Hi folks - this blog is dormant until future notice - the campaign to stop whaling campaign is continuing on Making Waves: Whaling and on the and on the Tokyo Two page...
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November 1, 2008Keeping up with the whaling issue
Whaling vessel Oriental Bluebird de-flagged!
A Greenpeace inflatable boat tries to prevent Japanese whaling fleet's factory ship Nisshin Maru from refueling from the supply vessel Oriental Bluebird in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. © Greenpeace/Rezac
Some great news for the whales - and it was worth waiting for - the Oriental Bluebird - the Japanese-owned cargo and refuelling for the whaling fleet, has lost its Panamanian flag! You may recall that back on January 22nd, activists from the Esperanza blocked the whaling vessels Nisshin Maru and Oriental Bluebird from coming alongside in Southern Ocean waters. The ships planned to exchange fuel and whale meat - but activists Jetske and Heath put their tiny inflatable in between, to the frustration of the whalers.
It seems a long time ago since watched this from the bridge of the Esperanza, but now their blockade has come to fruition; following pressure from Greenpeace, and Panamanian organisations ASVEPA (Panama Green Association) and FSOCIAM (Environmental and Civil Society Forum, NGOs Coalition), the Oriental Bluebird de-flagged and fined, thanks to a legal ruling by Panamanian authorities.
Whale Scandal Update and more...
I've mainly been posting updates on the situation in Japan over on Making Waves, so I'm going to do a quick sum up. First of all, Junichi and Toru are out of detention - they've been charged, but are on bail now. Still, justice will not be done until a proper investigation of the whale meat scandal happens. The unanswered question remains, "Why did the Japanese prosecutor suddenly drop his investigation into the stolen whale meat allegations, despite Greenpeace directly handing him the solid and compelling evidence?"
More here »
So, what would happen now if Japan's Supreme Public Prosecutor's office was inundated by actual, physical letters calling for the whale meat investigation to be re-opened? Take action: Contact the Prosecutor about the real whaling scandal »
This week, a former whaling official has come out in opposition to Japan's whaling »
Here'ss something that turned up recently - Canadian rockstar Bryan Adams was on BBC 1 Breakfast TV last month (23rd June), wearing a "Release Junichi and Toru" T-shirt. Rocker Bryan Adams supports Junichi and Toru »
Dave
Japanese whale activists arrested!
Hi folks - I'm currently keeping the whaling focus over the Making Waves blog - so for now, please head to there for your whale news. Here's the latest on the arrests in Japan:
Update: Take Action now to release our activists »
Breaking news - two Japanese Greenpeace activists, Junichi and Toru, have been arrested for exposing the stolen whale meat scandal which led to the ongoing investigation by the Tokyo Public Prosecutor of the government's Southern Ocean whale hunt.
Scandal: Japan's whalers caught redhanded
Greenpeace Japan's Junichi Sato displaying the stolen whale meat to the media. ©Greenpeace/Naomi Toyoda
It's been a busy few days for the Defending Whales Team in Tokyo, Japan:
"Stake outs, testimony from informers, hidden cameras and tailing trucks full of stolen goods - it reads like a Hollywood movie, but it was an every day experience for Greenpeace activists in Japan, who have spent four months cracking open a major conspiracy of corruption at the heart of Japan's government-backed, sham scientific whaling operation."Read more here »
Posted by Brian yesterday:
"Finally, we can tell the story some of us have been sitting on for months now: the whale meat embezzlement we uncovered in Japan, in which stolen cuts of prime whale bacon are smuggled away from the "scientific research" vessels and sold for oodles of yen -- one of our informers heard a crew member claim he built a house on his illegal proceeds."Blog: Stolen whale meat scandal rocks Japan »
And an update I just posted on Making Waves:
"We met for breakfast at 6:30am; the sun was shining for the first time in days, and the scandal had been splashed all over the front page of the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading newspaper with 8 million copies circulated daily. A good start to the day. By the time our press conference kicked off at 10am, news had spread, and the room was packed with domestic and international media, including all the top Japanese TV stations, and international agencies like Bloomberg and Agence France-Presse. Cross conferences can be notoriously dull affairs - but this was a little different. Our whale campaigner, Junichi, while presenting the conference with Jun (Greenpeace Japan executive director) pulled on a pair of surgical gloves, and held up a piece of the stolen whale meat for the cameras. Mind, seeing wasn't enough to convince one journalist who was forced to ask "is it real?" To which Junichi replied that it certainly was, and invited the journalist to have a sniff - the whale meat doesn't smell so good, and by the time the conference was over, the entire room smell of dead whale - an Antarctic minke that found an ignominious, pointless end, stuffed into a cardboard box."
Read more here »
Australian Whales envoy named? Rumours abound
According to the The Age newspaper in Australia, diplomat Sandy Hollway has been unofficially named as Australia's new "whale envoy" to Japan:
"[Prime Minister] Kevin Rudd has selected Labor mate Sandy Hollway to be Australia's first whaling envoy, ending a desperate five-month search for someone willing to confront Japan over its whale slaughter. An experienced diplomat and chief of staff to former prime minister Bob Hawke, Mr Hollway is known to most Australians as the face of the 2000 Sydney Olympics where he was head of the organising committee. He is also on good terms with Mr Rudd, appointed by the Prime Minister in March as chief mediator between Canberra and Port Moresby over the future of the Kokoda Trail."
