Minke Whale mother and her calf

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Feb  2008:

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<<(Then Australian)  Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has vowed to do whatever it takes to end Japan’s whale hunt as the bloody slaughter continued yesterday.

Mr Rudd’s declaration came as Japanese companies scurried to try to minimise a consumer backlash over whaling.

A people-power campaign has begun against the Japanese whalers, spearheaded by The Daily Telegraph, with 100,000 people signing a petition of outrage.

Yesterday Mr Rudd joined the Australian people in demanding Japan cease its so-called “scientific whaling program”.

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Mr Rudd: 

“I want to see an end to whaling.  I don’t have a magic wand, but the Australian Government will do everything within our power to put pressure on the Japanese whalers to bring this slaughter to an end.   Australia and Japan have a strong relationship, but that strength demands that we leave the Japanese in no doubt that Australia will continue to campaign to bring an end to whaling once and for all.”

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Mr Rudd said he had instructed Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to “exert real pressure” on the Japanese to end the program.  However, talks this week between Mr Smith and his Japanese counterpart Masahiko Koumoura have been deadlocked.   As the Japanese continued to harpoon and slice up minke whales throughout the day, Mr Smith emerged from talks saying the two men had “agreed to disagree“.

[Ed: What is Japanese for ‘up yours‘ ?]

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Consumers have now called for boycotts of all Japanese products, sending some of Japan’s biggest companies into a panic.   Hayley Wilson, 21, of Surry Hills said she thought boycotts were the only solution: “Nothing else seems to be working.”

Big name Japanese companies immediately went into overdrive.  Electronics giant Sanyo has written to the Japanese Consulate in Sydney voicing its concern about a consumer backlash.   Sony Australia called on Australians to reconsider the approach and Mazda also begged Australians not to target its products.>>

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Jun 2008:

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Australian PM Kevin Rudd :   ‘Whatever. You win’

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<<Kevin Rudd has “agreed to disagree” with Tokyo on the issue.    Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has effectively conceded defeat on his plan to stop Japanese whaling, declaring after talks in Tokyo that Australia and Japan have agreed to disagree on the issue..

Ed:   ‘Whatever happened to the days way back, when the world was safe

And it seemed worth saving,

We search for leaders on our hands and knees..’

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<<The long-awaited talks between Mr Rudd and his Japanese counterpart, Yasuo Fukuda, concluded yesterday with both leaders saying the Japan-Australia relationship was too important to be disrupted by their disagreement over whaling.

Mr Rudd later insisted that Labor’s policy had not changed from last year, when he demanded that the Howard government take Japan to the International Court and pledged that Labor would do so.

But he made it clear yesterday that Labor now had no plans to take Japan to court and would instead pursue its complaints through normal diplomatic channels and through its campaign to reform the International Whaling Commission.

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Mr Rudd:

“Prime Minister Fukuda and I have agreed that you can have disagreements between friends” (with Mr Fukuda at Rudd’s side, who understands English). “This disagreement should not undermine in any way the strong relations between our two countries … we will be working diplomatically for the period ahead.”

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This means, in effect, that after Labor’s election campaign pledge to haul Japan before the International Court, and after the Government spent $1 million sending a Customs vessel to follow the Japanese whaling fleet last summer to collect video evidence, Australia’s policy on whaling is now back where it started.

Mr Rudd immediately came under attack from anti-whaling groups and the Opposition, which said it was not good enough to “agree to disagree” and called on the Government to announce its long-delayed special envoy on whaling.

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Last summer the Japanese killed 551 minke whales, the most abundant whale species. This was well short of its target of 850 minkes and 100 larger whales.

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Japanese Sport Whale Meat

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Ecologist and former Australian of the Year Tim Flannery has argued that Australia should not oppose the Minke kill, saying it frees up food in the oceans for the larger, endangered whales.

Darkside Ecology:  when ecological knowledge is applied to kill wildlife

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Mr Fukuda was keen to talk about the whaling issue, raising it in private discussions over lunch as well as in formal talks. But the Australian side saw no shift in his stance, and in his public statement he emphasised that diplomacy had triumphed.

“We agreed to engage in further discussion, so that differences on this issue will not underline good bilateral relations,” he said.

The talks took place amid political turmoil in Japan, after Mr Fukuda was censured by the Opposition-controlled Upper House for making people over 75 meet more of their medical costs. But Mr Fukuda took two hours off his domestic troubles for an hour of official talks followed by lunch with Mr Rudd.

Importantly, he gave support to Mr Rudd’s initiative to try to tighten the nuclear non-proliferation treaty by setting up an international commission co-chaired by former foreign minister Gareth Evans and holding an international conference to discuss how the treaty can be made more effective.

In a communique, the two leaders did not mention whaling.  But they emphasised the strengths of the bilateral relationship, which has been questioned after the sharp dispute over whaling and after the Rudd Government’s decision to pull out of talks between the US, Japan, India and Australia – which China saw as aimed against it. Instead, the leaders agreed to strengthen bilateral and trilateral defence co-operation.

Responding to Mr Rudd’s retreat on whaling, Greenpeace Australia Pacific chief executive Steve Shallhorn said it was time to move on the appointment of a whaling envoy “because regular diplomatic channels are clearly not working”.

Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt said the failure to announce the appointment sent a message to Japan that Labor was only interested in the whaling issue for domestic purposes.   He also said the Government’s election promise to take Japan to the International Court “was always a fraud“.>>

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Peace in Our Time

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Dec 2009:

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<<The Rudd Government has reneged on a promise to send an Australian ship to monitor Japan’s annual slaughter of 1000 minke, humpback and fin whales.

The Opposition said an Australian ship must be sent to gather evidence for use in a promised international courts case to stop the whaling.

The annual Japanese whale kill is in full swing despite a promise by the Rudd Government in May 2007 to take Japan to the international courts to stop the slaughter.

Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt wrote to Environment Minister Peter Garrett and demanded he honour the Government’s promises to monitor – and ultimately bring an end – to the whale slaughter.

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Mr Hunt:

“We are now facing the third whaling season since this promise was made and I ask that you agree now to dispatch a non-military observation vessel to the Southern Ocean by January 5, (2010).”

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The Humane Society International (HSI) said Japan’s own figures, revealed in secret documents discovered at the International Whaling Commission meeting being held this week, showed the “true, disgusting nature” of the country’s whale hunting.

“The purpose of this would be both to chronicle the tragic slaughter of these majestic creatures and to act as an intermediary in the case of conflict between the Japanese whaling fleet and non-government organisations.”

A spokesman for Mr Garrett said the Rudd Government had honoured its promise to monitor the cull in 2008 when it spent $1 million sending the customs ship the Oceanic Viking to observe the cull.  That mission captured damning pictures of Japanese whalers killing a mother whale and its calf but the evidence was never used to take Japan to court, although it did reduce the Japanese whale cull that year.     [Ed:   See image at the start of this article.]

Japan’s whalers blamed “relentless interference” from environmentalists and the Australian surveillance ship for the fact they only took 551 minke whales out of a maximum quota of 935 in early 2008.>>

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Research has become an internationally interpreted Japanese word for

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Jan 2010:

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A criminally violent blood sport

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<<Japan has risked an open breach with the Rudd government by hitting back hard at Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s handling of last week’s whaling confrontation in the Southern Ocean.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials have accused Ms Gillard of aggravating the whaling controversy between Tokyo and Canberra, and called for Australian action to prevent further illegal activities by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

The officials warned a senior Australian diplomat on Friday that Ms Gillard’s statements immediately before and after the collision between Sea Shepherd’s speedboat and a Japanese whaling ship were inflaming public opinion in Japan and making diplomatic resolution of the underlying dispute harder to realise.

This is the toughest public stance a Japanese government has taken towards Australia on Antarctic whaling — or any other issue — in recent times and is also highly unusual in singling out for criticism a senior member of a friendly government.

The move betrays Japanese frustration with the Australians’ political management of the issue, including Kevin Rudd’s repeated threats of international legal action against so-called scientific whaling, while not obviously helping to curb hazardous protest activities, including Sea Shepherd’s efforts to disable whaling ships.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs senior officials told acting japanambassador Allan McKinnon it was “not appropriate” for Ms Gillard to urge Japanese whalers and the activists in equal terms to show restraint, “notwithstanding the Sea Shepherd itself was conducting the unlawful rampage”.

Sea Shepherd accuses the Shonan Maru 2 crew of deliberately running over Ady Gil during a day of confrontation in which the activists’ speedboat ran across the Japanese factory ship’s bow and allegedly tried to entangle its propellers.

Ms Gillard yesterday stood by her call for calm on both sides and for Japanese and Sea Shepherd skippers to ensure crews’ safety as their first duty.

“These are extremely dangerous conditions and it is likely Australia would be called upon to deploy a search and rescue mission if things were to go horribly wrong,” Ms Gillard said. “It is not therefore inappropriate for Australia to call for calm from both sides in these circumstances.”

