Despite Southern Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) being endangered, the Australian Government continues its weak policy of appeasing the Japanese – the main poachers and customers of Bluefin Tuna.
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<<The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora is abbreviated ‘CITES’.
The Australian federal Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. Government is a signatory to CITES and since and CITES international trade regulations have been enforceable under Australian law since 27 October 1976. Every signatory to CITES is required to designate a management authority. In Australia this is effectively the Threatened Species Scientific Committee.
On 7 September 2005, Australia’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee concluded that the Southern Bluefin Tuna (SBT)… “continues to be overfished despite the international management arrangements which have been formally in place since 1994.”
“The parental biomass is currently in the order of 3 to 14% of that in 1960 (its unfished size). In addition, BRS has classified SBT as being ‘overfished’ every year since the first BRS fishery status reports were first produced in 1992.
“Stock assessment models have shown a significant historic decline in the biomass of SBT. The mature population of SBT has declined significantly over its last three generations (since the 1980s) and is currently at a very low level.
Therefore, the species is eligible for listing as endangered under Criterion 1.”
The Threatened Species Scientific Committee recommended this to the Australian Government.
Australia’s then Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator the Hon Ian Campbell decided against listing the species under the EPBC Act…“as it may weaken Australia’s ability to influence both the management of the global fishing effort and the global conservation of the species.”>>
CITES COP15 draft resolution March 2010 on Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus)
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* Fishing capacity is at least double that needed to catch the current legal quota and that recent estimated catches have been four times greater than the maximum catch recommended by scientists to prevent the collapse of the population.
* A 78.4% cut would be needed in the fishing effort by the fleet targeting East Atlantic and Mediterranean Atlantic Bluefin Tuna
* East Atlantic and Mediterranean stock status, fell by 80% in the southern Iberian
Peninsula between 2000 and 2006
* The loss of groups of older fish in the shoals present in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean fishery and the drastic fall in the reproductive biomass, which is currently only 36% of the level that existed at the beginning of the 1970s, are clear symptoms that this population is in imminent danger of collapse.
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CITES has recommended to:
a) Establish a science-based recovery plan for the East Atlantic and Mediterranean stock
… and to ban industrial fishing – particularly purse seining- during the entire spawning season (May, June and July)
b) Establish immediately an interim suspension of the East Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery
c) Permit resumption of fishing activities only according to the strict science-based ICCAT population-recovery plan
d) Set up protection zones for spawning grounds in the Mediterranean, including the waters within the Balearic Sea, Central Mediterranean, and Levant Sea, during the spawning season.
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The Japanese, consumers of 80% of the world’s Bluefin, have rejected the ban and the recommendations, while Australia has not accepted the ban. Australia’s federal minister for the environment etc, Peter Garrett, has refused to join the United States and the European Union in seeking a trade ban.>>
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March 2010: Peter Garrett rejects bluefin trade ban
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<<Australia has refused to join the United States and the European Union in seeking a trade ban on imperilled northern bluefin tuna, sparking an outcry from conservation groups.
The fish’s plight is seen as a key example of poor global fisheries management, and its fate a potential precedent for Australian tuna fisheries.
The decision by the Environment Protection Minister, Peter Garrett, to go for trade controls instead of the ban has angered the groups, but Australian tuna fishers said it was a sensible outcome.
Listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the northern, or Atlantic, bluefin has lost 72 per cent to 82 per cent of its original stock under pressure from illegal or unregulated fishing for the sashimi trade.
”What’s driving it over the edge is that about 90 per cent of the catch is unregulated export to Japan,” said Glenn Sant, the global marine program manager for TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade network.
Mr Sant said a study he took part in for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation showed that northern bluefin met the criteria for an appendix one listing under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
The appendix one listing, supported by the Obama administration and the EU, would prohibit international trade. It is strongly opposed by Japan and would need a two-thirds majority to be approved.
At the CITES meeting starting today in Qatar, Australia will argue for a lesser appendix two listing that provides instead for more tightly managed trade of the fish.
The Australian Marine Conservation Society said the fears of the domestic bluefin industry should not be allowed to dominate government decision-making.>>
<<The triennial meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is still underway in Doha, Qatar, this week, but so far news coming out of the conference is a mixed bag. Some trees have been protected, tigers gained a few friends, and a rare salamander got some attention, but all hopes to save the critically endangered bluefin tuna were sunk in a secret ballot that put commerce ahead of science and conservation.
Populations of Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) have dropped 97 % since 1960, but the tasty fish remains in high demand in Japan, where sushi bars are willing to pay up to $100,000 or more per fish.
A possible CITES ban on bluefin tuna—supported by the U.S. and 27 European Union nations)—has been in the works for months. Japan, meanwhile, had already announced that it would not comply with such a ban if it were enacted. Unfortunately, the ban failed, and fishing will continue. CITES’s own press release, titled “Governments not ready for trade ban on bluefin tuna,” is surprisingly candid about how this happened:
Japan, Canada and several members States of the Arab league opposed the proposal arguing that regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) as ICCAT [the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas] were best placed to tackle the decline of bluefin tuna stocks.
They added that an Appendix I listing [which would ban trade in the species] would not stop the fishing of the species. After a passionate but relatively short debate, the representative of Libya requested to close the deliberations and go for a vote. Iceland called for a secret ballot. The amendment introduced by the European Union and Monaco’s proposal were defeated (20 votes in favor, 68 against, 30 abstentions) in the middle of much confusion about the voting procedures and mixed feelings of satisfaction and frustration from participants.”
Obviously, pro-tuna groups were not happy about this series of events. “It is scandalous that governments did not even get the chance to engage in meaningful debate about the international trade ban proposal for Atlantic bluefin tuna,” said Sergi Tudela, head of fisheries for the WWF Mediterranean Programme Office, in a prepared statement.
Oceana, a conservation group devoted to the health of the oceans, called this “a clear win by short-term economic interest over the long-term health of the ocean and the rebuilding of Atlantic bluefin tuna populations.” And Greenpeace International oceans campaigner Oliver Knowles stated, “The abject failure of governments here at CITES to protect Atlantic bluefin tuna spells disaster for its future and sets the species on a pathway to extinction.”
We’ll be covering more CITES decisions—both good and bad—all week.>>
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[Source: ‘Sushi-cide: Secret ballot kills hopes for bluefin tuna protections’, by John R. Platt, 20100323, ^http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/2010/03/23/sushi-cide-secret-ballot-kills-hopes-for-bluefin-tuna-protections/]
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Call to Boycott Japanese Cuisine
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Japanese cuisine includes sashimi, which typically is Bluefin Tuna. Bluefin is the raw fish used in Japanese ‘maguro’, and ‘o-toro’ dishes and in many sushi combinations.
The Australian Government may pasty to the Japanese, but that doesn’t stop ethically driven citizens boycotting Japanese restaurants and sushi shops, which sell raw fish which is typically the critically endangered Bluefin Tuna.
It’s time to send a blunt message to the Japanese that their fettish for Bluefin is backward! Some are labelling the plight of ‘BLUEFIN SUSHICIDE‘.
March 2013: she’s almost dead, like her entire species cornered in the wild
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<<Footage released 4th April 2013 shows starving orangutans being rescued from an oil palm concession in Borneo after their forest homes were bulldozed by a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), in flagrant violation of the body’s rules.
Conservationists have urged oil palm firm Bumitama Gunajaya Agro (BGA) to cease further clearing immediately amid credible concerns that more of the endangered species are trapped inside the concession and will die if not relocated.
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[Bumitama is an Indonesian Oil Palm plantation company that cultivates Oil Palm trees and produces crude palm oil (CPO). It was established in 1996 by the Harita Group through its first acquisition of land bank in Central Kalimantan. In 2007, IOI Corporation bought a 33% stake in PT Bumitama Gunajaya Agro.
As of March 2012, Bumitama controls over 190,000 hectares of land bank and has planted 133,000 hectares of Oil Palm trees, mostly in Central and West Kalimantan. Bumitama owns 6 CPO mills (5 in Kalimantan and 1 in Riao), which produces more than 450,000 tons of CPO a year. The main buyers of their CPO include Wilmar, Sinar Mas, and Musim Mas. ]
Dato’ Lee Yeow Chor Group Executive Director,
IOI Group of Companies
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According to RSPO statutes BGA should have carried out High Conservation Value assessments prior to clearing in the concession, setting aside areas that are home to the endangered species.
However, International Animal Rescue Indonesia (IAR Indonesia) and government conservation staff have already rescued four orangutans, including a pregnant adult and a baby, from the concession in Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan. Other individuals remain at risk if BGA continues to ignore RSPO rules.
Adi Irawan, Program Director of IAR Indonesia Foundation in Ketapang, said:
“We know that there are more orangutans isolated in small patches of forest in this plantation along with other protected wildlife such as proboscis monkeys. All the animals in this plantation are under threat and therefore this company should stop all land clearing immediately, carry out habitat assessments and develop strategies to protect all the endangered wildlife in their estate”.
The concession is operated by BGA subsidiary PT Ladang Sawit Mas (LSM) in a forest buffer next to Gunung Palung National Park, an area that hosts one of the largest populations of Central Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) in West Kalimantan.
The footage released today shows IAR Indonesia’s Orangutan Rescue Team and the Regency Agency for Natural Resources Conservation (BKSDA) rescuing the orangutans from areas cleared by LSM, to move them to areas with sufficient food for their survival.