The Age: Diplomat lands task of stopping whale hunt »
If these reports of Mr. Hollway's appointment as Australia's Whales Envoy to Japan are true, then the Australian government should confirm it as soon as possible - rather than leave it open to further speculation. Support for whaling is on the wane in Japan, but Hollway - or whoever gets the envoy role - will still have his work cut out for him, what with the International Whaling Commission Meeting coming up in June, and the Japanese whaling fleet gearing up for a return to the Southern Ocean at the end of the year.
Whale comeback in Chile
Some good news from Chile, where the International Whaling Commission meeting is due to happen in June. There's been strong campaigning going on at a national level to turn Chile's waters into a whale sanctuary - and if this report is anything to go by, it's a damn good idea:
"... 22 years after an international whale-hunting moratorium went into effect, some whales appear to be making a comeback off Chile's coast, where a proliferation of islands, fiords, peninsulas and straits creates tens of thousands of miles of shoreline. In recent years, researchers combing remote crannies of this elongated coast have confirmed the presence of two seasonally resident populations of whales, including 100 to 150 humpbacks here in the glacier-rimmed Strait of Magellan."
"Farther to the north, closer to the seas once frequented by Mocha Dick, they've tracked several hundred blue whales, believed to be Earth's largest animal, at 100 feet long and more than 100 tons -- bigger than any dinosaur. A separate population of blue whales feeds off the central California coast between June and October."
It's worth reading the whole article, which is quite in-depth, in the LA Times:
Whale sightings off Chile raise hope for the endangered animals »
Norway's whalers make first kill of the year
From Reuters:
Norwegian whalers shot the first whale of the season on Wednesday of a quota of 1,052, a group opposed to the hunts said. Norway, with Japan the main whaling nation despite an international moratorium, resumed commercial hunts in 1993 and says that the minke whales it harpoons are plentiful in the north Atlantic.
Mister Splashy Pants and friends - update
Failed Research - Nisshin Maru is back in Japan
© Greenpeace/Naomi Toyoda
Japan's factory whaling ship, the Nisshin Maru was "welcomed" into Tokyo earlier today, by Junichi and our team from Greenpeace Japan, along with the word "failed" to accompany the ubiquitous and Orwellian "RESEARCH" painted on its hull.
During its five months at sea, the Nisshin Maruwas responsible for taking 551 minke whales from the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary - far less than the 1035 whales planned, but more than a hundred than were killed three years ago. Our ship, the Esperanza, shutdown Japan's entire whaling operation for 15 days, during a 4300-mile chase of the Nisshin Maru across the Southern Ocean. The whalers are blaming the protestors (that'd be us then) for missing their target.
Nisshin Maru Arrives in Tokyo after failed "research" in the Southern Ocean »
From the heart of Santiago: Hundreds of people call for a whale sanctuary in Chile's waters
© Greenpeace/Sebastian Araya
From Melissa, at Greenpeace Chile
Last Sunday, more than 1,000 people - mainly children - formed a a human heart round a 35 metre large (inflatable!) whale in the middle Of Santiago, the capital city of Chile. Motivated by the killing of whales in the Southern Ocean during the last few months, the Chilean people have called on the government to create a whale sanctuary in Chilean waters - part of a larger sanctuary that's currently being worked out by South American countries.
Santiago will be hosting the International Whaling Commission meeting in June of this year.
Hello Hobart – at the end of a long journey
Posted by Irene onboard the Esperanza
©Greenpeace/Jiri Rezac
The icebergs outside our portholes have been replaced by the buildings of Hobart.
We could smell the trees from far away. For some reason many looked surprised at the sight of land, as if we had expected it not to be there anymore. When sailing into Hobart, we were moved by the big welcoming crowd cheering and waving on the quayside. It took some time to clear customs, but about an hour later we set foot on land for the first time in a month and a half. It was lovely to see all these smiling faces, and as much as I like my crewmates, it is good to see some others than the 36 onboard!
Tomorrow we will hold the ship open for visitors – if you happen to be in the area please come pay us a visit between 12 and 19pm!
Video: Sara wraps it up
The whale hunt continues
Posted by Irene onboard the Esperanza
Two years ago: what they do not
want you and me to see.
©Greenpeace/Kate Davison
We chased the factory ship the Nisshin Maru over a distance of 4,300 nautical miles. During that time no whales were killed. When we had to leave the Australian surveillance vessel Oceanic Viking had arrived. If the whaling fleet have "only" killed five whales so far, it means that the whaling fleet didn't resume whaling immediately, but I guess they got desperate to try and fill their quota. It is very difficult to find anything positive to say today.
Media coverage and public discussion on the whaling issue has reached unprecedented levels in Japan, and Prime Minister Fukuda has been forced to discuss the whaling issue in Parliament.