Japanese officials questioned the jurisdiction of Australia’s Maritime Safety Authority to investigate last week’s collision.  Without access to the crew of Shonan Maru 2, any finding by an Australian inquiry into the collision is likely to be meaningless.

The Japanese have agreed to co-operate with a New Zealand investigation (Ady Gil was New Zealand-registered) and they are expected to vigorously contest a piracy complaint lodged in a Dutch court by Sea Shepherd on Friday.

Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson said yesterday the group was aiming to secure a charge of attempted murder against the Japanese crew.

“That’s what the crew of the Shonan Maru tried to do, the video makes that clear,” Mr Watson said from the Steve Irwin, which continues to pursue the whaling fleet.

“If I rammed and sank a Japanese vessel in Australian territory, the Australian navy would be on its way down here right now to arrest me.”

Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials, in answer to questions from The Australian, have called for the Australian Federal Police to investigate Sea Shepherd’s actions the next time its vessels put into an Australian port.

Japanese officials were already annoyed that the Steve Irwin, which uses Australian ports for its annual Southern Ocean campaigns, was allowed to put into Hobart without question late last month after initiating the first clashes of the season.

They told Mr McKinnon that Ms Gillard’s call for the Institute of Cetacean Research to suspend charter flights monitoring the Sea Shepherd vessels that have been harrying the whaling fleet since mid-December “has already unnecessarily provoked the Japanese public opinion”.

“This has invited the Japanese public (to) call for a strong protest and it might impair both governments’ will to lead the whaling issue to a resolution through diplomatic efforts,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Japan aims to slaughter nearly 1000 minke whales this summer for “scientific research”, as well as 20 rare fin whales and 50 humpbacks. It has urged Canberra to distinguish between official Australian opposition to Antarctic whaling and illegal acts in international waters that put at risk Japanese crewmen and ships.

A culture that has long celebrated brutal killing

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On Wednesday, before news of the collision and in response to a newspaper report about the charter flights, Ms Gillard said: “We do not condone this action by the Japanese government at all and we are certainly urgently seeking legal advice about this conduct.” On Friday, she said: “Ending whaling will happen through diplomacy or legal action; it’s not going to happen on the high seas. And because we are pursuing diplomacy, I am in a position to advise that our embassy in Tokyo has made high-level representations to the Japanese government.”

Ms Gillard said Australia’s diplomats in Tokyo had made clear to the Japanese the government’s strong view that Japanese whaling had to cease: “We are pursuing diplomacy with all of our force. We have made it absolutely clear we are not ruling out taking international legal action.”

At that stage, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials would not confirm Thursday’s discussion with Mr McKinnon but The Australian understands that later on Friday they asked him for another meeting, at which they delivered the toughened message.

Ms Gillard yesterday maintained that the Australian government was “pursuing its anti-whaling position through the appropriate diplomatic and legal channels very strongly”.

“The government also respects the right of those who also oppose whaling to protest, and to do so peacefully,” she said.

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop said yesterday the government’s handling of whaling was damaging Australia’s relationship with Japan.

She said Mr Rudd should either fulfil his pre-election promise to pursue international legal sanctions against Japan or withdraw the threat.>>

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Feb 2010:

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<<Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says Japan must stop Southern Ocean whaling by November 2010 or face an international legal challenge.

The diplomatic heat between Australia and Japan appears not to have deterred whalers in the Antarctic cold.

As Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada met Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Sydney yesterday, the whaling factory ship Nisshin Maru was steaming through the heart of an Australian Antarctic whale sanctuary, anti-whaling activists aboard the Sea Shepherd vessel the Steve Irwin claim.

The pursuers took this image of the Nisshin Maru behind a GPS locator that showed its position as 65 degrees 11 minutes south, and 78 degrees 8 minutes east. That is only about 100 nautical miles from Australia’s Davis Station in eastern Antarctica, well inside the 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
Sea Shepherd pursuers.

In protected waters … a GPS locator aboard the Steve Irwin shows the Japanese whaler is just 100 nautical miles from Davis Station and well inside the Australian Exclusive Economic Zone.

GPS confirms Japanese whaler illegally trespassing inside the Australia Exclusive Economic Zone

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”It’s almost like a slap in the face,” Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson said from the Steve Irwin. ”They were skirting the EEZ by about a mile until Friday and then they dove down into it.”
Advertisement

Mr Rudd has strongly objected to the ”slaughter of whales” in the sanctuary declared throughout the EEZ. Whaling is banned in all Australian waters and the hunt’s illegality in this polar sanctuary was upheld in a 2008 Federal Court case brought by Humane Society International.   In response to Mr Rudd’s warning on Friday that whaling must be brought to an end or Australia will go to an international court by November, Mr Okada reiterated Japan’s view that it was legal.

Mr Okada met Mr Rudd at Admiralty House in Kirribilli yesterday. His spokesman, Hidenobu Sobashima, said:

”In light of the importance of Australia-Japan relations … we hope that the two countries will confirm it is imperative to reach a diplomatic solution.”

Mr Okada will meet Foreign Minister Stephen Smith in Perth today before returning to Tokyo.>>

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[Ed:  Came to nothing: …how’s your father, tasty food…Whatever. You win!]

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Jan 2011:

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<<The former prime minister Kevin Rudd launched legal action against Japan’s whaling program despite opposition from senior ministers and officials who warned it was likely to fail and strengthen the hand of the Japanese.

Leaked United States diplomatic cables also indicate that the decision to take Japan to the International Court of Justice was designed to divert public pressure on Labor over whaling.

The Department of Foreign Affairs warned that the case against Japan’s ”scientific” whaling would ”either fail completely or, at best, set up the Japanese to simply make changes to their program to improve the science”.

And a senior Australian diplomat told the Americans that both the then foreign minister Stephen Smith and the trade minister Simon Crean had made clear their opposition to an international legal challenge.

According to the cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to the Herald, officials told US diplomats that even if successful, legal action against Japan would be ”unlikely to stop the whale hunt entirely”.

They added that ”equally importantly, such action would probably take a long time, removing some of the pressure on the government for the next few years”.

The government yesterday attempted to play down earlier revelations that Australia had been prepared to secretly negotiate a compromise to allow continued Japanese whaling.

The acting Attorney-General, Brendan O’Connor, said that the ICJ case demonstrated that the government was not soft on whaling. ”I think that underlines the seriousness of the matter and the fact that this government … opposes whaling and will continue to fight through the courts,” he said.

But the new embassy cables show that the government’s advisers were deeply pessimistic about the prospects of success in any legal action.

In October 2008, as officials were working to develop their case, the US embassy reported to Washington that domestic political considerations were high in Mr Rudd’s thinking. It said he was likely to eventually see legal action ”as the least damaging politically of his limited choices in dealing with public anger over whaling”.

However, the embassy also reported the Foreign Affairs Department’s environmental strategies director, David Dutton, had admitted that his department and the Attorney-General’s Department ”had long shared the view that international legal action against Japan’s whaling program has a limited chance of success”.

Mr Dutton told US diplomats that the Attorney-General’s Department had ”recently done an about face” to argue that the prospects for success at the ICJ were ”high enough to justify taking action”.

Mr Dutton said the Foreign Affairs analysis was that the only basis for effective action was that Japan’s whaling violated the International Whaling Convention because it did not achieve substantive scientific outcomes.

”[Foreign Affairs] continues to believe that such a challenge will either fail completely or, at best, set up the Japanese to simply make changes to their program to improve the science,” the US embassy reported to Washington.

The cables also reveal that the Rudd cabinet was ”very divided” over how to deal with whaling, with the prime minister reported to have been ”increasingly worried that the Japanese will forge ahead despite Australian concerns”.

The embassy reported that Mr Dutton had said that Mr Smith and Mr Crean ”had made clear their opposition to an international legal challenge, but opined that … DFAT and by extension [Mr] Smith had ceased to have much relevance in influencing the PM’s office on this issue”.

When they announced the legal challenge in May last year, Mr Smith and the then environment minister Peter Garrett said the government had ”not taken this decision lightly”.

However, the cables also reveal that domestic politics featured prominently from the start of the government’s consideration of possible legal action against Japan.

Soon after the election of the Labor government, the embassy reported Australian government contacts were saying that referring Japan’s whaling program to the ICJ ”would be unlikely to stop the whale hunt entirely, but could well force modifications that would make it more difficult for the Japanese”.

The embassy’s contacts also suggested that ”equally importantly, such action would probably take a long time, removing some of the pressure on the government for the next few years”. Australia is not required to file its detailed arguments with the court until May and Japan is not obliged to respond until March next year. A hearing may not take place until 2013.

The leaked cables also reveal Japanese confidence that Australia’s legal challenge would fail and vindicate Japan’s position.

In February last year the US embassy reported that the Japanese deputy head of mission in Canberra had observed that the then foreign minister Katsuya Okada had ”made clear his growing annoyance with Australian complaints about whaling”.

”Okada is very confident that Tokyo will win a legal challenge and has suggested internally that it would be good for Japan to show that its whaling program is on firm legal ground,” the embassy reported.

