David @ Tokyo

The Seoul Times has a story on the "whale embassy" show set up by - you guessed it - Greenpeace and friends, those great bastions of international co-operation on environmental issues (hmm, how could I saturate that in even more sarcasm?).

Their snap line is that it's "there to give whales a voice" - to say what whales would say if they could speak.

Right... IF whales could speak - which they can't and never will be able to - because whales aren't humans, they are whales.

And its message to the citizens of Ulsan is to stop loving whales for their taste, and start loving them for themselves.

Why don't Greenpeace and co. stop hating whalers and start accepting the diverse cultures of the world which utilise a range of naturally renewable resources to feed their people?

The rest of the article provides a good example of blanket prohibition of whaling failing to achieve it's goals. Despite the ban on whaling, the IWC's scientific committee is exploring the possibility that South Korean "by-catch"levels (and likely undetected illegal whaling) may put the local J-stock at risk. The commercial whaling moratorium is past it's used by date, isn't helping the whales, and isn't providing the framework for constructive efforts to meet the needs of locals in Ulsan and conservation objectives.