Japanese taxpayers must be wondering why they are funding this scandalous fake research operation which produces no real science, whale meat that very few wants to eat, and brings their country into international disrepute.
The Japanese government wants to "normalise" the International Whaling Commission, and overthrow the moratorium on commercial whaling. Bloody pictures of whales being killed in the Southern Ocean do not serve this purpose.
Therefore I post one from 2006 - this is what the Japanese government's science looks like.
Okinawa sea cows win in court!
Posted by Irene onboard the Esperanza
In 2003 members of the Okinawan community joined with an international coalition of conservation groups to file suit in U.S. district court on behalf of the dugong.
Yesterday we got the good news: a final ruling requires the US Department of Defense to consider impacts of a new airbase on the endangered Okinawa dugong. The airbase construction will not automatically be stopped because of this court case, but it is the first step towards achieving that goal.
Read the decision
Read the full press release from the Center for Biological Diversity
Picking the right target
Posted by Sara onboard the Esperanza
©Greenpeace/Jiri Rezac
Disagreement is fine. We do not expect everyone to be in tune with what we do, but no one should have to tolerate some of the gratuitous abuse that has been levelled on this blog and lies that have been told.
Don't Shoot?
Posted by Sara onboard the Esperanza
© Greenpeace/Rezac
But, back to the original question - do we do it just for the pictures? Well, the Esperanza managed to stop the whaling operation in the Southern Ocean this year for longer than we have ever done before – and here are the dramatic, shameless media images of us doing it, judge for yourselves:
More individual efforts to end whaling and a few words on fuel
Posted by Irene onboard the Esperanza
Jenni and Kara went for a cold swim.
All over the world committed individuals of all ages and nationalities find their own ways to help save the whales. We've already told you about young activist Sophie, who will soon go to court together with her father for her protest outside the Japanese embassy in London.
Tomorrow the Japanese stand-up comedian Hiroshi Nakatsuji will do what he knows best and use the stage as an anti-whaling platform, in his show "Lucky Golden Whales".
"Scientific research can be done without the killing and whaling has also caused unnecessary conflict between Japan and the rest of the world - and it is important that I, as a Japanese living in New Zealand, take that message to them"
We leave the Nisshin Maru
Posted by Irene onboard the Esperanza
©Greenpeace/Jiri Rezac
We have spent more than two weeks successfully preventing the Japanese whaling fleet from hunting, ever since we found the whaling factory ship. We have pursued the vessel for 4300 nautical miles, at high speed, and we are now running low on fuel and have to return to port.
The Australian government ship Oceanic Viking is still here. Maybe the presence of the Australian surveillance vessel makes a difference, since the Japanese government seems to want to avoid exposure of their "scientific whaling" at all cost.
Go Sophie and Martin!
Posted by Irene onboard the Esperanza
Go Sophie!
©Greenpeace/Jiri Rezac
Efforts are made also on land to put an end to whaling, and you need neither ship nor crew to take action. The headline Girl, 14, arrested in whaling protest caught our attention here on the Esperanza.
The whales need a powerful ally in Japan – say something Canon!
Posted by Irene onboard the Esperanza
Different ways of shooting whales.
The sight outside our portholes strikes me as absurd: the Nisshin Maru, two catcher boats, an Australian surveillance vessel and us on the Esperanza. This is a big remote sea - but right here it looks like rush hour. Imagine the logistics and resources spent on all these ships coming down here, only because the Japanese government refuses to end their hoax science programme in Antarctica. But there are powerful forces in Japan that could influence their government - if only they would speak up!
We wrote to Canon headquarters in Japan asking their CEO to speak out against Japan's whaling programme. But Canon declined to take a stand against the killing of thousands of whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
We believe that when a corporation draws income and brand value from association with environmental causes, they have a responsibility to speak out on those issues.
Ask the CEO of Canon Japan to speak up for the whales >>
Account from the inflatable
Posted by Jetske onboard the Esperanza
Jetske and Heath in the RIB.
©Greenpeace/Jiri Rezac
On our way to the Oriental Bluebird, a radio message was sent to the captains of the Nisshin Maru and the Oriental Bluebird from the bridge of the Esperanza. In this message we informed them in three different languages of our intentions and determination to stay in between the two ships in case they would persist in refuelling. Neither responded to our calls.
Video: Confronting the Oriental Bluebird
Posted by Irene onboard the Esperanza
The Oceanic Viking arrives in the middle of refuelling
Posted by Irene onboard the Esperanza
As I write this the Australian surveillance vessel Oceanic Viking has finally arrived, in the middle of Nisshin Maru’s refuelling process. We have boats in the water, and it seems as if the factory ships is also transferring frozen whale meat from the first weeks of hunting. Meanwhile, the two catcher boats circled very closely around the Nisshin Maru and the Oceanic Viking, in order to prevent our inflatable from approaching, hoses on full blast. It looked like pretty dangerous maneuvering, and made me think of a carrousel where the colourful horses and elephants have been replaced by mean watchdogs.
©Greenpeace/Berg
More as it happens.
Video: between the Oriental Bluebird and the Nisshin Maru
Posted by Irene onboard the Esperanza
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