Karmele Llano Sanchez, Executive Director of IAR Indonesia Foundation, said:
“We were appalled to see the condition of these rescued orangutans. All of them had gone through long periods of starvation before we rescued them, as the area where they were found, since the company had cleared most of the forest, was too small to provide them with enough food. One of the rescued orangutans had lost her baby, probably killed before the rescue team arrived. More orangutans could die if this company does not take immediate action”.
According to Indonesian Law Act Number 5 year 1990 concerning the Conservation of Living Resources and their Ecosystems the killing of orangutans or other protected wildlife is prohibited and can be severely punished.>>
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View Footage (click image):.
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Notes:
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1. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is a UK-based Non Governmental Organisation and charitable trust (registered charity number 1145359) that investigates and campaigns against a wide range of environmental crimes, including:
illegal wildlife trade
illegal logging
hazardous waste
trade in climate and ozone-altering chemicals.
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2. RSPO Criterion 7.3 dictates that new plantings since November 2005 cannot replace any areas required to maintain or enhance one or more High Conservation Value. This includes “Forest areas containing globally, regionally or nationally significant concentrations of biodiversity values (e.g. endemism, endangered species).”
• For further photos of the rescued orangutans please contact Tom Johnson at tomaszjohnson@eia-international.org
• Interviews are available on request: please contact Karmele Llano Sanchez (IARI) at karmele@internationalanimalrescue.org or Tom Johnson (EIA) at tomaszjohnson@eia-international.org
• Caption for attached picture: An adult female orangutan who was rescued with her baby by IAR Indonesia in Ketapang, March 2013.
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[Source: ‘Conservationists urge RSPO member to cease rainforest destruction after starving orangutans rescued from concession’, 20130404, Environmental Investigation Agency on behalf of International Animal Rescue, West Kalimantan (Borneo) Indonesia]
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HSBC loans $135 million to Bumitama Gunajaya Agro (BGA) Group
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<<DBS Indonesia and HSBC (Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) together with its syndication banks have completed the final process of Syndicated Term Loan Facility for Bumitama Gunajaya Agro (BGA) Group. Due to the oversubscribed participation, the final loan amount provided for the facility has been upsized to USD 135 million from the original amount of USD 110 million.>>
Arnott’s Tim Tam, proudly killing Orangutans
(it is one of Australia’s largest selling products that includes Palm Oil in its manufacture)
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<<Palm oil plantations are now the leading cause of rainforest destruction in Malaysia and Indonesia. In Southeast Asia alone the equivalent of 300 football fields are deforested every hour. At the current rate, experts believe Orang-utans will be extinct in the wild by 2013 (this year).
Palm oil and its derivatives are present in 50% of all packaged foods on our shelves. While 50% of products in Australian supermarkets contain Palm Oil, it is nearly impossible for consumers to be able to make an informed choice about which products to purchase. This is because under current food labelling laws, Palm Oil can be legally labelled as ‘Vegetable Oil’.
Australia’s current food regulations don’t require this truth in labelling.>>
‘AP’ = All products. Palm oil is found in all products or flavours of this specific brand. Example – palm oil is found in all flavours of Arnott’s Shapes: Plain, Chicken, Pizza, BBQ etc.
“In 2008 Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) rejected an application for the compulsory labelling of Palm Oil, arguing that they have no legal capacity to hear the case.”
Under the FSANZ Act, the FSANZ Board is selected by the Australian Minister for Health and Ageing in consultation with the Legislative and Governance Forum on Food Regulation and must include qualified people from all walks of life.
Ms Philippa Smith, AM was appointed Chair of the FSANZ Board in July 2008. Ms Smith is a former Commonwealth Ombudsman, CEO of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia and the inaugural Chair of the Consumer’s Health Forum. She has developed strong strategic skills and extensive experience in ensuring effective accountability and governance structures across a number of portfolios.
Mr Steve McCutcheon (Chief Executive Officer) [s.116(1)(b)]
Mr McCutcheon, who holds a Bachelor of Economics degree and has undertaken further studies in public law and public policy, was appointed CEO of FSANZ in October 2007. Before his appointment, Mr McCutcheon held a number of senior executive positions in the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. During that time, he led the team that developed the new food regulatory framework for Australia and New Zealand under the auspices of the Council of Australian Governments. Mr McCutcheon also led the Australian delegation to annual sessions of the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
Dr Michele Allan [s.116(1)(f)]
Dr Michele Allan has strong leadership experience across many facets of the food industry. Her areas of expertise include manufacturing strategy, organisational strategy, risk and insurance leadership, food safety systems implementation, food packaging innovation and commercialisation. Dr Allan has held senior executive positions with Amcor Limited, Bonlac Foods, Bioinformatics Centre of Excellence Tasmania, Kraft Foods and ICI; and has also held board positions within both the private and public sectors.
Mr Peter Boyden [s.116(1)(g)]
Mr Peter Boyden is an internationally experienced CEO with extensive general management and marketing experience gained in consumer foods businesses in Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Greece. Mr Boyden has been the Managing Director and regional Board member of the Unilever Australasian foods business and a Board member of the Australian Food and Grocery Council. His areas of responsibility have included the management of consumer marketing, product and packaging development, food production and general management, where he has focused on strategy development and portfolio management.
Professor Stephen Corbett [s.116(1)(f)]
Professor Stephen Corbett has had more than 20 years of experience as a public and environmental health physician, with qualifications in public health and medicine. His interests include environmental health risk assessment and management, regulatory policy and practice, and chronic disease prevention. Professor Corbett’s experience includes holding senior executive positions in NSW Health-Public Health; being Conjoint Associate Professor at the School of Public Health, University of Sydney and Western Clinical School, Westmead Hospital; and being Associate Editor on the journal Evolution, Medicine and Public Health.
Ms Jenni Mack [s.116(1)(d)]
Ms Jenni Mack has worked in consumer affairs since 1993 when she was Executive Director of the Australian Federation of Consumer Organisations. Her work has spanned food, chemicals, telecommunications, energy and financial services policy incorporating areas such as industry self-regulatory and co-regulatory practices, professional standards and codes of practice. Ms Mack has worked closely with regulators and government agencies on good regulatory science, community education, licensing, best practice enforcement and compliance schemes, and community and social research projects.
Dr Andrew McKenzie QSO [s.116(1)(c)]
Dr Andrew McKenzie is qualified as a veterinarian with post graduate qualifications in veterinary public health and has a background working for the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries with a focus on the meat, seafood and other food industries. In 2002, Dr McKenzie set up the New Zealand Food Safety Authority and led it until his retirement in June 2010. He has extensive experience in domestic food safety policy and standards, as well as international food safety and trade standards at the bilateral and multilateral level. Dr McKenzie has a continuing interest in management and governance, as well as contemporary regulatory approaches to food safety/quality and trade, particularly around standard-setting.
Dr James (Gardner) Murray AO PSM [s.116(1)(f)]
Gardner Murray has veterinary medicine, surgery and management qualifications. Through his work in high level government positions and via his company—Gardner Murray Pty Ltd., Dr Murray has contributed to national and international developments in food safety, animal health, ‘One Health’ (collaboration between animal, human and environmental scientists and related disciplines to achieve optimal health), biosecurity, market access, emergency management, animal welfare, policy development and strategic planning. He has held and holds numerous high level Board, Commission and Committee positions at the national and international levels.
Mr Tony Nowell CNZM [s.116(1A)]
Mr Tony Nowell has had extensive senior executive experience across various industries (including food) both internationally and within New Zealand. This has included holding positions such as CEO of Zespri International; Managing Director of Griffin’s Foods; Regional Vice President of Sara Lee Asia; Zone Manager for Sara Lee Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand; Managing Director of Sara Lee Indonesia; Managing Director of L’Oreal Indonesia; and Operations Manager of L’Oreal New Zealand. Mr Nowell’s other roles and responsibilities have included being the former Chair of the New Zealand Packaging Accord Governing Board and the New Zealand Government Food and Beverage Taskforce; and include Chairmanship of the New Zealand Forest Research Institute and Wellington Drive Technologies, as well as directorships at New Zealand Food Innovation Auckland and the Export Advisory Board of Business New Zealand. Mr Nowell has represented New Zealand as a member of the APEC Business Advisory Council since 2007.
Dr David Roberts [s.116(1)(g)]
Dr David Roberts is a food and nutrition Consultant with extensive experience in health and science. He has expertise in public health, food science, food allergy, human nutrition, food safety, food industry, food processing/retail, government and regulation. Dr Roberts was the Deputy CEO and scientific and technical Director of the Australian Food and Grocery Council for 5 years until October 2007. Prior to that, he had held the Foundation Chair in Nutrition and Dietetics (established 1991) at the University of Newcastle for 10 years. Dr Roberts was at Sydney University for 12 years teaching and researching in nutritional biochemistry. He is a former Chair of the Federation of Australasian Nutrition Organisations, former President of the Nutrition Society of Australia (3 years), former Chair of the NSW Branch of AIFST (1 year), former Chair of the inaugural Complementary Medicines Evaluation Committee of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (4 years) and former member of the editorial board of the British nutrition foundation (10 years+).
Mr Neil Walker JP [s.116(1)(ca)]
Mr Neil Walker is a food scientist with 35 years of experience in the dairy industry in New Zealand. He is a fellow of both the Institute of Chemistry and the New Zealand Institute of Food Science and Technology (NZIFST); and was the Dairy Chair of the NZIFST. He has had experience as Chair, director, trustee and committee member in relation to public councils and authorities; private trusts; companies and organisations; and national, community, charitable and family entities.