The Greens and the opposition yesterday attacked the proposed Australian government compromise with Japan.

The opposition environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, said Labor had damaged Australia’s case against Japanese whaling.

”It’s absolutely clear that the Australian government was saying one thing publicly and then another thing privately about whaling so as to allow the continued hunting and slaughter of whales, all of the while this was being denied by the government.”

The Greens leader, Bob Brown, also said the proposed compromise was ”very troubling”.

”Hopefully this may help the current government take a stronger line,” he said.

He urged the government to use all available legal and diplomatic means, as well as naval surveillance, to increase the pressure on Japan to end the slaughter of whales.>>

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Oct 2011:

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<<The Australian Government condemns Japan’s decision to continue whaling in the Southern Ocean this year under the guise of science.  Australia remains resolute in its opposition to all commercial whaling, including Japan’s so-called ‘scientific whaling’.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said the Government was particularly disappointed that this whaling will take place in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary established by the International Whaling Commission.

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Mr Rudd:

“There is widespread concern in the international community at Japan’s whaling program and widespread calls for it to cease.  The Government has always been firm in our resolve that if we could not find a diplomatic resolution to our differences over this issue, we would pursue legal action. This is the proper way to settle legal differences between friends.”

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Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the decision to commence proceedings in May 2010 was not taken lightly.

“Australia believes Japan’s whaling is contrary to international law and should stop,” said Mr McClelland.  “That is why Australia is taking our case in the International Court of Justice to bring to an end Southern Ocean whaling permanently.”

Environment Minister Tony Burke said the decision to take legal action demonstrated the strength of Australia’s commitment.

“The Australian Government remains opposed to all commercial whaling, including so-called ‘scientific whaling,” Mr Burke said.  “We will keep working to achieve a permanent end to all commercial whaling.”>>

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Japan uses grenade tipped harpoons

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Dec 2011:

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<<Japan’s whaling authorities are suing militant environmentalists Sea Shepherd for ‘harassing’ whale hunters.

It is the first time that Japan has attempted legal action abroad against anti-whaling campaigners, who have sometimes used extreme methods against ships involved in the hunt, carried out under rules that allow research whaling.

“Today, Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha and the Institute of Cetacean Research along with research vessels’ masters filed a lawsuit against the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) and Paul Watson,” they said in a statement.  “The Institute of Cetacean Research and Kyodo Senpaku are seeking a court order in the US District Court in Seattle, Washington that prevents SSCS and its founder Paul Watson from engaging in activities at sea that could cause injuries to the crews and damage to the vessels.”

Kyodo Senpaku owns ships, while the cetacean institute operates the whaling programme under the authority of the Japanese government.

Sea Shepherd, based in Washington state in the US, regularly sends vessels to harass the whalers. In previous years it has thrown stink bombs onto the decks of the Japanese fleet, while vessels from both sides have repeatedly clashed.

The Japanese statement said the whaling programme was “greatly contributing to the advancement of scientific knowledge of whale resources in the Antarctic”.

Commercial whaling was banned under a 1986 International Whaling Commission agreement. “Lethal research” is allowed, but other nations and environmental groups like Sea Shepherd condemn it as disguised commercial whaling.

Tokyo says the whale hunts are needed to substantiate its view that there is a robust whale population in the world. However, it makes no secret of the fact that whale meat from this research ends up on dinner tables and in restaurants.

The statement condemned Sea Shepherd’s actions as “life-threatening”.

“Sabotage activities against the research fleet by SSCS and Paul Watson have been escalating over several years,” it said.  “The activities perpetrated by SSCS and Paul Watson not only put at risk the safety of the research vessels at sea but are also affecting the scientific achievement” of the program, it said.

In February, Japan cut short its hunt for the 2010-2011 season by one month after bagging only one fifth of its planned catch, blaming interference from Sea Shepherd.

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Mr Watson (Sea Shepherd founder): 

“We are not down there protesting whaling, we are down there intervening against criminal activities. We defend ourselves from being rammed, hit with water cannons, shot at, have concussion grenades and bamboo spears thrown at us, so yes, we defend ourselves.  The United States government and courts have no authority over these ships so I don’t know what they are hoping to achieve.”

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Mr Watson – who travels to Australia each year to lead activists in their efforts against the whale hunt – said that the ships his organisation used were not owned by Sea Shepherd USA, nor were they US-flagged vessels.

The Japanese legal action came after the whaling fleet left port on Tuesday for this season’s annual hunt.

The coast guard has deployed an unspecified number of guards to protect the ships from anti-whaling activists, and the Japanese government has confirmed it will use some of the public funds earmarked for reconstruction after the massive March earthquake and tsunami to boost security for the hunt.

Three ships from the Sea Shepherd fleet are due to set sail over the coming days to once again confront the Japanese whalers, the organisation said.  The Steve Irwin and the MV Brigitte Bardot will leave from Albany in Western Australia and the MV Bob Barker will depart from Hobart.>>

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MV Brigitte Bardot – whale defender

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Criminal Whaling

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Jan 2012:

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<<Japan’s whaling fleet has left its home port for another turbulent season in the Southern Ocean, this year courtesy of extra money from the nation’s earthquake recovery fund.

Three vessels have set sail from the port of Ishinomaki, in western Japan, with a mission to catch 900 whales over the next three months.

The Japanese fleet will have beefed-up security this year after its last season was cut short by the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group.

The fleet did not get anywhere near its target last season and Sea Shepherd is hoping for a repeat performance.

But there is anger in Japan and elsewhere this year about the source of new funds for the trip.

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The Japan Fisheries Agency says the trip’s use of $28 million from the earthquake recovery fund is legitimate, because it is taken from the government’s own quake recovery fund.

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Once again, the male dominated Japanese Government turns its back on its own

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Greenpeace Japan executive director Junichi Sato says it is a massive stretch to link whaling to the earthquake.

“It’s not related to the recovery at all,” he said.  “It is used to cover the debts of the Whaling Programme because the Whaling Programme itself has been suffering from big financial problems.”>>

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Jan 2013:

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Former Greens leader Bob Brown says fear of a diplomatic fallout is preventing Australia from standing up to Japan on whaling.

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Watch Video:

Click image to play video

Dr Brown, who is now a member of the Sea Shepherd board, also stood behind Sea Shepherd skipper Paul Watson, who jumped bail in July in Germany while being detained over an incident off the coast of Costa Rica in 2002.

The former senator says he wants the Australian Government to seek an international court injunction to stop Japan’s annual whale hunt in the Southern Ocean.

“They’re worried. They want a free-trade agreement, they’re worried that this is going to, in some way or other, annoy politicians in Tokyo,” he said.

“There’s a lot of Australians who are annoyed that the Australian Government, and indeed the Opposition when it was in government, haven’t stood up to the Japanese. And it’s time they did.”

Dr Brown said he has nothing but praise for Watson.

Interpol has issued an arrest alert for Watson, who is wanted in Costa Rica over charges relating to a confrontation over shark finning.

Watson has since said he is back on board an activist vessel and ready to confront whalers.

“I’ve admired Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd for 30 years,” Dr Brown said.

“They have done a fantastic job. It’s been non-violent, they have never harmed anybody in that process.”

The former senator also wants the Government to ensure the safety of the Sea Shepherd’s four ships and crew.

“This time they (the Japanese) have armed coastguard people – this is men with guns on their ships coming into the demilitarised zone in Antarctica – while our Government and governments elsewhere sit on their hands and allow this international law-breaking,” he said.

“It’s Sea Shepherd that’s upholding the law here.”

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Paul Watson and his Sea Shepherd Crew

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30 Jan 2013:

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<<Anti-whaling activists Sea Shepherd say they have made their first contact with Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean this season.

The group says its vessel the MV Brigitte Bardot intercepted harpoon ship the Yushin Maru 3 yesterday.

In a statement, Brigitte Bardot captain Jean Yves Terlain said the position of the whaling boat indicates it has not yet killed any of the mammals.

“The Yushin Maru 3 was on a westerly course, indicating that the fleet has been in bad weather for the past several days,” he said.

“The latitude at which they were found was rather far north and given that the large concentrations of whales are found further south, closer to the Antarctic Continent where there are high concentrations of krill, this would indicate that they have not yet begun whaling.”

Sea Shepherd says this year’s mission is its largest to date, involving four ships and more than 120 crew.

Mission chief and former Greens leader Bob Brown say it is also shaping up to be the most successful.

“We’re one day short of the end of January, the prime killing month for these whaling fleets, and they haven’t yet been able to kill a whale,” he said.  “Sea Shepherd is very, very happy.”>>

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Feb 2013:

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<<Japan has begun injecting new tax-payer-funded subsidies into its whaling program in a bid to keep the fleet afloat, the ABC has learned.

It is believed the “profitable fisheries program” is helping to keep the so-called scientific research program’s ongoing debts at bay and to help refit the whaling fleet’s flagship.

