Valentines Day: We love Japan - but whaling breaks our hearts | Home | Distress call from the Nisshin Maru

David@tokyo, if you're looking for your most recent essay (the comment to this thread), it's here on the forums. You're trying my patience, young man.

"Judging from the media response so far, this approach is proving very effective. Hopefully we can begin to break down the wall of cultural propaganda and give people the correct information about whaling."

Hello, Sakyo.

Unfortunately for you, the Japanese media did not relayed much of Greenpeace's new approach on whaling. All I've seen until now was two newspaper artcles in the Asahi Shinbun about a Spaniard in "Whale-Love Wagon" eating whale meat and comments from Junichi Sato about "Japan buying votes". Not much, is it?

Now, I wonder if "wall of misinformation and propaganda" does not apply to what Greenpeace says on whaling...

For: David@tokyo.... YOU BREAK MY HEART.....

Hi isanatori,
It was hard to get through our message before but this time Asashi has already carried our new approach which is really good start I think.
You can now also find an article with the photo of our new approach here:AFP

And more articles about whaling issue in Japan: The Japan Times(Feb.11)
(There are 6 articles on same edition!)
Cheers,
Sakyo

Shane Rattenbury氏は、「残された資源を回復させる方法を模索することなのです」としています。

では、なぜグリーンピースが南極海にいらっしゃったのでしょうか。ニシコククジラこそ明らかに一番嶮しい状態にあるのに対して、南極海の資源は全て回復傾向にあります。

グリーンピースの一番悪いところは、現実的な解決策を生み出すには貢献していません。まずは真の環境問題に注目してほしいんです。

Masakun, please post in Japanese on the whale love wagon forum, where you will be responded to.

I'll try to translate what Masakun wrote :

"Mr. Shane Rattenbury is saying "[Greenpeace] is groping for a way to make the remaining [whale] resources to recover".

So, why is Greenpeace in the Southern Ocean ? As opposed to the fact the Northwest Pacific gray whale is clearly in the most critical state, all [whales species] ressources in the Antarctic are recovering.

Greenpeace's biggest flaw is that they are not contributing to finding a realistic solution. I would like them to pay attention the real environmental problems."

Now, I would like to answer Sakyo :

Thank you for your answer to my comment. I took a look at the articles you mentionned. I don't think Japanese people read much AFP articles, specially as it is a translated one (from English probably).

As for the Japan Times, you certainly know as much as I do that this newspaper is mainly read by foreigners in Japan. However, David McNeil's articles were quite interesting and certainly true.

My only reproach would be that he didn't inspect the side of the anti-whaling camp. You certainly won't agree with me, but I believe responsibilities are shared in the actual stalemate at the IWC.

If I remember well, a few years ago, somebody from the WWF evoked the possibility to accept limited and regulated commercial whaling. The WWF has withdrawn this idea since then.

In his book "hogei 捕鯨" (Housei-daigaku shuppan-kyoku. two volumes), Yamashita Shouto explains that the Japanese whaling industry and the anti-whaling movement have become interdependent (持ちつ持たれつ) and both profit from the actual situation.

I believe this is true, but I think the IWC could become a good example as an international regulation body if both camps could find an agrement over the whaling dispute...which means making concessions, and the result of the "Conference for the normalization of the IWC" shows it is still far.

Cheers.

isanatori

We can start an argument about a the grey whale and the south Pacific fleet and so on, but arguments do no help the whales. I do not know why Greenpeace is promoting campaigns consisting in sending some gift with a meaning to Danish embassies/Government with the great risk that some of the gifts prove to be so distasteful that we gain enemies rather than friends. If you really want to make the world aware, make sure that Japanese products are blacklisted, If Toyota or Honda workers all over the world begin to worry about their jobs simply because their firm is associated to a country that kills whales or pollute too much, then things will begin to move soon. Ah! and nobody will be accusing private buyers of terrorism.
Also, the Dave's argument that sailors of a stranded whaling ship should receive help because the waters are cold out there, is a bit of nonsense. Sailors know where they go and what they are going to do. In fact, probably the receive a greater salary because they are going there. Stop the romanticism and do something effective. Only by diminishing trade -even by a margin of 5 % will stop this situations. This simply means power to the people.

Roberto - I'm talking nonsense? Try asking the dozens of Japanese crew from the Nisshin Maru, see if they'd agree.

Plus, even if there was no one on the ship, it is our responsibility to assess the situation here. According to reports, the Nisshin Maru has 1,000 tons of oil on board. We can't leave it here, lest it end up getting wrecked on the pristine coastline of the Antarctic's Ross Sea.

This isn't romanticism, this is pragmatism. We had a whaling problem - I doubt anymore whales will die here this year. What we have now is a potential humanitarian and environmental problem.