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.

Continue reading »

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 »

Follow more updates here »

Dave

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.

Read more »

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."

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."

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."

"[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.

"... 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 »

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.

Reuters: Norwegian whalers make first catch of season »
More about Norwegian whaling »

Update 5/5/2008:
Norwegian whalers have caught five minke off north- western Norway »

Read about the other whales that were named »

©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!

A thank you as well to david@tokyo and Isanatori: we will never agree on much.

Thank you to all who have participated in the online actions.

A couple of days ago Dwarven posted a comment on my crew profile asking if we were coming to Hobart, and if we had any requests. The thought of eating avocados had grown into an obsession, so I asked him to bring a couple. It was perhaps the best avocado I’ve ever had, so many thanks for that!

For all you webcam addicts out there: we’ve taken them down for now, only the mast camera is still running. I hope that absence will no be too difficult for you!

Somehow it is suitable that we came to Hobart, a town that used to be at the heart of shore-based whaling in Tasmania. What is left of the old whaling stations in Tasmania are historic sites, the way it should be.

We will continue our work to end whaling in the Southern Ocean for good, on the political arena and in Japan.

If you haven’t done so yet – send a message to the CEO of Canon, and ask him to speak out for the whales!

From South Korea to Tasmania, with all that zigzagging when chasing the Nisshin Maru in all directions, we’ve sailed 17 000 nautical miles since I got onboard the Esperanza 3,5 months ago. Now we will all go in different directions, some will stay onboard for a while longer and others are heading home. Saying goodbye to the crew and the ship is never any fun, but I look forward to a long walk in the forest.

See you!

- Iréne

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.

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