With the Japanese fleet now entering Antarctic waters, the annual whale wars are again expected to flare any day.

Militant Sea Shepherd activists have been able to all but scupper the fleet’s catch over the past few years.

This, plus lower demand for whale meat, means the government has been forced to prop up the whaling program.

Some of the money has come from funds set aside for the rebuilding of communities shattered by the 2011 tsunami.

And now it appears more cash has come from the new taxpayer-funded subsidy.

“This subsidy is supposed to help fishermen in financial trouble,” investigative journalist Junko Sakuma said.

“Now it’s propping up the unprofitable whaling fleet, and if they keep running a loss, they won’t even have to pay it back.”

Documents seen by the ABC suggest the subsidy has already been used to partly refit the whaling fleet’s mother ship, the Nisshin Maru, with a smoking room and internet connections.

Patrick Ramage is the whale program director at the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Tomorrow he will release a report into just how the Japanese whaling industry is propped up financially.

“The most important finding of this new report is really three things: first, that whaling is an economic loser in the 21st century, second, that the Japanese people have lost their appetite for whale meat, and third that whale watching rather than whale killing is the economically beneficial whale industry for the 21st century,” he said.

Even the strongest supporters of whaling in Japan are pessimistic about the future of the hunt, especially with the government forced to pump in more subsidies into the fleet to keep it afloat.

Masayuki Komatsu is a former Japanese delegate to the International Whaling Commission and one of the architects of the country’s scientific research program.

He warns that the injection of this new subsidy is a sign that program is in big trouble.

“It’s not sustainable, right. How long can you get such money from the government? Everybody likes money, particularly other people’s money,” he said.>>

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1 Feb 2013:

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<<The Federal Government has ordered a Japanese whaling vessel to get out of Australia’s exclusive economic zone.

The Shonan Maru Number 2 – a Customs vessel which travels with the whaling fleet – entered the zone off Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean yesterday afternoon.

Environment Minister Tony Burke said he had made it clear to Japan that vessels associated with the whaling program “are not welcome in in Australia’s exclusive economic zone or territorial sea”.

“Our embassy in Tokyo has conveyed these sentiments directly to the Japanese government,” Mr Burke said in a statement.

Former Greens leader Bob Brown, now the mission leader of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group, says he believes the vessel has armed Japanese personnel aboard.

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Mr Brown:

“It is accompanying the whaling ships into the killing fields off Antarctica.  When the Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker made contact with the factory ship, this ship tailed Bob Barker and has been doing so for a couple of days. The Bob Barker has lost the [factory ship] Nisshin Maru but that was after it was hunted out of the whaling area and this Customs vessel, this government vessel, has kept with the Bob Barker through to Macquarie Island and into Australia’s economic zone waters.”

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Mr Brown says the Shonan Maru stopped this morning just outside Australia’s territorial waters.  He says there may be legal arguments about who has control over exclusive economic zones.

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Mr Brown:

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“Tokyo has ignored the call from the Federal Government for this part of the whaling fleet not to enter our exclusive economic zone.  It’s stayed outside the direct territorial waters but it has not obliged that request and protest from Australia that it should not enter our exclusive economic zone.  That is a matter of some affront to Australia and one that I’ve no doubt the Federal Government will be looking to deal with during today.” >>

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Japanese Whale Blood Sport

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One would assume that an organisation entitled the ‘Australia Strategic Policy Institute‘ would be a government body or a body at least having Australia’s strategic interests at heart.

But its director, Dr Anthony Bergin, with a title one would assume would be capable of research, has written an article for Fairfax media supporting Japan’s strategic interests.

Bergin’s article: ‘Ban Protest Vessels from using our Ports‘ dated 16th January 2010 in The Age newspaper sides with the Japanese whalers and calls on the Australian Government to support Japan in denying protesters access to Australian ports.

Perhaps Dr Bergin should take up residency in Taiji and become an employee of  their Institute of Cetacean Research.

If Dr Bergin were respectful of the democratic rights to protest we have in Australia and recognised the Japanese incursion in Australia’s whale sanctuary in the Southern Ocean, and respected the existence rights of whales, then perhaps his article for Fairfax would have instead read like this…

The Australian Government has been far too even-handed in its statements about the reckless actions of the Japanese whalers trespassing in the Southern Ocean in breach of commercial whaling prohibitions.

By not condemning this annual intrusion by Japanese ships undertaking commercial whaling, Australia is in effect acquiescing in illegal poaching of whales, while Sea Shepherd does Australia’s naval monitoring of illegitimate Japanese whale poachers.  Harassment will not change Japan’s position on whaling. And not condemning these Japans actions is counterproductive for Australia trying to secure its protection of endangered whales with the International Whaling Commission.

Whale Watching: 

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Australia could legitimately take Japan to court and hold Japan in breach of the Antarctic Treaty at the next meeting of the commission in Morocco in June 2010.  Australia could legitimately and formally demand Japan to cease its whaling actions immediately.

Given the public interest in these matters, the Australian Government has sensibly asked the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to examine the recent events in the Southern Ocean.  Yet it is hard to see how, on any reading of the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, that the ramming of the Sea Shepherd vessel, the ‘Ady Gil‘, by the Japanese whaling vessel, could argue his actions were in compliance with it.

On January 6, 2010, the New Zealand flagged tri hull wave piercer, Ady Gill, was stationary in the water at the time of the ramming and no action was taken by the Japanese whaling vessel to avoid a collision.  In fact the ship’s master the Japanese whaling ship, the ‘Shōnan Maru 2‘ deliberately turned away from its course toward starboard to deliberately ram and sink the Ady Gil.

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Japanese Attack Formation – caught on video by Sea Shepherd’s MV Bob Barker

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“The crew of the Ady Gil claimed that, at the last moment, the ‘Shōnan Maru 2′ turned to starboard, changing its heading to 30 degT6 and colliding with the port sponson and then smashing off a 3 metre section of the bow of the Ady Gil.”  

At the time the Shōnan Maru 2 was believed to be under command of Master Toshiyuki Miura, an employee of Japanese company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha.

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Watch Video:

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Piracy and criminality at sea deserve more than a token ‘fact finding report‘ that concludes nothing:

<<On the basis of the available evidence, AMSA has been unable to determine whether either vessel took any action intended to cause a collision. In the absence of face-to-face interviews with all the parties involved, the value of the publicly posted video footage was limited. The lack of confirmation of the validity of the source of this footage and therefore its limited evidentiary value prevented definitive conclusions being drawn.”>>

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Read Report:  >AMSA Report on Ady Gil Collision (2010).pdf  (22 pages, 1.1MB)

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It’s called a diplomatic whitewash.  Australia and New Zealand didn’t even receive an apology from the Japanese Government.

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To demonstrate that Australia does not support the activities of the Japanese whalers, the Australian Government should ban the entry of its vessels into Australian ports.

In deciding whether to grant consent to vessels to enter its ports, a state is free to impose conditions as it wishes – access to a port of a state is a privilege, not a right.

Australia banned port access to Japanese fishing vessels in 1998 when Japan would not agree on a total allowable catch for Southern Bluefin Tuna in the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. The port access ban was lifted in mid-2001. Why? It is an offence under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act for a whaling vessel to call at an Australian port unless the master has written permission from the environment minister to bring it into the port.

If the Federal Government is serious about ending whaling and shifting the Japanese Government’s position – one that has hardened in response – it should directly monitor all whaling activities in the Southern Ocean, follow through on its promise to take legal action against Japan, ban all whaling vessels from Australian ports and ban all use of aircraft from Australian airports for use by Japanese whalers.

Dr Anthony Bergin needs to continue his research and then get back to us with what he has learnt.

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To Japanese Whale Sportsmen, it’s just big game fishing

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Comment by Anonymous 20100117:

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<<We urgently need leadership.

How is it that whaling authorities, or ‘spies’, were allowed to hire Australian planes to spy on anti-whaling protest ships!

Where are our border controls, our security forces? Australia is a sovereign nation, one to be proud of and patriotic towards. However, we have leaders cowering to Japan’s superior powers, and all their rhetoric about “legal options” and “diplomatic pressure” are just forms of procrastination, a smoke-screen for the public.

It is becoming clear that some agreement has been made between Japan and Australia to prevent any “interference” to their whale slaughter.

Head of the Australian whaling envoy, Sandy Holloway, is set to receive up to $200,000 for 100 days work. Costs could escalate to one million dollars as bureaucrats travel the globe in a futile effort to stop Japan killing whales.

Mr Holloway’s ‘formal representations’ to Japan, on a $1,800 a day retainer, were designed to fail and are really an expensive smokescreen to fool the Australian public.

Such was the ambiguity of diplomatic pressure that Japan even asked Australia for help against the “eco-terrorists” upholding the laws in the Antarctic!

Public money is being wasted. Australia’s Antarctic Territory, a $300 million whale-watching industry, domestic and international laws and Treaties are being abandoned in an effort to secure economic agreements with Japan.