Chinese Shark Fin Soup is the barbaric dish of backward Chinese following a primitive custom from the ancient Ming Dynasty. Many Chinese eat Shark Fin Soup at weddings and banquets out of superstition. Sharks are caught by Chinese fishermen their fins hacked off while alive and the sharks thrown back into sea to die of a torturous death.
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Mar 2013: CITES Conference in Bangkok to decide on global Shark Finning Bans
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<<World governments have agreed to restrict international trade in four shark species in a bid to save them from being wiped out due to rampant Chinese and Japanese demand for their fins.
The 178-member Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) voted at a meeting in Bangkok to control exports of the oceanic whitetip and three types of hammerhead shark, but stopped short of a full trade ban. The move would require countries to regulate trade by issuing export permits to ensure their sustainability in the wild, otherwise they could face sanctions from CITES.
Asian nations led by Japan and China – where shark fin soup is considered a delicacy – tried in vain to block the proposals, which were pushed by countries including Brazil, Colombia and the United States.
The decision to add the species to CITES Appendix 2, which restricts cross-border trade, must still be formally approved by the conference’s plenary session later this week. Members would then have 18 months to introduce the trade controls.
The four species would join the great white shark, the whale shark and the basking shark, which already enjoy international trade controls. The Bangkok meeting was also set to vote on a similar proposal for the porbeagle shark and the manta ray.
Humans kill about 100 million sharks each year, mostly for their fins, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and conservationists are warning that dozens of species are under threat. About 90 per cent of the world’s sharks have disappeared over the past 100 years, mostly because of overfishing in countries such as Indonesia, the FAO says.>>
<<Government representatives to CITES, have agreed to put the porbeagle, oceanic whitetip, three kinds of hammerhead shark and two kinds of manta ray on its Appendix II list, which places restrictions on fishing but still allows limited trade.
Joyce says “conservation groups have been trying for years to curtail the widespread killing of sharks for their meat and for shark fin soup.”
According to The Independent newspaper, scientists estimate that almost 100 million sharks are caught each year, and because they are slow-growing and slow to reproduce, they are especially vulnerable to overfishing.
“Although some regions, including the European Union, have banned shark finning, commercial fishing for fins, meat, liver oil, cartilage and other body parts is largely unregulated in much of the world, conservationists warn. Some countries have been reluctant to include marine species, which can generate large revenues, in the treaty that regulates or bans international trade in wildlife.
The shark fin business is worth an estimated $475 million a year.”>>
Minke Whale mother and her calfJapanese ICR Whale Blood Sport Japanese Men Only
[Source: Sea Shepherd]
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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.>>
Australian PM Kevin Rudd : ‘Whatever. You win’ to a stronger willed Japanese PM Yasuo Fukuda.
(Photo: Glen McCurtayne)
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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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[Source: Richard Clapton, Song: ‘Best Years of Our Lives’, 1989, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist from Sydney; off his album: ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’, on WEA Label 256582, ^http://www.richardclapton.com/?page_id=629 ]
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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
… blood sport as usual.
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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
..selling skills, selective statistics, academic theories and even convincing hand movements..and all.
…meanwhile, Japanese whale blood sport as usual…
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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“.>>
<<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.>>
Research has become an internationally interpreted Japanese word for ‘Whale Blood Sport’
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Jan 2010:
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A criminally violent blood sportNo-one wants the whale meat.It is all about Japanese Men Only cultural barbarism
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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.>>
<<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 ZonePM Kevin Rudd at the time did nothing about it.
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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.”
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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!]
<<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.>>
<<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.”>>
<<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 Named after the famous French actress, who remains most supportive of Sea Shepherd’s cause to stop whaling
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“Being outraged by the fact that he’s been put in prison, I offer to take his place because I am his accomplice,” Bardot, 77, said in a statement. “I have always supported Paul Watson, my brother in arms,” said the retired French actress who had a Sea Shepherd trimaran named after her in 2011.
<<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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[Source: Japanese whalers get $28m in earthquake cash’, 20120131, by Adam Harvey, AM Programme, ABC News, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-07/japan-whaling-fleet-embarks/3716546]
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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.
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 Crewin search of Japanese Whale Killing ShipsVoluntarily undertaking the job of the Australian Government.
<<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.”>>
<<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.>>
<<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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[Source: Japanese whalers ordered out of Australian waters’, 20130201, by Samantha Donovan and staff, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-01/government-orders-japanese-whalers-out/4495166]
[The following article was initially written by Tigerquoll and published on CanDoBetter.net, 20100116, ^http://candobetter.net/node/1778, entitled ‘Ban whaling vessels from using our ports’].Japanese Whale Blood Sport…at it again, trespassing and poaching in Australian waters!
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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: A Minke Whale is harpooned by the Japanese whaling vessel Yushin Maru 2 in Australia’s Southern Ocean
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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 On 6th January 2010, in Australia’s Southern Ocean, the traspassing ‘Shōnan Maru 2′ deliberately rams the stationary Ady Gil Australia lets the ship’s master and company Kyodo Senpaku Kaishaoff ‘Scott’ free!
(click image to enlarge)
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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.
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.”>>
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 fishingIt’s the thrill of the harpooning!The whale meat doesn’t matter The ‘research’ label is to keep Greenies distracted in courts
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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.>>
Australia’s native Dingo Dingo Persecution must end! Public perception has to change.
(Photo credit AAP, Jim Shrimpton)
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Dingo numbers have been reduced due to extreme uncontrolled overuse of the deadly 1080 bait, and the colonial cultural persecution of Australia’s top order predator, the Dingo.
<<But scientists say governments need to seriously consider reintroducing dingoes to the landscape in order to protect vulnerable native species.
Dingoes cause hundreds of thousands of dollars damage each year to livestock and there have been huge efforts to cull them by laying poisonous baits and shooting them. But this has allowed feral species like cats and foxes to thrive and experts say the current approach is counter-productive.
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About 40% of the country’s native species are listed as threatened or close to extinction, thanks to the explosion in numbers of feral cats and foxes.
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Dr Tony Friend, the president of the Australian Mammal Society, says trying to control these animals is a losing battle.
“We are getting reasonably good at controlling foxes in the local areas but cats are a huge problem, partly exacerbated by removing foxes, so once the foxes are taken out, cats do well and basically step into the feet of the foxes,” he said.
Research is being conducted Australia-wide to see if bringing back dingoes will help control these pests. One recent study in South Australia’s north recorded a reduction in feral cat and fox numbers with the introduction of dingoes.
Hannah Spronk from Arid Recovery, a conservation group based just outside Roxby Downs, is heading the research.
“All seven of the foxes that we released into that pen there were killed within 17 days by the dingoes,” she said. A night photo of a feral cat with a fairy prion in its mouth.
A feral (dumped) cat with a native bird in its mouth in Tasmania
(Photo credit of Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania)
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“They did autopsies I suppose you could say and the deaths were attributed to attacks by dingoes. All six of the feral cats that were in the pen died within 20 to 103 days after release.”
Dr Menna Jones, from the University of Tasmania, is looking at reintroducing top order predators to rebalance specific ecosystems. As well as dingoes, she is finding out whether the Tasmanian devil could also control invasive species.
“If we can put a large predator back into the ecosystem where it has become extinct, it can do the job of controlling feral cats or foxes 24 hours a day, seven days a week without the need for an ongoing management program that costs a lot of money and costs a lot of effort,” she said.
International expert and wildlife ecologist Professor Roy Dennis says dingoes could be reintroduced in a controlled manner to limit the damage they cause to livestock. But he says first of all public perception has to change.
“I think it would only work when it was the public themselves that wanted this to happen,” he said.>>
<<Dingoes don’t mix well with sheep and cattle but scientists believe there may be some benefit to keeping wild dogs around to control feral cats and foxes.
The Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre is investigating the ecological role dingoes and free-ranging crossbreed dogs play in Australia, so they can be effectively managed.
Peter Fleming, who leads CRC projects on managing wild dogs, says some people see them as under-utilised weapons against feral cats and foxes, also known as meso-predators.
Others only see them as destructive pests that attack sheep and cattle.
Dr Fleming, Principal Research Scientist in the Vertebrate Pest Research Unit of Biosecurity NSW, says it’s critically important to manage the negative impacts of free-ranging dogs using the most up-to-date scientific information.
“Right now, pressure is being brought to bear on livestock producers in some areas to reduce lethal control of all free-ranging dogs because of potential environmental benefit of dingoes,” he said in a statement.
“We know wild dogs and sheep don’t mix and that strategic co-management is the best way to go for both conservation and agricultural goals.”
He says PhD students are being sought to help with five-year research program to see if there are benefits of retaining free-ranging wild dogs to suppress foxes and feral cat impacts in some areas – while still controlling them for livestock protection. .
<<…How do we effectively manage dingoes and other free-ranging cross-breed dogs when we just don’t know the true ecological roles of these predators?
Researchers with the Invasive Animals CRC, led by Ben Allen and Peter Fleming – Wild Dog theme leader for the Invasive Animals CRC – have just published a critical review of dingo research methodology in Biological Conservation. Their work identifies the need for long-term research on the ecological roles of dingoes and other free-ranging dogs. But in the interim, long-term research to 2017 is already underway.
Based at Orange as principal research scientist in the Vertebrate Pest Research Unit of Biosecurity NSW, Dr Fleming said that depending on what they are eating at the time, free-ranging dogs are viewed differently by different stakeholders.
