July 4, 2000	atimes.com

Oceania Japan works to defeat whale sanctuary plan By Bob Burton CANBERRA - A proposal for a whale sanctuary covering the South Pacific is likely to be narrowly defeated at the 52nd International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Adelaide this week, following a lobbying blitz by the Japanese whaling industry. The proposed sanctuary would extend the current southern oceans sanctuary, which was established in 1994, to protect 75 percent of the world's whales in both their feeding grounds around Antarctica and their summer calving ground in the warmer Pacific oceans. The proposed sanctuary would require support from 75 percent of the 41 member nations of the IWC, whose four-day annual meeting began Monday. While the extension to the sanctuary is being heavily promoted by Australia and New Zealand, with the support of all the South Pacific nations, it has encountered heavy opposition from Japan and Norway. The Japanese Whaling Association (JWA) has hired the world's fourth largest public relations firm, Shandwick, to coordinate its campaign against the proposed whale sanctuary. The US-owned Shandwick has been dogged by controversy after working for the oil firm Shell to counter criticism over its role in Nigeria at the time of the execution of writer and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa, and for American industry groups opposed to the US agreeing to reductions in greenhouse gases. Shandwick and the JWA have launched a high-profile public relations campaign, including newspaper and TV advertisements, in Australian media. Advertisements in last weekends newspapers, titled ''Whaling the facts'', said that ''all whales aren't endangered'' and ''many are abundant''. A leaflet letterboxed to households in Adelaide claimed that whale meat is to Japanese what meat pies are to Australians. ''Don't interfere in our culture and we won't interfere in yours,'' the leaflet said. But Greenpeace campaigner Denise Boyd rejects the claim that whaling in the southern oceans and South Pacific is a long-held Japanese tradition. ''Large-scale commercial whaling in the Antarctic, 6,000 miles from Japan and using technology imported from Norway, cannot be described as a cultural activity,'' she said. While whale meat consumption has dramatically dropped in Japan, the economic benefits from whale watching has grown. The Australian government estimates that more than 5.4 million people per year in as many as 65 countries went whale watching in an industry estimated at over US$500 million. Whale watching is now emerging as a major economic player in some regional economies such as the Maori-owned operations at Kaikoura on New Zealand's South Island and in Tonga. While Pacific nations benefits from whale watching, environmental groups have accused the Japanese government of pressuring many small IWC member nations to either abstain from supporting the sanctuary proposal or backing Japan and voting against it. ''While unsubstantiated as a claim, it is suspected that Japan purchases votes from smaller developing states each year through aid and donations to small economies,'' said Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) national marine campaigner, Margi Prideaux. But the spokeswoman for the Japanese delegation rejects this. ''We do not buy any votes from anybody,'' Shigeko Misaki said. A pro-whaling television advertisement, screened for the first time last weekend, argues that whales compete directly with humans for fish populations. ''What we are saying is if whales are in abundance there shouldn't be any reason not to utilize them in order to keep their populations in balance with the fish population,'' Alan Macnow, president of Tele-Press, the Japanese Whaling Association's media service, told one media outlet. But Environment Australia, the government environmental agency, argued that ''there is no evidence that whale populations have direct impacts on commercial fish stocks''. In a report assessing claims by the whaling industry, Environment Australia said: ''Differences in feeding behavior and migration patterns largely preclude direct competition between whales and fisheries in the South Pacific Ocean . . . Overlap with commercially fished species is relatively low as much of their feeding is in waters that are not exploited by fisheries.'' The Japanese delegation plan to announce during the IWC conference plans to increase the number of whales killed within the proposed sanctuary, despite the IWC's moratorium on commercial whaling that came into effect in 1986. Japan currently hunts 440 minke whales in the protected Southern Ocean whale sanctuary each year by exploiting a loophole in the IWC's regulations that allows ''scientific'' whaling. Japan's use of the loophole to allow the killing of whales and the subsequent commercial sale of whale meat has angered the Australian government. ''There is no scientific justification for whales to be killed in order for them to be studied,'' Australia's Environment Minister Senator Robert Hill said. The IWC's Scientific Committee has also reviewed Japan's research program and concluded that it is ''not required'' for management. For Greenpeace, ending whaling in the southern hemisphere will help boost local Pacific economies. ''It's about ensuring healthy whale populations in our region, and security for the emerging whale watching industry that can provide positive economic benefits for Pacific nations in a way that commercial whaling cannot,'' Greenpeace's Boyd said. (Inter Press Service)

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