David @ Tokyo

Sea Shepherd's Paul Watson has responded to the Farley Mowat's de-registration by IMMARBE. Unfortunately it appears that the vessel was able to leave Hobart just prior to the de-registration:

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship Farley Mowat is now officially a pirate vessel.

We are at sea without a flag, in search of illegal whaling operations in hostile and remote waters at the bottom of the world. The Farley Mowat cleared Australian Customs in Hobart, Tasmania on December 29, 2006 only hours before the nation of Belize struck our flag.

The Belize registry had only been issued ten days before on December 19, 2006. The registry was sought in Belize after Britain pulled the registry in early December the same day it was issued.

In October, the Farley Mowat registered under the Canadian flag since April 2002, had the registry suspended by Canada.

Sea Shepherd also had trouble earlier in 2006 when South African officials detained their vessel.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a little more:

An email sent by a registry official to Captain Watson said port authorities in Hobart, where Farley Mowat was docked, would be asked to ensure the ship did not leave port with Belizean registration. But Captain Watson said he had left hours earlier. "My instincts told me that we had better 'get out of Dodge'."

All of this creates an interesting situation, with the vessel having left port before the authorities could prevent it:

• Apparently stateless ships have no protection under international law. The whaling fleet is essentially owned by Japanese public-interest corporations now, so any actions taken against the fleet directly affect interests of the Government of Japan. There are laws and precedents for stateless vessels being boarded on the high seas, but as far as I've been able to find, they usually involve stateless ships suspected of illegal fishing activity or transport of weapons.
  

• Where will the Farley Mowat refuel and resupply? The Australian ports have been aiding SSCS to date, but with their flag struck off yet another register, one wonders whether they would seriously consider letting the Farley Mowat dock and the depart once again.
  

Back in December 2005 Watson said that he had "received a tip from a reliable source in Japan, that Japan has dispatched a warship to the Southern Ocean", speculating that they might seize the Farley Mowat in accordance with UNCLOS provisions. Obviously his tip wasn't reliable at all, and I doubt we'll see any such actions from Japan, but if a US Navy ship happened to be in the region - who knows.

As I suspected in my previous post, Watson has started his whinging about Japanese influence again:

This is all apparently part of a strategy by Japan to use its economic muscle to lean on any nation that allows us to be registered under their flag.

Another possibility that Paul should consider is that no sane registry would want to be seen to aid and abet his organizations actions.

Watson also says that:

"If anyone wishes to stop us from protecting whales they will have to sink us"

and the SMH quoted him as saying:

"I say in absolute seriousness at the risk of sounding dramatic, but my crew and I are prepared to die for these whales if need be."

The Farley Mowat isn't capable of keeping up with the research vessels, even if they are able to find them, so I don't think they'll have the opportunity to prove their madness.


Meanwhile, the "whale safe beer" campaign is coming in for additional criticism:

Don't get me wrong, I am in no way in favor of needlessly killing whales. Frankly I don't know much about the issue. The WSB people's position is that Japan, the country, with a wink and a nod allows its fisherman to catch whales despite a world wide moratorium on the practice. Therefore any beers brewed in Japan or beer companies that are supported in any way with Japanese money are responsible. What? Could there be a more insane position? Lots of countries allow pretty despicable things to happen but does this mean that all industry from that country should be boycotted? What is Japanese beer supposed to do about the whale killing? I hope beer lovers will see this cheap, baseless sales tactic for what it is and ignore Bluetongue's proposed boycott.

Labels: JARPA II 2006/2007 Updates, Sea Shepherd, whale safe beer, Whaling

What a boring austral summer this is turning out to be.

Tonight we've got more news from the "whale-safe beer" kufuffle.

"Australians are wise enough to make their own decisions as to whether this is a multi-millionaire trying to stoke racism in the Australian community to try to make a buck."

-- Lion Nathon spokesman

Elsewhere, Greenpeace is still trying to deceive the western public about the whale meat consumption trends here in Japan. According to Greenpeace:

it's clear that they don't have a high demand since more and more whale meat is getting stockpiled.

As readers of this blog know, consumption has actually increased by more than 50% since 2004. Greenpeace is however a "campaigning" organization, not an educational organization. They must campaign to continue to raise funds, and they must raise funds to continue to campaign. More silliness:

There doesn't appear to be any logical explanation why the Japanese government supports whaling on the high seas and since the majority of the Japanese public are also against it - isn't it about time they stopped?

Greenpeace draws their own illogical conclusions, which is why they can't understand the Japanese government's position. Meanwhile, readers of this blog also know that it's an outright lie that the majority of the Japanese public "are against" whaling.

Finally, Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace are busy whinging at each other (see here and here). Greenpeace is still not even anywhere near the Antarctic, and doesn't plan to be there until sometime into the New Year. The most likely reason to my mind is that last year they wasted lots of valuable media time in the Antarctic over the Christmas / New Year's period. It's hard to get media attention at this time as everyone is on holiday (that's why we saw them ram the Nisshin Maru on January 8th last year).