“For some, they are destructive pests attacking sheep and cattle. For others, dingoes are seen as an ‘under-utilised weapon’ against feral cats and foxes (collectively referred to as meso-predators),” he said.
Dr Fleming said there was much uncertainty about potential ‘meso-predator’ suppression by dingoes and wild dogs.
“It’s critically important that we manage the negative impacts of free-ranging dogs using the most up-to-date scientific information,” he said.
Dr Peter Fleming
Principal research scientist in the vertebrate pest research unit of Biosecurity NSW, Orange
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“Right now, pressure is being brought to bear on livestock producers in some areas to reduce lethal control of all free-ranging dogs, because of potential environmental benefit of dingoes.
“We know wild dogs and sheep don’t mix and that strategic co-management is the best way to go for both conservation and agricultural goals. Community wild dog control programs in livestock production areas can suffer because of conflicting information about the roles of dingoes and the other free-ranging wild dogs.”
“However, our review shows we are unsure what the ecological roles are. The new research may yet demonstrate there are ecosystem services and net benefits of retaining free-ranging wild dogs to suppress foxes and feral cat impacts in some areas, but they will still need to be controlled for livestock protection,” Dr Fleming said.
To get to the bottom of the dingo mystery and to determine the ecological roles of free-ranging wild dogs in the many different ecosystems that make up Australia, the Invasive Animals CRC and its partners Meat & Livestock Australia and Australian Wool Innovation and have embarked on a five-year research program to enhance the nation’s ability to manage all their impacts.
A statement issued by the Invasive Animals CRC said this information was critical to manage this unique and charismatic predator in Australia – the dingo, while mitigating livestock losses.
Based at the University of New England and Biosecurity NSW, the research program will centre on north-eastern New South Wales and south-eastern Queensland, a biodiversity hotspot where livestock producers continue to suffer predation problems.
The UNE is currently receiving applications until February 15 for research PhDs to support the wild dog research team. Substantial Invasive Animals CRC resources are being devoted to the research, with up to eight PhD projects about native and introduced predators, their interactions with their prey, the plants the prey eats and the social and economic context of wild dog impacts.
“In five years’ time we will have a sound understanding of the relationships between the predators, prey, plants and people in the highly-productive north-east of NSW,” Dr Fleming said.
“In the meantime, the coordinated, strategic approach to managing free-ranging dogs and preventing livestock predation must continue,” he said.>>
Elephant cruelly butchered for Traditional Chinese ‘Medicine’ (read ‘quackery’)
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<<The world is dealing with an unprecedented spike in illegal wildlife trade, threatening to overturn decades of conservation gains. Ivory estimated to weigh more than 23 metric tons—a figure that represents 2,500 elephants—was seized in the 13 largest seizures of illegal ivory in 2011. Poaching threatens the last of our wild tigers that number as few as 3,200.
Wildlife crime is a big business. Run by dangerous international networks, wildlife and animal parts are trafficked much like illegal drugs and arms. By its very nature, it is almost impossible to obtain reliable figures for the value of illegal wildlife trade. Experts at TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, estimate that it runs into hundreds of millions of dollars.
Some examples of illegal wildlife trade are well known, such as poaching of elephants for ivory and tigers for their skins and bones. However, countless other species are similarly overexploited, from marine turtles to timber trees. Not all wildlife trade is illegal. Wild plants and animals from tens of thousands of species are caught or harvested from the wild and then sold legitimately as food, pets, ornamental plants, leather, tourist ornaments and medicine. Wildlife trade escalates into a crisis when an increasing proportion is illegal and unsustainable—directly threatening the survival of many species in the wild.
Stamping out wildlife crime is a priority for WWF because it’s the largest direct threat to the future of many of the world’s most threatened species. It is second only to habitat destruction in overall threats against species survival.>>
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Traditional Chinese ‘Medicine’ driving wicked Slaughter
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The demand for elephant ivory is stronger than ever in mainland China and Thailand. Ivory is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine to treat fevers, nosebleeds, convulsions, stroke and as an aphrodisiac.
But TCM doesn’t work. It is quackery and witchcraft. It is immoral because it involves using and prescribing wildlife parts and drives the illegal cruel slaughter of endangered wildlife and its trafficking. TCM is wicked and backward. TCM needs to be internationaly banned just like cannibalism.
TCM: ‘Timeless Wisdom for a Modern World”?No, TCM has the same legitimacy as Cannibalism
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The following websites link to organisations pushing this TCM trade:
<<Hong Kong customs officers have confiscated nearly 4 tons of ivory worth $3.4 million in their biggest ever seizure of endangered species products, authorities said on Saturday.
Acting on a tip from customs officials in neighboring Guangdong province in mainland China, Hong Kong officials found the ivory tusks and ornaments in two containers shipped from Tanzania and Kenya.
Officers on Tuesday found nearly 1,000 pieces of ivory tusks weighing more than 1,900 kg as well as 1.4 kg of ivory ornaments in a container from Tanzania. The ivory was hidden in bags of plastic scrap.
A day later, officers found 237 pieces of ivory tusks weighing about 1,900 kg in a shipment from Kenya.
Authorities in China have arrested seven people, including one from Hong Kong. The ivory seizure tops one in 2011 worth $2.2 million.
“This is the biggest haul of ivory tusk in Hong Kong customs enforcement history in a single operation,” said Lam Tak-fai, head of Hong Kong’s Ports and Maritime Command.
Wildlife activists blame China’s growing presence in Africa for an unprecedented surge in poaching elephants for their tusks, most of which are believed to be smuggled to China and Thailand to make ivory ornaments.
Under Hong Kong law, anyone found guilty of trading in endangered species products can be faces up to two years in prison and a fine of up to $640,000.>>
Unlike humans, poached wildlife such as Elephants, Rhinoceroses, Bears and Tigers are increasingly approaching extinction as species. Genocide of humans falls short of speciescide, which should be put in perspective.
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Wildlife Parts need to be valued as Human Parts. The Wildlife Parts Trade need to internationally attract the equivalent penalties as does the Human Parts Black Market by: (1) those who commit the barbaric slaughter, (2) by those traffic in wildlife parts, and (3) by those who use wildlife parts. Penalties need to be Life Imprisonment accordingly, and for corporations fines of up to US$1 million per animal and all corporate assets seized and the corporation wound up].
Poor Victim of Organ Gangs
[Source: ^Bloomberg, 20111101]
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Jan 2013: ‘Poachers busted with 779 Elephant Tusks’
779 elephant tusks uncovered in Hong Kong shipping containers in January 2013 (just 3 days ago)The crime is escalating!
The tusks discovered in Hong Kong this week were presumably going to be turned into jewelry, knicknacks, and religious icons.
(Photo: SkyNews.com/YouTube Screengrab)
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<<Last month, TakePart reported on some revolutionary new tactics that will be implemented in order to hinder the proliferation of the very lucrative poaching industry. Those efforts can’t come fast enough; this week, another massive shipment of blood ivory was discovered in Hong Kong, the shipping port’s third discovery of illegal ivory in as many months.
According to Sky News, this week customs agents discovered 779 elephant tusks hidden in the false bottoms of shipping crates, marked as “archaeological stones”. Worth about $1.5 million, this massive shipment from Kenya represents at least 389 elephant deaths, but doesn’t even qualify as the largest the port has seen in recent months.
Two previous shipments recently discovered were actually substantially larger, with the biggest topping out at 4 tonnes of elephant tusks, worth about $3.4 million. That was just in November.
Hong Kong’s port is a popular through-way for the poaching trade because it serves as the hub for Asian markets, where the demand for ivory is at the world’s highest. The tusks are not only used to make jewelry, but trinkets and religious icons for the Chinese, Japanese and Thai markets.
The poaching industry has recently exceeded record levels with animals like Elephants, Tigers and Rhinos being slaughtered by the hundreds across continents. The kill-methods represent a level of cruelty that’s so barbaric it seems the stuff of fictional villains. Nonetheless, knowledge of the industry’s brutality does nothing to dampen sales.
Activists estimate about $10 billion a year is made from poaching’s international black market.
According to National Geographic, these recently uncovered shipments of elephant tusks just scratch the surface of the damage caused by poaching in the last 12 months.
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In 2012, 633 Rhinos were killed in South Africa (448 in 2011), their horns hacked off while they were still alive.
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“Hundreds of thousands” of African Grey Parrots were shipped off for sale. Less than 300 Sumatran Rhinos are left and only four Northern White Rhinos remain in captivity.
Every year, approximately 25,000 Elephants are killed for their tusks, accounting for their disappearance from the African and Asian plains.
The magazine reports that China’s recent stronghold in Africa is fueling a resurgence in the poaching industry. The country’s presence there, where it funds roads, dams, and municipal
buildings makes it a major player on the continent, giving it the power and access to easily extract the illegal goods and ship them home.
As activist Steve Boyes wrote in his National Geographic piece on the subject,
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“We are standing on the precipice of a mass extinction and Africa is just about to be lost forever.”
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In the meantime, the World Wildlife Fund, in partnership with Google, is trying launch the wide-scale implementation of drone technology, which will covertly monitor poachers’ activity
from hundreds of feet in the air. The secret system would alert ground crews of oncoming danger and send them in to areas where poachers are detected. Part of the initiative also
includes research into DNA tracing capabilities, allowing authorities to definitively trace poached animal parts.>>
<<Hong Kong officials intercepted 794 elephant tusks bound for mainland China from Malaysia.