Our government’s “anti-whaling” stance, despite pre-election pledges, is a charade.  It is time we see some leadership from our Federal government and have Japan’s illegal whaling fleet permanently removed from the Antarctic.  We urgently need leadership at this time, but clearly we won’t be getting it from our present government!>>

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Comment by Peter Bright   (20100117):

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The Prime Minister has to overview the whole picture in the national interest, long term as well as short term. Although a Green, I believe that he and his government are being unfairly criticised and insultingly abused with insufficient cause.

A better understanding of any problem may sometimes be gleaned by putting oneself in the position of one’s despised target and considering matters from his point of view.
To protect the welfare of this nation Mr Rudd has to very carefully consider the reciprocal benefits of trade between Australia and Japan, as well as a whole lot of other factors and subterranean international innuendos the likes of which we could only guess at. Mr Rudd surely realises this, and so do his advisors.

In Mr Rudd’s position, with his huge and numerous responsibilities, I would not expect to last even a minute. Personally, I’m grateful he’s there.

Because of trade matters, and in the interests of keeping the peace, I suspect that the Japanese whalers down south could ram half the Australian navy without provoking Mr Rudd into showing retaliatory muscle.

Of course if I was the commander of an Australian naval ship that had just been rammed down there, I would, um, deal with the problem there and then.

It’s likely that my response would be something less than one fully loaded with diplomatic tact and courtesy.

[Ed:  Like seizing and impounding the Japanese vessels, arresting the crews, and summoning the Japanese ambassador to the Australian Prime Minister’s office.]

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If Australia’s Prime Minister sides with Japan against Australia, what right does Rudd have to represent Australia as Prime Minister.

Rudd already sides with China and speaks fluent Chinese. Does he have similar allegiances to Japan?

Australia must escort Japanese vessels (which have a home territory 5000 or more kilometres north) out of Australian waters.  Rudd has become a treacherous Prime Minister, favouring the rights of foreign powers over Australian sovereign rights. In doing so, Rudd has breached the Australian Constitution and must be sacked immediately.

1. Australian Antarctic Territory breached

2. Whale Protection Act, 1980 breached ‘Part I – Preliminary 6. Application of Act

(1)   This Act extends to every external Territory and, except so far as the contrary intention appears, to acts, omissions, matters and things outside Australia, whether or not in a foreign country.

(2)   Subject to subsection (3):

(a)    to the extent that a provision of this Act has effect in and in relation to any waters or place beyond the outer limits of the exclusive economic zone, that provision applies only in relation to Australian citizens domiciled in Australia, Australian aircraft and Australian vessels and the members of the crew (including persons in charge) of Australian aircraft and Australian vessels; and

(b)   to the extent that a provision of this Act has effect in and in relation to Australia or any waters other than waters referred to in paragraph (a), that provision applies in relation to all persons, aircraft and vessels, including foreign persons, foreign aircraft and foreign vessels.

(3)    This Act has effect subject to the obligations of Australia under international law, including obligations under any agreement between Australia and another country or countries.

Part II – Preservation, conservation and protection of whales

9. Killing, taking etc. of whales prohibited

(1) A person shall not:

(a)  in waters to which this Act applies, kill, injure, take or interfere with any whale; or

(b)  treat any whale that has been killed or taken in contravention of this Act or has been unlawfully imported. ‘

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Japanese whalers keep poaching whales in Australian territorial waters contravention of Australia’s Whales Protection Act.  Kevin Rudd, as Australia’s Prime Minister is dutifully bound to protect Australia’s sovereignty and enforce Australian legislation. But he is not.
3. Prime Minister’s failure to enforce Australian territorial legislation constitutes a breach of the Australian Constitution The COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT – SECT 122 ‘ Government of territories’ states:

“The Parliament may make laws for the government of any territory surrendered by any State to and accepted by the Commonwealth, or of any territory placed by the Queen under the authority of and accepted by the Commonwealth, or otherwise acquired by the Commonwealth, and may allow the representation of such territory in either House of the Parliament to the extent and on the terms which it thinks fit.”

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Under the COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION ACT – SECT 120 ‘Custody of offenders against laws of the Commonwealth’

‘Every State shall make provision for the detention in its prisons of persons accused or convicted of offences against the laws of the Commonwealth, and for the punishment of persons convicted of such offences, and the Parliament of the Commonwealth may make laws to give effect to this provision.’

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Australia’s federal parliament has enacted the above legislation. The Japanese whalers have breached those laws, yet our Prime Minister fails to enforce these laws. But Rudd lets them go unpunished.

Indeed, Rudd is so appeasing of the Japanese as to be in allegiance with Japanese interests to the detriment of Australia’s interests. Under Section 44 of the Constitution sets out restrictions on who can be a candidate for Federal parliament.

It reads:“

‘Section 44 (i). Any person who..is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power…shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.’

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So Australia’s Prime Minister Rudd needs to work out whether he is siding with Japan or Australia.

If Rudd recognises Australian Antarctic Territorial Waters, then he needs to uphold and enforce Australia law.

If he sides with the Japanese, he is in breach of Section 44 and must be sacked from the House of Representatives forthwith. Q.E.D.

I also refer to a pertinent well researched letter by Mr Graham J. Clarke (President of Whales in Danger) dated 6th January 2003 to Minister for the Environment and Heritage, David Kemp.   I also point out that since the Prime Minister has confirmed he will challenge Japan legally on this issue, indicates that the Australian Government considers Japanese whalers have breached the law and have a case to answer.

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Comment from Vivienne (20100306):

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<<What a disgrace our Federal leaders are! Instead of arresting the criminal whale killers, they actually act on their behalf and use our AFP to “investigate” Sea Shepherd.

What about Peter Buthane held captive? The cowards we have in government are grovelling to Japan to ensure safe trading relationships and “friendship”, and protected whales are just ignored.

Japan’s bogus “research” is a cover to return to commercial whaling, and due to our government’s incompetence and ignorance, Japan is winning the wars against whales.

This is a totally contemptible action by our Federal government, using the taxpayer-funded AFP contrary to our Australian interests. They have surrendered Antarctic security, and the blood of magnificent and gentle whales are heading towards becoming just another red meat!.”

..Trade with Japan is a different topic. Our economic relationship with Japan should not depend on their being allowed to audaciously break International and domestic laws and treaties. According the the Federal Court, 2008, we would be quite within our rights to stop Japan’s illegal whaling. Whether they are arrested and impounded should not depend on the economic power of the law-breaking nation. Setting a precedent that allows powerful nations to break the laws in our economic zones is dangerous and unfair.

Kevin Rudd is morally obliged to complete his pre-election promises and force Japan to respect our sovereignty. Anything else maligns us to being nothing but cowardly.

“Protected” whales are not political or economic pawns to be traded or betrayed so cruelly.>>

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Snow Petrel  (Pagodroma nivea) over Antarctic Ice

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‘An alliance of 30 global environment organisations today launched a report calling for greater protection for the East Antarctic marine environment, on the eve of an international meeting where the future conservation of this region will be decided.

The Antarctic Ocean Alliance (AOA) report “Antarctic Ocean Legacy: Protection for the East Antarctic Coastal Region”, supports a proposal from Australia, France and the EU for East Antarctic marine protection but also calls for additional important areas to be included such as the Prydz Gyre, the Cosmonaut Polynya, and the East India seamounts.

In just four days, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), will begin meetings in Hobart, Tasmania to debate several proposals for marine protection, including the East Antarctic coastal region and the Ross Sea. The Ross Sea was the subject of an AOA report in February this year.

“The AOA is calling on CCAMLR Members to support the current East Antarctic coastal region proposal put forward by Australia, France and the EU, but to also consider additional areas in subsequent years that our report shows are critical to ensuring the wildlife in the region gets the protection it needs,” said AOA Director Steve Campbell.

“We are calling on CCAMLR Members to support the establishment of the world’s largest network of marine reserves and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Southern Ocean as a legacy for future generations,” Mr. Campbell said. “Decisive protection for the East Antarctic coastal region and Ross Sea would be a great start to that process.”

The remote East Antarctic coastal region is home to a significant number of the Southern Ocean’s penguins, seals and whales. It also contains rare and unusual seafloor and oceanographic features, which support high biodiversity.

Adelie Penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) in Antarctica

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“While the AOA supports the conservation gains included in the proposal from Australia, France and the EU, we hope that CCAMLR delegates will consider expanding on the area to be protected to include additional areas that are critical habitats for Adélie penguins, Antarctic toothfish, minke whales and Antarctic krill in the future,” said Mr. Campbell.

Antarctic marine ecosystems are under increasing pressure. Growing demand for seafood means greater interest in the Southern Ocean’s resources, while climate change is affecting the abundance of important food sources for penguins, whales, seals and birds.

In October 2011, the Antarctic Ocean Alliance proposed the creation of a network of marine protected areas (MPAs) and marine reserves in 19 specific areas in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.

