David @ Tokyo

Some comments from Joji Morishita appeared in the western media yesterday regarding the whaling issue and the IWC (Bloomberg, Reuters).

It's decision time for the IWC, says Morishita.

If you'd like to hear the full media meeting that was held, go here, scroll down below the picture and you can see a link to the audio. The video clip is just 5 minutes, the audio runs for over an hour.

Labels: IWC Normalization, Joji Morishita

Two articles of interest:

1) Joji Morishita at Reuters on the IWC stalemate - plus an ultimatum of sorts. Readers outside Japan may like to note that it's an election year in Japan, thus talk of Japan leaving the IWC if it fails to fulfil it's mandate should be taken very seriously. Whether or not public support is growing for such a move is something that I think some polling should be done on. An editorial last year in the Nikkei following IWC 58 recommended (even further) patience.

My view? What is patience likely to result in? More waiting. Unless the IWC member numbers miraculously increase to 110, nothing fruitful is likely to come out of the IWC meetings, and scientific advice will continue to be ignored, no matter how much or little credibility it has. This is a bad situation, but can one let it stand like this forever?

2) The High North Alliance brings us news of the IUCN red list revisions pertaining to whales. Various down listings occurred, but the fin whale remains regarded by the IUCN as "endangered". We'll be looking out for further details of the reason for this - I imagine that the same criteria as with the previous assessment still applies.

Labels: IWC Normalization, Joji Morishita

A couple of brief reports regarding the moves by the UK to try to get additional nations to join the IWC have appeared in the Japanese media. As always, I'll give English readers my best effort translations.

From the Nihon Keizai Shinbun:

England aims to expand "anti-whaling group" at IWC

(London - Kazushige Yokota) - The United Kingdom Government is aiming to enlarge the "anti-whaling group" within in International Whaling Commission (IWC). It is urging around a dozen non-member European nations including Poland, Turkey, Greece to join the IWC, pleading that "by joining the IWC we can save the whales".

At last year's annual IWC meeting in June, for the first time ever a resolution supporting a resumption of commercial whaling was passed by a single vote majority, which has seen a sense of crisis rise amongst the "anti-whaling group". For an actual resumption of whaling, a three quarters majority agreement is required, and both whaling and anti-whaling sides are aiming to expand the size of their respective groups through recruitment of new member nations.

That's a typically tame piece which is to my mind representative of the general way in which the Japanese media view this issue - a bit of a storm in a teacup. Note that the "by joining the IWC we can save the whales" quote is a translation of a Japanese translation of the original English quote, so it's probably coming out differently due to the old "chinese whispers" problem.

This other article from Jiji Tsuushin seems slightly slanted towards the Japanese position:

2007/01/27-14:14 Constructing an anti-whaling majority = UK Environment Ministry soliciting IWC non-member nations

(London - 27th - Jiji) The UK's Environment, Food and Agriculture Ministry announced plans on the 27th aimed at increasing anti-whaling forces by strengthening their efforts to urge nations in Europe and Africa which are non-International Whaling Commission member nations to join. From next week, they plan to distribute materials pleading for the protection of whales, with the objective of boosting non-members to join the IWC.

The BBC has what I consider to be a rather good article on the issue here. Here's some bits of it:

The British government will publish a brochure this coming week aimed at encouraging nations opposed to whaling to join the Commission.

It says whales are "sensitive, social creatures", with some species risking extinction. Japan says these arguments are "old rhetoric and half-truths".

...

The UK's recruitment brochure ... says that protecting whales for future generations is a "global responsibility".

"Some whales are particularly at risk of extinction because their populations remain endangered following past exploitation from commercial whaling," it continues.

In two forewords, the distinguished natural history broadcaster David Attenborough writes, "There is no humane way to kill a whale at sea", while Tony Blair makes a direct call to arms.

"We urge your government to join the UK and the other anti-whaling nations in the IWC," writes the British Prime Minister, "to ensure that our generation meets its global responsibility to protect whales."

The arguments contained in the brochure were dismissed by Japan's deputy whaling commissioner Joji Morishita.

"It is always depressing to see the same old anti-whaling rhetoric," he told the BBC News website.

"Its basic position is that commercial whaling automatically means extinction. As we want everlasting whaling, which is totally different from the past industrial whaling of western countries which regarded whales only as an exhaustive industrial material, we would avoid extinction at any cost."

I think Joji Morishita sums it up very well. Perhaps another reference in there to the fact that the whalers support protection of species that are not recovering, or are still at very low levels of abundance, may also give a favourable impression.

Mr Morishita also warned that the IWC could break up without agreement on the eventual return to regulated commercial hunting.

I think this is probably something that will be made explicitly clear at the IWC Normalization meeting this month. The ongoing rhetoric from the anti-whaling nations gives the impression that they don't take the possibility seriously - or otherwise they are simply happy to be playing an "all or nothing" game, despite long term whale conservation being at stake here. If the IWC breaks down, I can't see that there would ever be any putting it back together again.

Japan is regularly accused by conservation campaigners of using fisheries aid to buy the votes of smaller countries in the IWC.

In reality, both pro- and anti-whaling blocs have sought to recruit like-minded members in recent years.

Very good from the BBC! Both sides of the argument basically presented evenly. My cap goes off to the article author Richard Black.


Greenpeace and Chris Carter have voiced support for the UK's pamphlet (here and here).

Labels: IWC Normalization, Japanese media perspective, Joji Morishita

Things are warming up nicely for another typical fest of madness and loopiness at IWC 2005.