The seizure comes in the wake of two other large shipments of African ivory being intercepted at the end of August by Malaysian officials.
Wildlife conservationalists have been struggling with the supply of ivory from illegal poachers in Africa paired with the demand in China. Ivory is often used for ornaments or for medicinal purposes, particularly in mainland China.
According to the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Malaysia is becoming a first choice as a transit country for the trade of African ivory to China.
Although being lauded for the August discovery of illegal ivory shipments, critics wonder why Malaysian officials were not able to stop this two metric tonne shipment.>>
<<KRUGER NATIONAL PARK, South Africa — They definitely did not look like ordinary big-game hunters, the stream of slender young Thai women who showed up on the veld wearing tight bluejeans and sneakers.
But the rhinoceros carcasses kept piling up around them, and it was only after dozens of these hulking, relatively rare animals were dead and their precious horns sawed off that an extravagant scheme came to light.
The Thai women, it ends up, were not hunters at all. Many never even squeezed off a shot. Instead, they were prostitutes hired by a criminal syndicate based 6,000 miles away in Laos to exploit loopholes in big-game hunting rules and get its hands on as many rhino horns as possible — horns that are now worth more than gold.
“These girls had no idea what they were doing,” said Paul O’Sullivan, a private investigator in Johannesburg who helped crack the case. “They thought they were going on safari.”
The rhino horn rush has gotten so out of control that it has exploded into a worldwide criminal enterprise, drawing in a surreal cast of characters — not just Thai prostitutes, but also Irish gangsters, Vietnamese diplomats, Chinese scientists, veterinarians, copter pilots, antiques dealers and recently an American rodeo star looking for a quick buck who used Facebook to find some horns.
Driven by a common belief in Asia that ground-up rhino horns can cure cancer and other ills, the trade has also been embraced by criminal syndicates that normally traffic drugs and guns, but have branched into the underground animal parts business because it is seen as “low risk, high profit,” American officials say.
“Get caught smuggling a kilo of cocaine, you will receive a very significant prison sentence,” said Ed Grace, a deputy chief with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. But with a kilogram of rhino horn, he added, “you may only get a fine.”
The typical rhino horn is about two feet long and 10 pounds, much of it formed from the same substance as fingernails. Yet it can fetch nearly $30,000 a pound, more than crack cocaine, and conservationists worry that this “ridiculous price,” as one wildlife manager put it, could drive rhinos into extinction.
Gangs are so desperate for new sources of horn that criminals have even smashed into dozens of glass museum cases all across Europe to snatch them from exhibits.
“Astonishment and rage, that’s what we felt,” said Paolo Agnelli, a manager at the Florence Museum of Natural History, after three rhino horns were stolen last year, including a very rare one from 1824.
American federal agents recently staged a cross-country undercover rhino horn sting operation, called Operation Crash, “crash” being the term for a herd of rhinos.
Among the 12 people arrested: Wade Steffen, a champion steer wrestler from Texas, who pleaded guilty in May to trafficking dozens of horns that he found through hunters, estate sales and Facebook; and two members of an Irish gang — the same gang suspected of breaking into the museums in Europe.
In an e-mail to an undercover agent, an Irish gangster bragged: “Believe me WE NEVER LOSES A HORN TO CUSTOMS, we have so many contacts and people payed off now we can bring anything we want out of nearly any country into Europe.”
Corruption is a huge element, just like in the illegal ivory trade, in which rebel groups, government armies and threadbare hunters have been wiping out tens of thousands of elephants throughout Africa, selling the tusks to sophisticated criminal networks that move them across the globe with the help of corrupt officials.
Here in South Africa, home to the majority of the world’s last surviving 28,000 rhinos or so, the country is throwing just about everything it has to stop the slaughter — thousands of rangers, the national army, a new spy plane, even drones — but it is losing.
The number of rhinos poached in South Africa has soared in the past five years, from 13 killed in 2007 to more than 630 in 2012. The prehistoric, battleship-gray animals are often found on their knees, bleeding to death from a gaping stump on their face.
“Ever seen a dead rhino?” asked Philip Jonker, who works for a private security firm that has gone into wildlife protection. “It’s worse than going to a funeral.”
The only answer, some contend, is to legalize the trade, which would flood the market with rhino horns, lower the price and dissuade rhino poachers from risking their lives — or so the argument goes. Rhino horns regenerate, and the horns can be shaved down every few years and sold off without significantly hurting the animal.
One of most passionate advocates of this legalization movement is John Hume, a South African entrepreneur who now owns more than 800 rhinos, with names like Curly, Titan, Hillary and Pinocchio, and has amassed a 2,000-pound mountain of horn worth millions of dollars — if he is ever allowed to sell it.
“Why shouldn’t the person who breeds rhino get a reward?” he asks.
Every time Mr. Hume’s ranch hands trim down a few rhinos, they organize an armed escort to take the horns straight to a safe-deposit box in a bank because the same gangs that waylay armored bank trucks are now cruising around South Africa looking for Rhino horns.
But many wildlife groups say legalizing the rhino trade would be a disaster.
“The consuming power in my country is growing so rapidly that the supply would never meet the needs,” said Jeff He, spokesman for the Chinese branch of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “And besides, it’ll always be cheaper to poach an animal than raise it.”
Kruger National Park, an enormous wildlife refuge in South Africa’s northeast, is where many rhinos are being poached. The park lies on the border with Mozambique, a much poorer country still scarred from years of civil war. Park rangers say Mozambican gunmen are pouring through Kruger’s chain link fences, downing rhinos left and right.
Some sophisticated poaching rings use helicopters to spot the animals and veterinarians to dart them with tranquilizers. Others don women’s shoes, to leave misleading tracks. “At any one time, there are up to 10 groups operating inside the Kruger,” said Ken Maggs, a South African National Parks official. “These guys are trying new methods daily.”
Scientists say that maybe a million rhinos once roamed the earth, and for some reason, humans have been fascinated with the horn for ages. The ancient Persians thought rhino horn vessels could detect poisons. The Chinese thought rhino horn powder could reduce fevers. The Yemenis prized the horn for coming-of-age daggers, presented to teenage boys as a sign of manhood.
In Asia, faith in traditional cures runs strong, fueling demand as Asian economies grow, though there is no scientific proof that rhino horn can cure cancer.
In 2008, a Vietnamese diplomat in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, was caught on camera receiving Rhino horn — in the parking lot of the embassy. Around the same time, a Chinese company opened a secretive rhino breeding center in Hainan Province, reportedly to produce rhino-based medicine.
In the past 50 years, the overall rhino population has plummeted by more than 90 percent, despite an international ban on the trade in rhino parts since 1977.
But in South Africa, it is legal to hunt Rhinos, creating the loophole that the Thai prostitutes sauntered through. Hunters must agree to keep the horn set (rhinos have a large front and smaller back horn) as a trophy and not sell it, and hunters are allowed to kill only one White Rhino every 12 months. (Black rhinos are critically endangered and very few are hunted in South Africa.)
According to South African law enforcement officials, gang leaders in Thailand and Laos decided that to maximize the number of Rhinos they could kill, they would enlist Thai prostitutes who were already in South Africa with valid passports, which were used for the hunting permits. The women then tagged along on the hunts, often dressed in catchy pinks and blues, but somebody else — usually a professional hunter — pulled the trigger.
“I don’t know whose idea it was to use the ladies, but it was a damn good one,” said Mr. O’Sullivan, the private investigator.
None of the two dozen or so prostitutes involved have been prosecuted — the intent was to get the big fish. So Mr. O’Sullivan leaked a photograph of an enormous stockpile of ivory and rhino horns to one of the women, along with a message for her boss, a bespectacled Thai man named Chumlong Lemtongthai, that everything was for sale: “I wanted the big man himself to come here and negotiate.”
Mr. Lemtongthai did exactly that, and he was arrested soon after. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in November to 40 years.
“I do not want to see a situation where my grandchildren will only be able to see rhino in a picture,” said the judge, Prince Manyathi.>>
Seized rhino horns are shown with alleged Vietnam smuggler Pham Quang Loc, 56, arrested at Suvarnabhumi airport when he arrived from Ethiopia on his way to Vietnam
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<<BANGKOK — Thai authorities have seized more than $500,000 worth of rhino horn from passenger’s luggage at a Bangkok airport.
Thai Customs officer Khanit Isdul said Sunday that officials acting on a tip-off found four rhino horns in the passenger’s luggage at Suvarnabhumi International Airport. (‘They were allegedly hidden inside a souvenir hippo carried by Mr Loc.)
Officials arrested Phan Quangloc, a 56-year-old Vietnamese passenger who arrived with the case from Ethiopia on Sunday. He is expected to face a jail term in Thailand if convicted of smuggling. Officials estimated the value of the confiscated horns, cut into 6 sections, at 18 million baht ($586,000).
Asia is the main market for smuggled rhino horn, as some people believe it can cure diseases.
Trade in rhino parts is banned under international agreements.>>
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Nov 2011: 366 Rhinos slaughtered for TCM since January
Lam Tak-fai, acting head of (Hong Kong) Ports and Maritime Command, arranges Rhino horns, part of a shipment of 33 horns, ivory chopsticks and bracelets seized by the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department, during a news conference in Hong Kong.
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<<It could just be a new method used by syndicates to smuggle Rhino horn out of the country: bulk consignments, hidden in containers and sent by sea. But Rhino syndicates are not just using new smuggling routes, poachers also appear to be changing their tactics to target more animals.
