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Courtesy The Ecologist 6/12/02
The Japanese Antarctic Whaling Fleet, who, despite repeated requests from the IWC's Scientific Committee, and in contravention of the UN CITIES (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species), are continuing to carry out the slaughter of 400 whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary this year.
"...The fisheries agency of Japan argues that to ban whaling outright would be an infringement of their 'cultural heritage', which is a bit like bemoaning the diminishing number of people committing Hari-Kari..."
It's a bright, sunny day when I touch down in New Zealand, having departed Britain's colder climes 24 hours earlier, I'm ridiculously over dressed. I shed some layers before grabbing a taxi and heading down to Auckland's docks.
It takes a while to find the Farley Mowat, the boat I'll be spending the best part of two months on as she tracks the Japanese Whaling fleet around Antarctica. The last time I was in town, she was parked up close to the Viaduct Harbour, the glitzy, waterside development constructed to house this year's America's Cup, but her berth's now filled with the expensive white glare of super yachts. Finally, having asked a couple of bemused locals who've never heard of her, I find the 50 meter ice class trawler in the less salubrious surrounds of Auckland's industrial dockside, dwarfed by container vessels and well removed from the media glare of the America's Cup.
The security man at the main gate checks a list of names, from which mine is absent, but waves me through anyway.
The boat is a hive of activity, the hot spark of an arc welder illuminates the interior of a starboard portal, while up on deck, a high-speed pursuit Zodiac, so favoured by anti whalers, dangles in mid-air as the crew struggles to manoeuvre it onto the foredeck. Parked alongside, a battered looking people carrier receives a paint job, the outline of a whale just taking shape.
The Mowat has undergone somewhat of a role reversal since she hauled nets for a living in the North Sea, she now sports very different colours, the blue/black dispersion camouflage favoured by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to be precise, a charity set up by the maverick environmentalist Paul Watson in 1977.
Watson has had a long, colourful and often controversial career in environmental activism. A founding member of Greenpeace, his militancy and advocacy of aggressive confrontation soon led to an acrimonious parting of ways, a feud which still simmers today some 25 years later. He now sails the world's oceans very much a one man band, supported by a small but dedicated hardcore who are willing to risk life and limb enforcing UN mandates and International Law designed to protect endangered marine wild life species.
Past campaigns include the exposure and eventual closure of the Canadian Harp Seal hunt, seizure and destruction of illegal drift netting operations in the Pacific, and infamously, the ramming of the Sierra, a pirate whaler estimated to have slaughtered over 25,000 whales in direct contravention of the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) 1986 moratorium.
This Christmas, Watson has turned his sights, or more precisely his bow, since the Sierra a further nine vessels have been rammed, on the Japanese Antarctic Whaling Fleet, who, despite repeated requests from the IWC's Scientific Committee, and in contravention of the UN CITIES (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species), are continuing to carry out the slaughter of 400 whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary this year.
The Japanese, signatories to both IWC and CITIES, do so under the guise of 'scientific research', a loophole in the IWC moratorium allowing participating nations to carry out research into whale populations in order to establish whether commercial whaling can resume.
They voted against the creation of a permanent sanctuary in the Southern Ocean, and despite losing the vote 23-1, continue to whale within its boundaries.
At the most recent CITIES meeting, held in Santiago in November of this year, they again tried to have the Southern Minke whale removed from Appendix 1 of the treaty, which effectively bans trade in species threatened with extinction. They failed, but undeterred, their whaling fleet set sail the very next day to begin hunting the endangered Minke.
The Fisheries Agency of Japan (FAJ) argues that to ban whaling outright would be an infringement of their 'cultural heritage', which is a bit like bemoaning the diminishing number of people committing Hari-Kari; that the Minke whale is responsible for declining fish landings, although their own research indicates that the Southern Minke, unlike its Northern cousin, exists solely on a diet of Krill; and finally that lethal research is necessary to determine age, reproductive rates and eating habits, even though the IWC has repeatedly said it does not require the data the Japanese are providing.
Of course, the non-compliance of UN mandates is nothing new, nor the breaking of International Laws that no-one enforces, when it comes down to it a leech has more teeth, especially when the almighty dollar is thrown into the equation. Japanese Whalers will be an estimated $30 US million better off come pay day, and that, at the end of the day, is what puts the finger on the trigger, that fires the gun, that kills the whales.
But not if Paul Watson and 37 volunteers drawn from around the world can do anything about it. As I make my way up the gang plank, eleven flags, each one representing the nationality of the volunteers aboard, flutter proudly from the Mowat's smoke stack, which, I guess, just about qualifies them as the nearest thing to a United Nations vessel that's ever put to sea. For the past two months they scrapped and scrounged to get the Antarctica campaign on its feet, the SSCS lacks the fiscal might of Greenpeace, surviving on the generosity of a few wealthy donors and the willingness of its volunteers to get their hands dirty.
The citizens of Auckland have also played their part, donating goods and services worth thousands of pounds, just some of the unsung include: Fresh Harvest Produce, for their weekly supply of fresh fruit and vegetables; St John's Ambulance for medical supplies and Nova Safety Systems for servicing the ship's fire-fighting equipment. The America's Cup syndicates also played their part, if only to provide a stark reminder that greed is good.
The OneWorld syndicate, bankrolled by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and third richest man on the planet with an estimated worth of $30 US billion, donated nothing, not even a pot to piss in. Likewise, Oracle, whose backer Larry Ellison (5th richest) once said that it was difficult to spend over $100 million in a year, 'you have to try hard, very hard.' These guys like racing their boats on the ocean, just don't ask them to do anything as dignified as trying to save them.
UN mandates and International Laws may be as useful as a harpoon in the head for the whales, but they do provide a legal umbrella under which the SSCS can operate, much to the annoyance of the authorities.
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