on reliable data," said Hideki Moronuki, the Fisheries Agency official in charge of whaling. "For example, there's this Super Whale theory -- anti-whaling people like to use the phrase "The Whale is threatened by extinction." But if you look up in an encyclopaedia, there's no one such species as "the whale," he said.
    Moronuki points out that only a few species of whales, such as the Blue Whale, are still considered endangered and they are not among the species Japan's catching, which are Minke, Bryde's, Sei and Fin whales, under an International Whaling Commission-approved "research whaling" programme.
    Japanese officials say if non-endangered whales are left in abundance, competition among whales for food, such as krill, would heat up, leaving the endangered species like Blue Whale without enough food.
    On the streets of Tokyo, opinions vary.
    "I hope we'll soon be able to eat as much whale meat as we want. My generation grew up eating whale meat instead of beef or pork," said a nostalgic Kunio Hirata, a 70-year-old retired taxi driver.
    Officials and local fishermen also say that an increased number of non-endangered species of whales are causing trouble to Japan's fishing industry, attacking fishing nets and stealing the catch, like tuna fish.
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