On Monday, customs officials in Hong Kong discovered 33 Rhino horns that had been hidden in a container on a ship that had left Cape Town. They also seized 758 ivory chopsticks and 127 ivory bracelets, which they estimated was worth HK$ 17.4 million (R18.17m).
Customs officers had apparently selected the container “acting on risk assessment”. It was marked as carrying 63 packages of scrap plastic. Using X-ray equipment, they found the contraband hidden inside a package of plastic scrap that had been placed at the rear of the container. The 33 horns, which weighed 86kg, constitute nearly a tenth of the Rhinos poached in SA this year.
Dr Richard Thomas, the communications co-ordinator for Traffic International, said such a large seizure of Rhino horns was unusual. “Usually there are reports of one or two horns being smuggled out through the airports, I can’t think of such a shipment before,” he said.
Thomas said the Cape Town to Hong Kong sea route was usually used by perlemoen smugglers, and that Rhino horn syndicates might be using the same network.
What he suspected was that from Hong Kong the horn might be smuggled overland through China on to Vietnam, with its large market for rhino horn. There is also an active ivory-smuggling route between the two Far East countries. Two weeks ago, Vietnamese authorities seized a ton of ivory that had come from China.
South African Revenue Service spokesman Adrian Lackay said they had received news of the confiscation and had been in touch with the Hong Kong authorities.
“We will assist the foreign agencies with a local investigation if needed, because the goods came from South Africa,” he said.
Since January, 366 Rhinos have been killed across the country. Of those, the majority of the killings have been in the Kruger National Park, where 209 Rhinos were slain.
To date, 199 poachers have been arrested since January – compared to 165 arrested for last year. Thai nationals Chumlong Lemtongthai and Punpitak Chunchom are currently in court for exporting Rhino horn.
Lemtongthai, the syndicate’s alleged kingpin, used Thai prostitutes and strippers as bogus Rhino hunters. He would allegedly obtain legal trophy permits to shoot the Rhinos.
SANParks CEO Dr David Mabunda said that despite the higher number of Rhino killings this year, the number of incidents was declining. The reason was a change in modus operandi by the poachers. They were still using AK-47s and other heavy-calibre weapons and hacking off the horns. But poachers were attacking in larger groups than before, sometimes up to 16 armed members. Mabunda said the source of the Rhino horn in the container came from several parks: private and state owned. The bust showed the urgency for the DNA profiling of the Rhino, currently being done by the University of Pretoria.
It would tell where the Rhino had been killed, and once a horn could be linked to a carcass, a poacher could be charged with killing an endangered species. Killing an endangered species carries a heavier sentence than possession of Rhino horn.
Mabunda said they continued to work with the police and the SA National Defence Force, and at any time, there were between eight and 10 anti-poaching groups operating in the Kruger National Park.
The strengthening of the park’s law enforcement meant that crime was being displaced to other parts of the country. The hardest hit areas were Limpopo, Mpumalanga and rural areas of KwaZulu-Natal.>>
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Jan 2013: 633 Rhinos slaughtered in 2012, just in South Africa
<<FORMER home affairs director-general Mavuso Msimang, who has been set the task of researching ways of saving the rhino from poaching, is expected to report in the first quarter of this year. His report will also advise on whether South Africa should apply to trade in rhino horn under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES).
The trade issue has polarised many South Africans who have the rhino’s best interests at heart. Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa will have the unenviable task of deciding whether South Africa should apply to trade in rhino horn.
Although South Africa will not be making any proposal on trade until 2016’s Cites meeting, there will be discussion on Kenya’s recent proposal to the international body that a trophy-hunting moratorium be placed on South African white rhinos, says Southern African Development Community rhino management group chairman Mike Knight.
The proposal will be considered at the Cites Conference of Parties in Bangkok in March. If approved, the moratorium will be instituted until 2019, says Lion Aid founder Pieter Kat.
Mr Kat says Kenya argues that despite progress made by South Africa in instituting more demanding control measures, rhino poaching continues to rise.
Controls include the development of an electronic database for licence applications, mandatory registration of existing rhino horn stockpiles, bilateral treaties to improve law enforcement, increasing penalties and improving the gathering of intelligence.
“Kenya is of the opinion that such poaching has resonated across borders and that the recent upsurge in rhinos poached in Kenya is directly linked to a problem made in South Africa,” Mr Kat says.
Mr Knight says that integral to the Kenyan proposal is that countries such as South Africa and Zimbabwe, and countries where rhino horn is sought after such as China and Vietnam, should respond to its proposal.
It is agreed that South Africa is not winning the war on rhino poaching. The country lost a record 633 rhinos between January 1 and December 19 last year. The previous record, for 2011, was 448. Already two rhinos have been slain in the first week of 2013.
Arrests have increased and sentences for the convicted are harsher. South Africa also signed a long-awaited memorandum of understanding with Vietnam in mid-December. The agreement aims to curb rhino poaching.
South Africa is home to more than 80% of the global population, and scientists have warned that if poaching increases at the same rate as it did between 2009 and 2011, when the tally jumped from 122 to 448, just more than a threefold increase, the species will be extinct by mid-century. It could go into decline by 2016.
Conservationists see Vietnam as key to curbing the poaching that feeds the illegal horn trade. The country, a known destination for much of the illegal rhino horn poached in South Africa, posted the highest wildlife crime score in the World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature’s 2012 Wildlife Crime Scorecard report.
Rhino horn, prized in Vietnam as a “pick-me-up”, cancer cure and even an aphrodisiac, fetches about $60,000/kg in the Southeast Asian country.
The agreement that Ms Molewa and Vietnamese Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Cao Duc Phat signed last month refers only in general terms to addressing illegal wildlife smuggling.
However, there were “clear indications” that rhino horn trafficking would be “top of the new agenda on co-operation between the two nations”, WWF-SA said immediately after the memorandum was signed.
Mr Knight says it is likely South Africa will turn more to technology to help it fight rhino poachers, with the possible use of “unmanned aerial vehicles”, or “drones”.>>
WWF urges South Africans to be proud of their Rhino heritage on World Rhino Day (22 September).
More than 75% of all the world’s Rhino today are found in South Africa.
Rhinos have ranged far and wide across Africa and formed a magnificent part of our cultural and natural heritage for thousands of years. Long before becoming part of the iconic Big Five, rhinos were revered by African royalty as epitomised by the Golden Rhino buried with the King of Mapungubwe 800 years ago. South Africans are rightly proud of their rhino history and the critical role they played in the remarkable recovery of white rhino numbers over the last century. Today three out of every four rhinos alive are found in this one country.
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Yet, rhino deaths from poaching continue to rise. As of 16 October 2012, 455 rhinos have been illegally killed for their horns this year.
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Rhino numbers continue to grow as more are born than are dying – even when poaching mortalities are taken into account. However, we are coming ever closer to the danger zone where populations start to decline. WWF urges all South Africans to play a part in rhino protection at this pivotal point in their future. Report threats to rhinos or any signs of suspicious behaviour on the Department of Environmental Affairs Rhino Hotline.
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What does WWF do to help rhinos?
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On Rhino Day 2012, WWF-SA launched its new National programme to strengthen and support rhino conservation efforts in South Africa in response to the dramatic increase in cases of rhino poaching. Conservation activities will be based around a new five-point strategic framework to combat the threats to rhinos.
The five key areas are:
Continuing the protection of key rhino populations and creating new resilient populations in South Africa through our Black Rhino Range Expansion Project (BRREP)
Developing buffers in local communities around rhinos as the first critical line of defence
Supporting and tightening proactive law enforcement efforts to break illegal trade chains
Improving co-operation between South Africa and consumer countries
Understanding rhino horn trade in end-user markets and influencing demand
We are working with our colleagues in Vietnam to develop tactics to shift new markets and new uses leading to increased demand for rhino horn.
During the first week of October, BRREP translocated a further thirteen black rhino from Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife reserves to another property in northern KwaZulu-Natal.>>
Black Rhino
(Photo byJeff McNeely)
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“10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.”
<<Illegal and/or unsustainable wildlife trade can cause a species to reach a point where its survival hangs in the balance. In fact, illegal wildlife trade is one of the main reasons that many species are endangered.
For example, Rhino poaching to fuel to demand for the illegal Rhino horn trade reached an all-time high in 2011, with 448 Rhinos poached in South Africa alone. This could unravel years of conservation success with African Rhinos.>>
InkyA pure Fraser Island Dingo
persecuted by a colonial-mindset Queensland Government
..left ear ‘tagged’ by rangers and permanently damaged
..since shot by same rangers.
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Wildlife-based Tourism Exploitation
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<<Wildlife-based tourism is a major tourism activity and is increasing in popularity. For many international tourists visiting Australia, viewing Australian wildlife forms a major part of their visit (Fredline & Faulkner 2001). For domestic tourists, viewing wildlife and sometimes interacting with it is also an important activity, and it caters for specialists and generalists alike.>>
But it is this ‘Wildlife-based Tourism‘ industry sector where Australian tourism has taken on a dark side. The industry and the revenue and profits it generates are being used by Australian state governments to justify greater destruction of Australia’s fragile ecosystems. This innocuous euphemism is exploited by the Queensland Tourism industry to belie the true destructive ecological impacts of ‘Nature Tourism‘ or ‘Ecotourism‘.
This is like painting a bulldozer green and all subsequent use labelled as ‘eco-bulldozing‘.
Badge d’Exploitation.