This report, ‘Antarctic Ocean Legacy: Protection for the East Antarctic Coastal Region‘, outlines a vision for marine protection in the East Antarctic, one of the key regions previously identified by the AOA.

Currently, only approximately 1% of the world’s oceans are protected from human interference, yet international agreements on marine protection suggest that this number should be far higher.

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the body that manages the marine living resources of the Southern Ocean (with the exception of whales and seals), has set a target date of 2012 for establishing the initial areas in a network of Antarctic MPAs.

One of the key places for which the AOA seeks protection is the East Antarctic coastal region. This remote area, while vastly understudied, is home to a significant proportion of the Southern Ocean’s penguins, seals and whales. The East Antarctic coastal region also contains large seafloor and oceanographic features found nowhere else on the planet.  The AOA offers this report to assist in designating marine reserves and MPAs in the East Antarctic coastal region. This is the third in a series of “Antarctic Ocean Legacy” proposals from the AOA.

This report describes the geography, oceanography and ecology of this area. The AOA acknowledges the scientists and governments that have studied the region and welcomes and gives support to the proposal that has been submitted for marine protection in the East Antarctic by Australia, France and the EU, but is cautious that constant vigilance and additional marine reserves will be required to ensure that the conservation values of the proposal are not compromised in the future.

Killer Whales breaching in Antarctic waters

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The AOA proposes that in addition to the seven areas referenced by Australia, France and the EU, four additional areas also be considered for protection in the coming years. A network MPAs and marine reserves encompassing these additional areas and those proposed by Australia, France and the EU would span approximately 2,550,000 square kilometres.
Because the East Antarctic coastal region is “data‐poor”, the AOA plan is based on the application of the precautionary approach, one of the core concepts at the centre of CCAMLR’s mandate.

This proposal includes:

1. A representative sample of biological features at the species, habitat and ecosystem scale to ensure broad scale protection.
2. Areas of protection large enough to encompass broad foraging areas for whales, seals, penguins and other seabirds.
3. Protection of many of the region’s polynyas, which are sources of food for many species.
4. Protection of unique geomorphic features, including the Gunnerus Ridge, Bruce Rise, a trough mouth fan off Prydz Bay, various seamounts and representative areas of shelf, slope and abyssal ecoregions.
5. Full protection of Prydz Bay, an area that supports large numbers of seabirds and mammals as well as likely nursery grounds for krill and toothfish.
6. Protecting areas of scientific importance that may serve as climate reference areas.

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Weddell seal  (Leptonychotes weddellii) in Antarctic waters

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Currently only 1% of the world’s oceans are protected from human interference, yet international agreements on marine protection suggest that this number should be far higher.

The designation of a network of large‐scale MPAs and marine reserves in the East Antarctic coastal region would be an important and inspirational step for marine protection in the Southern Ocean. CCAMLR Members have an unprecedented opportunity to establish a network of marine reserves and MPAs an order of magnitude greater than anything accomplished before. With such a network in place, key Southern Ocean habitats and wildlife, including those unique to the East Antarctic coastal region, would be protected from the impacts of human activities.

The AOA submits that with visionary political leadership, CCAMLR can grasp this opportunity and take meaningful steps to protect critical elements of the world’s oceans that are essential for the lasting health of the planet.

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Notes:

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1. The AOA’s research has identified over 40% of the Southern Ocean that warrants protection in a network of large-scale marine reserves and MPAs, based on the combination of existing marine protected areas, areas identified within previous conservation and planning analyses and including additional key environmental habitats described in the AOA’s report.
2. The AOA is campaigning for CCAMLR to adopt its ‘Vision for Circumpolar Protection’ while this unique marine environment is still largely intact. CCAMLR has agreed to create a network of marine protected areas in some of the ocean around Antarctica this year but the size and scale is still under debate.
3. CCAMLR is a consensus body that meets with limited public participation and does not provide media access. The AOA believes that, without public attention during the process, only minimal protection will be achieved. It has launched the ‘Join the Watch’ campaign focused on CCAMLR, which now has more than 100,000 participants from around the world.
4. Antarctic waters make up almost 10% of the world’s seas and are some of the most intact environments left on earth. They are home to almost 10,000 unique and diverse species such as penguins, seals and whales.’

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Further Reading:

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[1]    East Antarctica targeted by dodgy fishing

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Read Report:  >’Antarctic Ocean Legacy: Protection for the East Antarctic Coastal Region.pdf  (1.6MB), 2012, by the Antarctic Ocean Alliance (AOA), ^http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/11352_aoa_east_antarctic_report_web__2_.pdf]

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[2]     Antarctic Toothfish?

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Antarctic Toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni) the Ross Sea, Antarctica

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‘Antarctic Toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni) are by far the dominant fish predator in the Ross Sea. Whereas most Antarctic fish species rarely get larger than 60 cm, Ross Sea toothfish can grow in excess of two metres in length and more than 150 kg in mass.

Being top predators, they feed on a variety of fish and squid, but they are also important prey for Weddell seals, sperm whales, colossal squid, and a specific type of killer whale that feeds almost exclusively on toothfish.

While these fish have long been studied for their ability to produce anti-freeze proteins that keep their blood from crystallizing, very little is known about their life cycle and distribution. We do know they live to almost 50 years of age and grow relatively slowly. They likely mature between 13 and 17 years of age (120-133 cm in length).

In the Ross Sea, toothfish are caught throughout the water column from about 300 metres to more than 2,200 metres deep. While most fish control their buoyancy with a swim bladder, toothfish actually use lipids or fats (lending to their popularity as a food fish).

Recent research suggests that toothfish have a complex life cycle which includes a remarkable spawning migration. In the Ross Sea region, adults feed over the continental shelf and slope, and then migrate from the Ross Sea continental shelf to northern seamounts, banks and ridges around the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge system. Here in the northern offshore waters, fish release their eggs, which are then picked up by the Ross Gyre and brought back to the shelf. This hypothesis is likely, but not yet proven because Antarctic toothfish eggs or larvae have never been found. Small juveniles have been found in other regions, but never in the Ross Sea, lending even more mystery to the life cycle of this fish.’

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[3]     Antarctica’s  ‘Ross Sea’?

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The Ross Sea ecosystem is the last intact marine ecosystem left on Earth. Unlike many other areas of the world’s oceans, the Ross Sea’s top predators are still abundant. Here they drive the system, shaping the food web below in a way that’s totally unique.

While comprising just two percent of the Southern Ocean, the Ross Sea is the most productive stretch of Antarctic waters. It has the richest diversity of Southern Ocean fishes, an incredible array of benthic invertebrates and massive populations of mammals and seabirds.

More than a third of all Adélie penguins make their home here, as well as almost a third of the world’s Antarctic petrels and Emperor penguins. Also found here are Antarctic Minke whales, Weddell and Leopard seals, and Orcas, including a population specially adapted to feed on Antarctic toothfish, the top fish predator of the Ross Sea.

The Ross Sea Map

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The Ross Sea’s rich biodiversity and productivity puts it on a par with many World Heritage sites, like the Galapagos Islands, African Rift lakes and Russia’s Lake Baikal.’

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[4]     Ross Sea dodgy fishing escapades

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Dec 2011:  Dodgy Russian-flagged fishing rust-bucket ‘Sparta’

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Jan 2012:  Dodgy Korean-flagged rust bucket fishing vessel ‘Jeong Woo 2’

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[5]     Mar 2012:   ‘US retailer says no to ‘Ross Sea’ seafood’   

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‘A third US retailer has announced it will not stock seafood from Antartica’s Ross Sea for environmental reasons, reports Greenpeace.

Harris Teeter joins US supermarket chains Safeway and Wegmans by taking the ‘Ross Sea Pledge’ which means it will not buy or sell seafood from that area. It is also calling for the entire Ross Sea to be protected.

“We have pledged not to buy or sell any seafood harvested from the Ross Sea,” the company states on its website.  “By taking the “Ross Sea Pledge,” we encourage the nations who are members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources to designate the entire Ross Sea as an MPA [Marine Protected Area],” it continues.

The Ross Sea has been identified as the least human affected large oceanic ecosystem remaining on Earth.  Many Scientists are advocating for it to be designated as a fully protected marine reserve. However, a longline fishery for Antarctic toothfish, started by New Zealand vessels in the late 1990s, is operating in the Ross Sea and supplying the luxury market.

“The delicate balance of the fragile Ross Sea is under threat from commercial fishing,” says Greenpeace New Zealand Oceans Campaigner Karli Thomas.

“Although technology has made it possible, it is simply not sustainable to be fishing every last corner of our ocean. The Ross Sea is a special place that we should be protecting as the home to diverse and unique wildlife, and a refuge in the face of climate change – not exploiting to feed the wealthy.”

In 2010, Greenpeace published a report outlining the role that seafood traders, retailers and chefs can play in protecting the Ross Sea.  “The announcement by Harris Teeter shows there is a growing awareness by retailers that the Ross Sea should be protected as no-go area,” says Thomas.