Labels: eco-terrorism, Greenpeace, JARPA II 2006/2007 Updates, Sea Shepherd, whale safe beer, Whaling

Good news - as expected, Japanese interests have not taken too fondly to the "whale-safe beer" campaign, which depicted a Japanese businessman getting harpooned through the back and subsequently electrocuted, in a magnificent display of ignorance of the JARPA II research programme:

JOHN Singleton's anti-whaling crusade may have backfired as Japanese companies – including some of his clients – react in anger to his "whale-safe beer" campaign.

An Australian trade representative in Tokyo last night labelled Singo's anti-Japanese tactics in flogging his Bluetongue beer a "self-serving sideshow" that could harm our $54 billion trade relationship.

Austrade also warned against punishing non-whaling Japanese companies over whaling. Mr Singleton's website urges a boycott on Lion Nathan beers – including Tooheys, Hahn and XXXX – because a large shareholder in the company is Japanese brewer Kirin.

Kirin, which has no connection to Japan's whaling industry, is seething at the attack.

Insiders believe it is little more than an ill-considered get-square with Tooheys, which dumped Mr Singleton's advertising agency Singleton Ogilvy & Mather three years ago.

But it has opened a larger can of worms for Mr Singleton, whose web of business interests includes relationships with powerful Japanese companies.

Russell Tate, of communications group STW – co-owned by Mr Singleton – indicated the beer might not be his mate's smartest campaign.

"Singo's done a few things over the last 20 years that in hindsight might not have been good ideas," Mr Tate said.

Mr Tate is in an awkward spot, with STW's Japanese client list including Sony, Pioneer, Hitachi, Toshiba and Canon.

Behind the scenes the campaign is not seen as a joke – and not just by Kirin.

Canon spokeswoman Roslyn Richardson said: "This approach is not appropriate."

A Toyota spokesman said: "Whaling is an issue for governments not companies unconnected to whaling".

Mr Singleton was unavailable for comment yesterday.

If the man has any brains at all he'll withdraw the commercial and issue an apology.

On my previous post regarding this topic, Y/H-san, one of my regular Japanese readers commented (in Japanese):

I struggle to understand what on earth Australia is thinking.

Although this may be a beer commercial, and they are trying to appeal along the lines of "since the Japanese are harpooning whales, how would Japanese people feel if they were harpooned? stop whaling", for Japanese people the result will be a complete backfire:
- Don't equate whales to humans
- How about you guys shooting kangaroos with guns and eating them?
- This will get connected with racism issues

and so on... I think all that will come out of this is an emotional, bad result. I eat Australian meat, but I really don't need to, I can eat whale meat instead, and there are plenty of other sellers so I won't be put out.

It'll be interesting if this commercial is aired on Japanese TV.

Then things will really get crazy.

After a subsequent comment linking to the video at YouTube, Y/H-san added:

That commercial is grotesque.

What poor taste. I had thought that Aussies were smarter and wiser than this.

Thats... moronic [hope that's how to translate "tako" in this context - David]

I'm recommending my friends not to eat Aussie Beef, and I'd like to spread around what poor taste the Aussies have.

Also I'll be contacting the PM's office and other related areas requesting them to protest to Australia.

Elsewhere, apparently Australia wishes to obtain a free trade agreement with Japan. I wonder who stands to gain the most from the agreement? I think the Government of Japan should leverage this opportunity.


Other trouble related to Sea Shepherd has seen Ian Campbell defending himself:

"I'm wishing him a safe passage and I'm also reinforcing my message in a one-on-one conversation that respect for law of the sea, respect for human life and respect for the safety of ships at sea is incredibly important," Senator Campbell said.

"People who go around and threaten those important laws and safety measures potentially put the cause of whale conservation backwards.

"Paul Watson and I both share a passionate belief in the view that whaling should come to an end, it should be relegated to the dustbin of history.

"I just wanted to make sure he knew very clearly my view about his tactics."

It wasn't really necessary to "make sure", was it? After all, Campbell did describe Paul Watson as "deranged" last year. And indeed, Watson noticed.

Nice one, Ian.

Labels: Ian Campbell, whale safe beer, Whaling

There's been a lot of discussion surrounding potential violence against the ICR research fleet in the Antarctic by groups such as Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, which led to the IWC adopting Resolution 2006-2, the "Resolution on the safety of vessels engaged in whaling and whale research-related activities" at this year's IWC meeting.

However, while concerned about the possibility of further violence and intimidatory actions against the ICR research fleet in the Antarctic this austral summer, I think there is far greater cause for concern regarding Japanese citizens residing in Australia.

Why? This beer advertisement:


This, in my opinion (story here), demonstrates that the Australian authorities need to tone down their emotional anti-whaling rhetoric, and be very very careful to monitor the situation and not themselves contribute towards incitement of racially based violence on Australian soil.

In light of this distasteful campaign, were I Japanese I would be extremely careful about myself if I were in Australia over the coming summer, whether that be at the pub or down on the beach. The combination of alcohol and the hysteria in Australia surrounding the whaling issue makes me extremely fearful of the possibility of racially motivated violence being born out of this situation.

It was only last year that Sydney experienced major riots related to racial tension.

I do not wish for this advertisement campaign to backfire against Australia or the unjust anti-whaling campaign for fear of the possibility that it might come at the cost of an innocent human being getting seriously injured.

I hope that my fears are misplaced.

Labels: eco-terrorism, whale safe beer, Whaling