.At least 50% of a tourism operator’s offerings must have a Nature-based focus
and some vague notion of ‘sustainability’ principles.
Pay our fee…et voilà!’ – eco-certification!
[Read More: EcoTourism Australia (a private company), ^http://www.ecotourism.org.au/]
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But the most disturbing trend is that even the state government custodians entrusted with ecological protection and conservation, the variously named National Parks and Wildlife Service agencies, have placed the aims of recreation and tourism at a higher management priority than their core function of ecological protection and conservation.
Perhaps this exploitative trend is no more prevalent than across Queensland’s Natural ecology, which is ‘managed’ by the Queensland Government’s Department of National Parks, Recreation and Racing. About Us: <<The department manages national parks and their use and enjoyment by all Queenslanders; encourages active lifestyles by providing recreational and sporting opportunities; and manages the racing industry which directly employs 30,000 Queenslanders.>>
<<Queensland’s parks and forests underpin the State’s thriving nature tourism industry. They attract millions of overseas and Aussie visitors each year and contribute billions of dollars to the Queensland economy. Tourists visiting Queensland’s national parks spend $4.43 billion annually—28% of all total tourist spending in Queensland.>>
[Source: ‘Commercial tourism on parks’, Department of National Parks, Recreation and Racing, Queensland Government, ^http://www.nprsr.qld.gov.au/tourism/]
.Queensland Government’s Coat of Arms
Left: a Red Deer entirely irrelevant to Queenslanders. Right: Queensland’s native Brolga (water bird) symbolising Queensland’s native wildlife population.
The Queensland state motto in Latin, “Audax at Fidelis”, means “Bold but Faithful” – faithful to whom?
Entirely, this emblem is one of the most meaningless and hypocritical of any government.
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Situated along Queensland’s central coast, World Heritage Fraser Island is a case in point. Here, tourism visitation has become unsustainable to the point of driving the island’s ecological destruction. The Queensland Government’s tourism marketing brands the area the Fraser Coast to take in whale watching in Hervey Bay, Reef diving and Fraser Island. The exploitation of Wildlife-based Tourism is focused on maximising visitation numbers, as if bureaucratic commissions are earned according to visitation numbers.
Fraser Island’s native top order predator, the Dingo, has been on Fraser Island for at least 1000 years. But the Dingo and its fragile ecology are being persecuted and destroyed by the Queensland Government because the prevailing 20th Century exploitative attitude is that Bevan Tourism generates income; Dingoes don’t. The wildlife tourism promotion of Fraser Island by the Queensland Government has exploited ‘the thrill of seeing a dingo ‘in the wild’ and used the Dingo as a major tourism drawcard.
Dingo Tourism on Fraser Island is actively encouraged by the Queensland Government
Fraser Island Discovery, with its dingo logo shown above, won a recent Queensland Government Tourism Award
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Bevan Tourism
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Bevan Tourism is the exploitative, destructive and disrespectful tourism that appeals to the uncouth, loud mouthed, red neck, yobbo, hoon element of Queensland society.
Particular to parochial Queensland, the ‘Bevan‘ is characteristically a young poorly educated Caucasian male usually very thin, or sometimes quite fat with the onset of manboobs, and displaying the clichéd antisocial behaviours such as hooliganism, swearing, reckless driving, alcoholism, Winnie blue smoking (with spare fag ducked behind ear), XXXX/Bundy Rum drinking, and habitually louting around in front of sheilas.
Bevans at Play
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Bevans are best avoided, especially at social gatherings, sports events, beaches and at campsites. (See also: ‘Bogan’ (Melbourne), ‘Westie’ (Sydney), ‘Ned’ (Glasgow), ‘Yob’, ‘Bozo’, ‘Low-Life’).
A Queenslander Bevan, royally succumbed to recreational stupor
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Bevan Tourism has taken cultural hold over a few popular holiday destinations along the Queensland coast. Over the past few generations, Bevans mainly from metropolitan Brisbane have particularly targeted the Gold Coast, Maryborough and Fraser Island.
Queensland’s Bevan Tourism most exquisitely expressed here by Fraser Explorer Tours – on Fraser Island
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Fraser Island, despite being recognised and listed as a Natural World heritage site since 1992, each holiday season is invaded by Bevan Tourism, targeted especially over Easter. In part this is because, Queensland Government’s own state tourism department, in cahoots with its national park agency, has marketed Fraser Island for ‘adventure’, ‘parties’, and ‘families’. Fraser Island’s international listing has been exploited as a tourism drawcard, more so than properly conserved for its internationally important remnant ecosystems, wildlife and flora.
The disturbing trend is that the in mindset of parochial Queensland Tourism, Bevan Tourism is marketed as an equitable right for all people, and that Nature exists in an anthropocentric sense simply to serve that right. This attitude to ecology is retrograde and straight out of the ancient Old Testament:
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<<And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.>>
[Source: Book of Genesis, 1:26, Christian Bible, Old Testament]
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The ‘Dominion Theology’ worldview of Nature
It’s there to be used, feared, exploited, persecuted, poached, butchered, eaten, enslaved, raped, shot, hacked, played with as sport, made extinct.
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Fraser Island heritage avoids Conservation
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Pure Fraser Island
[Source: Australian Geographic,
^http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/view-image.htm?index=8&gid=9642]
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Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island, was afforded UNESCO World Heritage status because it satisfied the following three selection criteria:
Superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance (Natural Criterion 7)
Outstanding examples which represent major stages of earth’s history, including the record of life, significant ongoing geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features (Natural Criterion 8 )
Outstanding examples representing significant ongoing ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals (Natural Criterion 9)
Despite these recognise over-arching natural values, tourism and its negative impacts have been allowed to snowball in visitation volume since heritage listing in 1992, while custodial management has allowed the same values to deteriorate.
What has been conspicuously overlooked is proper recognition of Fraser Island’s status under UNESCONatural Criterion 10, for surely Fraser Island ‘contains the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.’
The custodianship of such valuable World Heritage properties across Australia is the ultimate responsibility of the Australian Government.
While Australia’s World Heritage properties are legally protected under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), conveniently responsibility for that protection is rather half-hearted since the Australian Government delegates management of all of them to the lesser state governments, which have considerably less resources and demonstrably less interest in delivering UNESCO-standard ecological conservation management.
The Queensland Government for instance, currently lumps Fraser Island management under its Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing. Clearly, the attitude of the Queensland Government to World Heritage and National Parks under its custodial responsibility exists for human recreational benefit and enjoyment – along with sport and racing.
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Fraser Island’s Record of Exploitation
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Prior to 1992, Fraser Island was industrially abused; mined for minerals and sand (1966-1989) and logged for old growth Turpentine timber (Syncarpia glomulifera) for over 130 years.
[Read: >‘Impacts of Logging on Fraser Island’]
Fraser Island’s ecosystems (its rainforests, Wallum woodlands, freshwater dune lakes and coastal dunes) came close to irreversible annihilation by over-exploitation by these two industries and condoned for such by successive Queensland governments.
Since logging and mining were stopped (only from international embarrassment), Queensland’s Tourism Industry has been supplanted as Fraser Island’s main threat, yet consistently encouraged and funded doggedly by a 20th Century mindset Queensland Government.
Wild Dingo Australia’s native top order predator
promoted by the Queensland Government as a tourism drawcard to Fraser Island
culled by the Queensland Government from 300 down to just 100 individuals
shot by the Queensland Government if ‘aggressive’ (wild)
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<<Fraser Island tourism has been burgeoning for decades. In 1971 the number of visitors to Fraser Island doubled from 5,000 in the previous year to 10,000 as a result of the publicity surrounding the sandmining controversy. It has steadily increased ever since. By 1999 it had reached over 300,000 visitors.>>
Current statistics for Fraser Island visitation are not readily published by the Queensland Government, but it is estimated that around 500,000 visitors, many from overseas, visit Fraser Island each year. [Source: ‘Concerns heightening for Fraser Island’s dingoes’, 2009, by Nick Alexander, in Ecos Magazine, ^http://www.ecosmagazine.com/view/journals/ECOS_Print_Fulltext.cfm?f=EC151p18]
Hummers catering for Bevan Tourism– on Fraser Island
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<<For Lake McKenzie (Fraser Island) in particular, extremely high visitation levels over the course ofsummer are ultimately likely to influence the ecology of the system, particularly if a considerable proportion ofvisitors add nutrients to the lake, either through urination, washing or bathing activities (Strasinger 1994, Butleret al. 1996).>>
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[Source: ‘Effects of Tourism on Fraser Island Dune Lakes‘, 2004, by Wade Hadwen et al. Read the complete paper below under the heading ‘Read more about Tourism Impacts on Fraser Island‘]
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The Four Main Adverse Impacts of Tourism on Fraser Island
Certain Fraser Island areas are identified and marketed by tourist interests with the result that they draw tourists to them like bees to a honey pot even to the extent that they become needlessly degraded and overused. Eli Creek, Lake McKenzie and Central Station are such sites.
Daily hundreds of tourists from the Noosa area spend needless hours to drive past equally outstanding natural features in the Cooloola National Park so that commercial tour operators can capitalize on the “marketing of these well-known products”. This focus is unsustainable.
Such sites are being overused and yet tourists are reluctant to be redirected to other alternative areas which could sustain some increase in visitation.
Tourist saturation of Eli Creek, Fraser Island(Dingo habitat designated off-limits to Dingoes)
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2. Means of Access
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Once tourism becomes established, it is difficult to change.