The recently formed Antarctic Ocean Alliance, a group of environmental organisations, last week launched a report calling for a large-scale marine reserve to be established in the Ross Sea.’

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[6]   Carting Away the Oceans…

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Read Report:   >’Carting Away the Oceans V.pdf‘, by Casson Trenor, Greanpeace USA 2011,  ^http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/Global/usa/planet3/publications/oceans/CATO_V_FINAL.pdf, 2MB]

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[7]   Indiscriminate illegal gillnetting

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Illustration of a bottom gill net
(Michigan Sea Grant)

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Significant progress has been made in reducing the level of IUU catch through the cooperation of CCAMLR, its Member nations and legal fishers.  However, a number of IUU fishers still operate primarily in the South Indian Ocean and directly off the East Antarctic coastal region.

The conservative catch limits remain in place today, as IUU fishing remains a problem and is unlikely to further decline. In recent years, IUU fishers have increasingly used deepwater gillnets in the area, making IUU estimates nearly impossible to calculate.

Gillnets are banned by CCAMLR because they pose a significant environmental threat due to their high levels of bycatch and the risk of “ghost fishing,” which refers to nets that have been cut loose or lost in the ocean and continue catching marine life for years.

The amount of toothfish caught in IUU gillnets remains unknown, but is likely substantial. For example, gillnets found by Australian officials in 2009 spanned 130 km and had ensnared 29 tonnes of Antarctic toothfish.

IUU fishing and the uncertainty associated with toothfish populations severely compromise fisheries management and has led to the rapid decline of some toothfish stocks.

Moreover, like many deep dwelling fish, toothfish live a long time, grow slowly as adults and mature late in life, all characteristics that make them vulnerable to overfishing.

Local depletions of toothfish may easily occur, as has happened over BANZARE Bank. Scientists have yet to understand the Antarctic toothfish’s life history in the East Antarctic, which further compromises management.’

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[8]   Illegal Unreported Unregulated (IUU) Fishing’

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[9]    Antarctic Ocean Alliance

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^http://www.antarcticocean.org

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[10]    The Last Ocean:  Ross Sea

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‘The Last Ocean was started in 2004 to promote the establishment of a marine protected area (MPA) in order to conserve the pristine qualities of the Ross Sea, Antarctica.

In August 2009, the Last Ocean Charitable Trust was created as an extension of this project, specifically to raise awareness of the Ross Sea within New Zealand. The Trust is based in Christchurch, New Zealand’s gateway to Antarctica.’    Visit website:  ^http://www.lastocean.org/

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[11]   Ross Sea Dependency

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^http://www.rosssea.info/

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>Listening Post:  ‘Antarctica’

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Antarctica

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With the announcement of an increased US military presence in Australia, our strategic planners are focused on the rising importance of the Indo-Pacific. But we have taken our eye off our southern flank.

Like other rising nations, China and India want a higher profile in Antarctic affairs. But, unlike other countries, they’re chasing that profile with much more vigour and with determined independence.  They have active Antarctic programs and are increasing the number of their polar bases. Two of China’s bases are in the Australian Antarctic Territory. Its latest is at Dome A, one of the highest and coldest points on the Antarctic continent.

China is extremely interested in the prospects of future Antarctic resource development.

One of India’s bases has a monitoring role associated with its planned hi-tech monitoring station in northern Madagascar. That station is part of India’s aim to have a presence throughout the Indian Ocean, partly to balance growing Chinese influence there. Satellite technology and research are central to Antarctic operations. Most low-earth orbiting satellites cross the Antarctic continent every 90-100 minutes. If they do so on descending orbits, they can download their data into ground stations in Antarctica.

Countries could make use of their Antarctic bases and the full range of signals and electronic intelligence that require the use of satellites and ground stations for direction-finding and monitoring.

New Delhi, for example, is setting up a remote sensing ground station in eastern Antarctica to boost the remote-sensing data transmitted by Indian satellites. Occupying Dome A is full of political symbolism, but it is no coincidence that the Chinese have established their third station there. At one of the highest points on the continent it’s ideal for sending, receiving or intercepting signals from satellites.

It offers China unprecedented visibility for astronomical research. The main advantage of ground stations in Antarctica is that they can retask satellites in a timely fashion.  Advanced defence forces are heavily reliant on space-based infrastructure, communications and navigation systems. China and India could use their Antarctic bases for these purposes.

But how would we know?

To do so would be at odds with the Antarctic Treaty, but the sparse use of the treaty’s inspection mechanisms means that such activity could go undetected.
The US, Russia and China have demonstrated the capability to destroy space vehicles using anti-satellite missiles. India and Pakistan may be prompted to initiate their own space warfare programs. If Antarctic sites take on military significance, we could see a move towards destabilisation of Antarctica as a zone of peace.

For Australia these potential developments are worrying. We’re the largest claimant in Antarctica. Our territorial claim in Antarctica can’t be defended in military terms and doesn’t need to be if Antarctica remains demilitarised.

There’s now a defence posture review under way to examine whether our military is appropriately positioned to respond in a timely way to Australia’s defence and security demands.
Today there is almost no Defence engagement on Antarctic issues. Defence could use one of its four C-17 Globemasters for Antarctic logistics. New Zealand uses its air force to fly personnel to and from Antarctica. Our air force should work with New Zealand into and out of Antarctica to gain polar logistics experience. Defence should be represented on high-level inter-departmental forums on Antarctica.

Military personnel could be included in Antarctic missions for operational support. Short-term secondments by Defence to the Australian Antarctic Division in Tasmania would give our armed forces a greater feel for what might be required if circumstances were to change. None of the new vessels to be acquired by the navy will be ice-capable and Defence has passed responsibility for Southern Ocean patrols to Customs.

Antarctica matters. It’s time our strategic planners looked south.’
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NOTE:  Sam Bateman and Anthony Bergin are co-authors of an Australian Strategic Policy Institute paper, ‘Sea Change: Advancing Australia’s Ocean Interests’.

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Further Reading

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The Japanese kill bottlenose whales

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If there is one redeeming legacy about previous British Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, despite the recurring criticism of her policies and leadership style by many Leftists, is that she was a political leader of strong convictions who commanded respect from foreign powers at a time when it was critical for Great Britain to stand by its principles.

Thatcher defended British sovereignty – its land, its people, its currency.

Not so Australia’s Labor-apparatchik installed puppet Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, who in pursuit of Rudd populism guided not by internal principle but by factions and focus groups is our chair warming PM of unprincipled mediocrity.    Since her education revolution as Education Minister her costly results have been mediocre.  Where are her principles? – ‘there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead‘, her extravagant $47 billion NBN without any cost-benefit study, her Malaysian solution for asylum seekers, her selling uranium to India against Labor principles and her appeasing foreign interests at Australia’s expense – US pharmaceutical and military interests, China’s mining and manufacturing interests, India’s nuclear interests and free trade with Indonesia, Malaysia and now Mexico and South American nations.

Clearly Ruddism drives Gillard foreign policy.  All Gillard need do is fly in, deliver the speech and smile for the cameras, with Rudd up the back somewhere gesturing.  Gillard abandoned Australia’s free speech defender Julian Assange and sided with the US Military.   Japanese pirate whalers invade Australia’s Southern Ocean whale sanctuary to poach minke whales,  endangered fin whales and threatened humpbacks.  They now formal Japanese military support having brought their own guardian warship.  Gillard doesn’t know what to do. She has a policy vacuum when it comes to the Environment, just like Labor siblings Garrett, Wong and Burke.

Rudd failed to honour his 2007 pledge to  formally challenge Japanese whaling in the International Court of Justice.  Only public outcry forced the Gillard Government to lodge its case with the court in May 2010.   All Gillard does this time around with non-violent action group Forest Rescue boarding the Japanese whaling vessel Shonan Maru is to think legal and appeasing the pirate Japanese.  Gillard has slammed the actions of three anti-whaling protesters as “unacceptable” and warned that others who carry out similar protests will be “charged and convicted”. However, the government should be preventing crimes in our near oceans, and illegal whaling, not condemning the actions of law-enforcers trying to do what they should be doing!

Gillard is gutless.  Whaling is a sport. It is not scientific. It is not a primary industry because there is stuff all market for whale meat and the only way it is sold is because the Japanese Government subsidises the cost. Whaling is a cultural sport only and a backward cultural one at that. It is all about game.

The Japanese are traditionally a patriarchal society. Japanese males violating Australian waters for foreign whales for sport is consistent with Japanese male cultural history of violating foreign women they euphemistically called ‘comfort women’. Such Japanese culture is backward and foreign and has no place in Australian waters and the Australia Whale Sanctuaries that Australia is custodian for.

Japan‘s dogged pursuit of whales well beyond its shores in our Southern Ocean is more about preserving endangered cultural pride than science.

Japan‘s justifications for whaling are not commercial nor scientific, despite the official rhetoric.  They are culturally deep and desperately self-preserving, despite being wrong, wasteful and backward.  The scientific con is only to prevent flagrant breach of the Antarctic Treaty, to which Japan is a signatory.