A few days back the Australian Environment Minister had a column of his posted here.
The Minister (Ian Campbell, to name names) ...
- talks about "fears" the lives of whales are "in danger". Sheez Ian. How do you think the cows and sheep feel? Grow a heart!

- laments the reality that the International community doesn't recognise Australia's claim over large amounts of Antartic waters

- talks about his evil master plan to disrupt Japanese whaling plans:
"The best chance Australia has of stopping the JFA from pursuing its plans is by removing an outdated loophole in the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling that allows for so-called "scientific" whaling."
Sorry Ian, but it's no use trying to claim that Article VIII is a loophole in the ICRW - it has been a part of the ICRW right since the beginning back in the 1940's - unlike the commercial whaling moratorium which was only agreed to in 1982. Nor is it possible to "remove" Article VIII from the ICRW. It's in the document that Australia put their signature on - if Australia doesn't like the rules, it should just get out, as is their right to do so. And if that's Australia's "best chance", why not just admit Australia has NO chance, and that this is all just a political stunt to impress domestic voters.

- Notes that "sales of whale meat produced by scientific whaling amount to more than $60 million a year", but fails to mention that the $60 million is put back into funding the research programs, and is also significantly less money than groups such as Greenpeace receive in anti-whaling donations each year. While Greenpeace and co are regarded as "not for profit", apparently Japanese research whaling which generates far less revenue and runs at a loss is "commercial whaling in disguise". Good try though Ian! All of this, and not to mention the fact that Japan needs to make good use of the whale meat or be found in breach of the ICRW...

- starts to wind up with this cracker: "This is full-scale commercial whaling and a slaughter of one of the largest and most intelligent creatures on our planet"
18000 of so whales over 18 years represents nothing like a "full-scale" commercial whaling operation. In the past total whale numbers taken each year were more than 3 times that figure (get your past whaling statistics here). The IWC's Scientific Committee also concluded several years ago that a yearly catch of 2000 minke whales would be sustainable under it's highly conservative Revised Management Procedure. And yet a figure of half that per year is somehow "full-scale"? To put it more bluntly, poor Ian is clearly just scaremongering.

- and finishes off with a big flourish: "Our goal is to amend the IWC convention and remove the loophole that allows scientific whaling. This generation will be judged in part by the way we treat these amazing creatures. Australia will not only continue to fight to save this important species, we will lead this historic mission."

What a hero, huh. It all sounds very grand, but it's a foregone conclusion that Australia will never be able to achieve this goal - it's failed in this "historic mission" before it's even started. But it sounds like a wonderful nice fluffy idea, which is often enough for the western public.


The Japanese hit back strongly, firstly with Joji Morishita in response to a letter from Johnny Howard to Prime Minister Koizumi:

Japan's head whaling negotiator, Joji Morishita, accused Howard of being ill-informed and emotional in criticizing Japan's research whaling program.

"Your prime minister, for example, should be more informed about what is actually happening and the only way to solve this difficult issue is not to inflate (the) emotional side of the issue," he told ABC radio.

"We should look at science and international law; that's the only way to solve difficult international negotiations," he added.

Morishita is giving Johnny Howard a little less credit than he deserves - to be fair Johnny has admitted that the law is with the Japanese. But Johnny is Australian Prime Minister, and when it comes to whaling, Western people do get emotional and say "screw the law". It's fine when it's on your side, but apparently if you're an anti-whaler, you just ignore the law if it's against you.

Takanori Nagatomo also sums up the Japanese motivation for scientific whaling: "We have been engaging in research whaling to collect scientific data so we can resume commercial whaling"
This point is eternally lost upon Western ears, however. Tell all your friends! The Western media is throughly confused, believing that scientific whaling IS commercial whaling - the reality is that scientific research comes before commercial whaling. Without scientific data, there can be no commercial whaling, as management decisions would have no basis. Research whaling programmes contribute valuable such data, and this is also why the anti-whaling governments criticise scientific whaling. With less scientific basis for commercial whaling any quotas that might be set would likely be too small for a business to justify the start-up costs. Hence, it's in the political interests of anti-whaling governments for the world to remain as ignorant about whale stocks as they possibly can.

Nagatomo then scored points when he dismissed federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell's inflammatory criticism of Japan's scientific whaling program as uninformed and probably "drafted by his junior staff".

"I don't believe a man with full knowledge of our scientific research could make such statements," Takanori Nagatomo said after Senator Campbell called the program "sick", "obscene" and "a total insult to the word science".

And shooting home the winner, "He pointed out that removing Article 8 required agreement from all 58 members of the International Whaling Commission".
Naturally, Japan, Iceland, and other nations that believe whaling management decisions should be made with ample scientific information (as required by the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, in Article V - a document which all member nations have put their signature to), so we can expect any such proposal to be soundly voted down. To be honest, I'll be very surprised if Australia even takes that route. They are probably more likely to try to amend the IWC Schedule - but that won't work either as Article VIII of the ICRW states clearly that it's provisions are "Notwithstanding anything in this convention". Functionally this is equally useless, but the anti-whaling politicians might like to hold such a revision to the IWC Schedule - even if totally ineffective - as a trophy to their domestic constituencies.

But anyway - Bang. Ian Campbell - harpooned well and truely.

The anti-whaling UK media has some additional snippets from the exchanges here.

For some much more crass and stupid comment, see here. You can always tell an anti-whaling argument is irrational when you see references to Japan's role in World War II, and comparisons between killing whales with killing humans. No further comment required!

Meanwhile, the coastal whale hunting season has just gotten underway in Japan.

Labels: Ian Campbell, John Howard, Joji Morishita, Takanori Nagatomo