Respecting the past, saving the future
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Posted by Page (in Amsterdam)
"[T]his town, Muroto, was thriving because of whaling and was known as a whale town since 400 years ago. I want to let young people know the culture cultivated by whales in this town should be valued. My dream is to return their favor. I would like to do something like that."So says Tomohisa Nagaoka at the end of a fascinating interview he gave to our Whale Love Wagon friends, Yuki and Ivan, back in March 2007. Nagaoka is a former whaler who became one of Japan's first leader of tourist whale-watching expeditions about 20 years ago.
In the interview, he talks about how countries competed in a "Whaling Olympics", to see who could kill the most whales. There weren't quotas for individual countries; rather, the world quota set by the IWC in 1948 was 16,000 Blue Whale Units (which equals 2 fin whales, 6 sei whales, etc.), so blue whales were preferentially hunted over other whales, quickly driving them toward near-extinction.
The other day, the AFP published a longer interview with Nagaoka, where he talks more about whaling, both its past and its future, and what he thinks it means to the Japanese.
"Whales are a gift from nature", he says. After all these years (he's 75), he feels they are a part of him, and that he decided he could use his extensive knowledge about whales and their behavior to teach people more about them via whale-watching.
"I know what kind of whales they are, where they swim and how they swim. I'd heard that whale watching was about to begin in Japan, so I thought, 'Let's give it a try'.''No national figures are kept on whale-watching. But on the Pacific islands of Ogasawara, Japan's most popular spot for observing the massive mammals at play, some 14,700 people came to watch whales last year, a 20 percent growth from eight years ago, according to the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association.
During his whaling career (beginning in 1956), Nagaoka killed over 4,000 whales, most of them in the Antarctic waters. He says that he did it "for the sake of [his] family". Times are different now, though, and he says:
"Overhunting is no good,'' he said. ``We used to catch as many as 60 blue whales a day, which was even beyond the mother ship's processing capacity, and some of them were spoiled due to rotting.
However, he goes on to say that he believes whaling should continue "within reasonable bounds", because he feels that eating whale is inseparable from Japanese tradition, even today, especially for older citizens, who remember that whaling helped relieve extreme food shortages after World War II.
Japan's unofficial stance on whale watching is "a means to use resources in a sustainable manner", but what Greenpeace would like to see is:
Junichi Sato, the campaign leader for Greenpeace Japan, said: "We suggest that the Japanese government shift funds from whaling to promotion of whale watching, which is still not well organised in Japan.''
So, maybe Nagaoka's story can set a great example for other whalers: use your knowledge of whales to start a business that everyone will love. It's a way to teach people that it's time to give back to the whales.