Japan‘s arrogance is repeated with its refusal to respond with an apology to the request by acting Queensland Premier Lucas over Japan’s confirmed sinking of Australia’s hospital ship the Centaur in WWII.   Australian’s should never forget that Japan is the only nation ever to directly threaten Australia’s sovereignty. Three generations later Japan again defies Australian sovereignty.

Gillards’ pre-election promise of getting tough on whaling (or was that Rudd’s?) was an election promise; that’s it.

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One of the famous quotes from ‘Iron Lady’ Thatcher was “I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air.“

Gillard’s appeasement of Japanese whaling is the stench of her followship.  Gillard is gutless.  Gillard has no trait as a leader, let alone a principled leader of our nation.

Gillard has no regard for Australian sovereignty. Like her predecessor Rudd, who continues to advise on all things foreign to Australia, Gillard’s raison d’être is to comply as a puppet, enjoy her time in the sun until the next apparatchik push.

Like Rudd, Gillard treats Australian values as second rate, as if a foreigner with cultural disrespect.
Rudd reneged on his 2007 election promise to send an Australian ship to monitor Japan’s annual slaughter of 1000 minke, humpback and fin whales.
Rudd reneged on his pre-election undertaking to exercise Australia’s right to take Japan to the International Court of Justice over its whale hunting expeditions in the Southern Ocean.
Rudd’s turned his back on Japan’s harpoon whaling in Australian Antarctic waters and let Japan pirate whalers refuel in Australia.

Japan flagrantly ignores Australia’s whale sanctuary and Australia’s sovereignty.  Japan condones an unprofitable, low demand and antiquainted 19th Century practice of whale harpooning, then tells international lies justifying some scientific spin that only discredits Japan’s reputation.

Japan’s Nippon Paper has been slaughtering Australian native forests for its immoral woodchip paper trade out of its habitat dead camp at its Twofold Bay mill at Eden.

How would the Japanese people like it if Gunns wanted to woodchip their sacred Aokigahara forest around the base of Mount Fuji?

Aokigahara forest, below Mount Fuji

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In true Ruddism style (hollow popularism) Australia is domestically making noise while doing squat to resolve Japan’s state-sanctioned slaughter of endangered whale species or to ethically stand up to an illegitimate foreign aggressor. So year on year, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society does the dirty work of another Australian government.

Japanese whalers are tens of thousands of miles south of Japan in Australian Antarctic waters and seriously outside any feasible extension of what may constitute ‘traditional’ Japanese hunting grounds.  They try to argue on the one hand that:

1. Whaling is a cultural tradition practiced by the Japanese for centuries and so have an inherent right to continue this tradition, then on the other that
2. Japanese whale hunting is purely scientific

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Combined, the two justifications expose the motive as a prima facie fraud and as one more important that the mainstream media have realised. Japan’s justifications for whaling are not commercial and not scientific. They are culturally deep and desperately self-preserving, despite being wrong, wasteful and backward.
Proud Japan’s once mighty economy overtaking the west through the 1970s and 1980s reached it’s inevitable bubble, but the Japanese rebirth in pride since humilating defeat in World War II, could not foresee a second cultural failure.  But when the Japanese real estate and stock price bubble burst in 1990, immediate nation-wide shock and depression ensued lasting throughout the 1990s, which now has been acknowledged as Japan’s Lost Decade.

Worse for Japanese pride has been its once globally accepted and admired business management practices that have consequently fallen into disrepute internationally. These include Japan’s once acclaimed Kaizen management practice, market first product focus, Genbutso Genba (facts, figures and check) learning from competitors, and Hoshin Kanri (process management).

So right now, Japanese pride is at an ebb one could say. Then to hammer the nail into the coffin, Japan has seen its historic arch rival, China, recently replace and exceed Japan’s economic success.

How is Japan’s cultural pride relevant to Japan’s whaling activities in the Southern Ocean?

Well let’s investigate the facts.
Japanese whalers, tens of thousands of miles south of Japan in Australian Antarctic waters and seriously outside any feasible extension of what may constitute ‘traditional’ Japanese hunting grounds, try to argue on the one hand that (1) whaling is a cultural tradition practiced by the Japanese for centuries and so have an inherent right to continue this tradition, then on the other that (2) Japanese whale hunting is purely scientific – is an exposed prima facie fraud.

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Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Paul Watson, provides an historical synopsis of the Japanese 19th Century commercial interest in whaling in his article of 27 June 2006 ‘The Truth about “Traditional” Japanese Whaling’:
“In the 1890’s Japanese man, Jura Oka, made his way to Norway, the Azores, and Newfoundland to study whaling and learn of the commercial rewards. Oka then formed the first Japanese whaling company Hogei Gumi with one vessel, the Saikai-maru, and killed a total of three whales. In 1908 the Nihon Hogeigyo Suisan Kumiai was established (Japanese Whaling Association) with Jura Oka as the first President. In 1908 the association’s 12 companies with a total of 28 whaling vessels killed 1,312 whales. The average kill for the next 25 years would be around 1,500 whales.

^http://gcaptain.com/australia-sends-armed-merchant-ship-to-track-whalers/?950

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…The 1930’s became the greatest decade of whale slaughter in history. In 1931, 37,438 blue whales were massacred in the Southern Oceans. Japan sent its first ships to Antarctica in 1935. The sale of whale oil helped to finance the invasion of Manchuria and China. In 1937 alone, more than 55,000 whales were slaughtered yielding 3 million tons of animals.”
Post World War II, America’s General Douglas MacArthur, encouraged the revitalisation of a defeated and demoralised Japan.

“In 1946, General Douglas MacArthur proposed the creation of a Japanese whaling fleet to secure protein for the conquered Japanese people. He did so in order to cut down on the United States’ costs of transporting food to post war Japan. On August 6th 1946 MacArthur signed the directive authorizing two factory ships and twelve catcher boats to begin whaling in the Antarctic for the 1946-47 season. The deal was that Japan would get the meat and the oil would be turned over to the United States. The United States provided $800,000 in fuel for the ships and received over 4 million dollars in whale oil in return.

The two ships sent down to Antarctic waters were the Hashidate Maru and the Nishin Maru.”  Do these vessel names sound familiar?

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“The brutal killing of whales has become an icon for the Japanese identity. This is not unusual. Japan has always closely identified with blood and slaughter. From the decapitations by the Samurai upon innocent peasants to the suicidal insanity of the Kamikaze, violence and self destruction have been a part of Japanese culture.”
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With Japan’s Samurai culture castrated, its military culture castrated, its economic miracle failed, what pride can traditional Japanese otherwise cling to?
Few eat whale meat in Japan. The scientific research of whales is only an excuse so that that Japan can claim to be technically complying with the Antarctic Treaty. But the activity is one of lost Samurais with no other quest. It’s all really quite sad for Japan and symptomatic of a once proud people having become.

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Japanese arrogance in the Southern Ocean extends to Tokyo

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On 20 Dec 2009, a US shipwreck search team lead by US marine scientist David Mearns finally found the wreckage of the Australian World War Two hospital ship, the Centaur, which sank in 1943 killing 268 people.   Submarine photography has confirmed the gaping hole where the Japanese torpedo and ensuing explosion tore the hospital ship off the Queensland coast just 30 miles east of the southern tip of Moreton Island. The footage shows the ship’s bright red cross and a corroded number 47, its identification number.
At the time supreme Allied commander Douglas MacArthur called the Japanese torpedoing an example of “limitless savagery” and Australian Prime Minister John Curtin said violated “all the principles of common humanity”.

In 1943 the Japanese government issued a statement denying responsibility for the sinking of the Centaur, and has never since acknowledged that Nakagawa was responsible for the sinking. However, an acknowledgment came from the Japanese navy in 1979 in its History of Submarine Warfare, written by Rear Admiral Kaneyoshi Sakamoto. The official history specifically acknowledges that Nakagawa was responsible.

Acting Queensland Premier, Mr Lucas said “In this barbaric act, people lost their lives. Sailors, soldiers, nurses, doctors, orderlies. It was totally senseless and a wanton act” and has called on the Japanese government to apologise to the Australian people.  But Japan has refused to apologise.

Australian’s should never forget that Japan is the only nation ever to directly threaten Australia’s sovereignty. Three generations later Japan again defies Australian sovereignty. Some people are a bit slow at getting the message.

Respect for Japan has hit a low. Its government’s disrespectful of the dead, and remains dishonourable over its accountability for its many war crimes such as this.
Survivor Martin Pash, 87, told the Brisbane Courier-Mail that while the Japanese government had issued a general apology for its wartime behaviour, he now sought a direct acknowledgment that the Centaur, which was clearly marked as a hospital ship, should not have been torpedoed.  National RSL president Ken Doolan in siding with the Japanese on this issue and stating that the RSL would not be demanding an apology, should hang his head in shame and resign.

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Japanese Scientific Whale Meat for sale

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