Tourist guide books tend to be based upon past experience. Recommendations to intending visitors are largely based on such past practice. Thus although there are better ways to see Fraser Island than in largely lumbering four wheel drive buses or self of four wheel drive vehicles, this method of visitation has become so entrenched that it is difficult to change.
The most serious adverse environmental impacts now being experienced on Fraser Island are result of this form of transportation.
Ban 4WDs from Fraser IslandChange the 20th Century culture!
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3. “Traditional” Visitation Practices
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It takes very little time for modern society to claim that certain practices are so “traditional” that practitioners claim they can’t be changed.
This has been used by commercial fishers to demand to camp in the same site contrary to the Recreation Areas Management Act and to have vehicular access to beaches closed to other vehicular traffic.
Likewise the “tradition” of free range camping has become so entrenched that although this practice has been shown to be unsustainable there is a reluctance to phase it out despite compelling evidence that this form of tourism should be ended. Similar conservatism allows Fraser Island tourists to continue to squander resources and degrade the environment through open camp-fires.
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4. Surface Disturbance
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On Fraser Island, the impact of surface disturbance of any sort is more critical than most other natural areas which have a much more robust substrate (ground surface).
The susceptibility of the substrate to any disturbance magnifies the impacts of tourism on Fraser Island more than most other natural areas. (Coral reefs and semi-arid areas with cryptobionic crusts may be as susceptible to disturbance). The reason for this fragility is due to the fact that exposed sand surfaces in vegetated areas of Fraser Island have a very high degree of water repellence which makes them very susceptible to water erosion. Vegetated sand surfaces are much less susceptible.
If the visitors can be carried in such a way that they do not disturb the substrate surface by such means as board walks or by light rail, then the surface disturbance and thus the environmental impact of visitation is contained and reduced.>>
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Further Tourism Impacts
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5. Erosion of Wilderness Values
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Tourism erodes wilderness values through its infrastructure — motor vehicles, roads, modern buildings and the sounds of modern engines. The increasing penetration of more people into parts of the island previously exempt from intense visitation erodes wilderness. Aircraft overflying remoter parts of Fraser Island and other intrusive modern noise also erodes wilderness values.
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6. Spread of Injurious Agents
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Injurious agencies which impact on other values of Fraser Island include the spread of weeds, feral animals and pests, new pathogens, wild fires and litter. Tourism has the potential to facilitate the introduction and spread of these injurious agencies. In the end the impact of injurious agencies resulting from tourism have a greater potential to degrade Fraser Island than some other industries.
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7. Diversion of Management Resources
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Managing tourism is responsible for diverting much of Fraser Island’s very limited resources from natural resource management (control of fires, weeds, feral animals etc. and resource monitoring) to recreation management (including access, waste management, behaviour control, provision of infrastructure, maintenance for roads, etc.). Tourism produces a great deal of waste and human waste and this is resulting in some water pollution particularly as a result of inadequate treatment of sewage.
Increasing numbers of tourists also impede natural resource management strategies such as fire and dingo management because of the high priority given to public safety and property protection over resource management and protection.
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8. Perversion of political priorities
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Pandering to perceived tourist demands has resulted in political decisions which have over-ridden the Management Plan for Fraser Island such as relocating the Toyota Fishing Expo and reopening the dangerous Orchid Beach airstrip. Many politicians are motivated more by pursuing popularity than with implementing a Management Plan which some vocal dissidents with vested interests disagree with.
A Queensland Tourism ideal imagefor Fraser Island Maximising 4WD tourist numbers!
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Motor Vehicle Impacts
4WD road widening of Fraser Island
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The impact of four wheel drives on Fraser Island is extremely significant; affecting roads, wildlife, habitat and recreation amenity.
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9. Roads
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The largest impact is on the roads. Road traffic accelerates erosion. During every heavy downpour of rain thousands of tonnes of sand wash off the roads to fill lake basins and streams with sediment and smother many natural habitats. In February 1999, over two metres of sand was deposited at the intersection of the Pile Valley and Wanggoolba Creek Road burying a large stump. Sand from adjacent roads is being sluiced into Lake McKenzie, Lake Allom, Lake Boomanjin, Lake Birrabeen and more.
Opening of the canopy over the roads results in desiccation resulting in considerable changes to the micro-flora and a reduction of ^epiphyte numbers.
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10. Impacts on Wildlife
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Back in 1991, when Fraser Island was listed for its natural world heritage values, its Dingo population was about 300 individuals and believed to be ‘the largest genetically
unhybridised population on the east coast of Australia.
But Bevan Tourism saw increasing numbers of young families recklessly venturing into the wild Dingo’s habitat and feeding grounds. During one of the busy tourist holiday times, Christmas summer holidays, a young child was mauled by a dingo, and an ignorant vengeful media campaigned to demonise the Dingo. The media venom fabricated the term ‘Dingo Superpack‘.
During the following six years, the Queensland Government ordered the killing of over a hundred Dingoes on Fraser Island. In 2001, a nine-year-old schoolboy, Clinton Gage, was fatally mauled by a Dingo, which sparked another media Dingo witch-hunt, and a further 32 Dingoes were killed within a matter of a few weeks by the Queensland Government.
An infant (4 years old) was badly bitten by a Dingo on Fraser Island in April 2007 and another 3 year in April 2011. Both incidents occurred during the popular Bevan Tourism Easter holidays. Both involved irresponsible parents. In July 2012, a drunken German tourist, sleeping it off alone on an isolated bush track at night, was attacked by a Dingo. He was part of Bevan Tourist group organised by the Rainbow Beach Adventure Company.
Despite the protection status of the Dingo in its native habitat in a listed World Heritage Area, the Queensland Government has ignored the wildlife values and rights in favour of perpetuating Bevan Tourism rights. It has become standard management practice for the Queensland Government’s Parks and Wildlife Service to shoot kill any ‘aggressive’ animal or animal that ‘shows no fear of humans’ – that is, Dingoes.
Dingo pup tagged by rangers on Fraser Island, November 2012
Another ear permanently damaged
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Since 2009, researcher Dr Luke Leung from Queensland University, has feared the population has been reduced to around 100 animals and their genetic viability over the long term is being compromised.
In addition, shore bird numbers have been decimated by the unchecked growth of four wheel drive beach traffic. Oyster catchers, Red-capped dotterels and Beach thick-knees have been most affected.
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11. Eroding Habitat
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Roads occupy space, a space which takes a long time to revegetate after the roads cease to be used. Roads also act as barriers to the movement of wildlife. Distribution of many ant species and frogs is affected by roads. Some won’t cross roads to identical habitat on the other side.
As a consequence of habitat destruction, the availability of natural prey of the Dingo, such as bandicoots, rats, echidnas, fish, turtles and skinks, has declined. Dingoes have been forced to scavenge around tourist campsites for human food and garbage. Tourists ignorantly feeding Dingoes has encouraged Dingoes to become less independent upon reduced natural prey and more dependent on tourists, which has adversely altered the natural food chain only the island.
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12. Pollution
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Now there evidence is starting to appear that vegetation adjacent to “black holes” in the roads is suffering.
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13. Noise
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The aesthetic impact of noise is well known and understood yet it is largely ignored. The impact of the noise from traffic on the road above Wanggoolba Creek on the walking track beside this icon of Fraser Island significantly degrades this experience.
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14. Distortion of Priorities
Populist politicians condone novel commerce ahead of novel solutions
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Because so much of Fraser Island tourism is vehicle based, roads have been cannibalistic, consuming a disproportionate share all the financial and staff resources.
This stopped any progress towards a walking track management plan for the island for more than six years. Vehicle based tourism has also been responsible for preventing closing tracks due to be closed under the Management Plan for more than 6 years. Preoccupation with roads has stalled progress towards the establishment of a more ecologically sustainable light rail proposal.>>
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[Sources: ‘Values of Fraser Island Tourism’, Fraser Island Defenders Organisation (FIDO), ^http://www.fido.org.au/values-of-fraser-tourism.html; ‘Concerns heightening for Fraser Island’s dingoes’, 2009, by Nick Alexander, in Ecos Magazine, CSIRO Publishing, Australia. ^http://www.ecosmagazine.com/view/journals/ECOS_Print_Fulltext.cfm?f=EC151p18]
<<In light of the rapidly growing tourism industry in the region, excessive tourist use of the dune lakes on Fraser Island could deleteriously affect their ecology and in turn, their aesthetic appeal to tourists. The findings from this research study suggest that the current level of tourist pressure on the perched dune lakes on Fraser Island is likely to have a significant long-term impact on the ecological health of these systems.>> [>Read Report 830kb, PDF]
This ‘Godzilla’ bus especially caters for Bevans to Fraser Island
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Day-to-day management and protection of the World Heritage property is carried out by the Queensland Government’s Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing’s – Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS). Much of their focus and activities is with accommodating the interests of tourists, not with respecting the viability, health of the Island’s important ecosystems, fauna and flora.
The Queensland Government has a revolving record of failed conservation management plans and strategies, reviewed and replaced since the Fraser Island Management Plan of 1975. This includes revisions in 1978, 1986, 1991, 2001, and 2006. The current strategy dated 2001 is termed the Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy (FIDMS).
The overall objectives of the Dingo Management Strategy are to:
Ensure the conservation of a sustainable wild dingo population on Fraser Island (Ed: numbers not specified, Dingo recovery programme non-existent)
Reduce the risk to humans (Ed: kill native Dingoes if deemed ‘aggressive’ or ‘showing no fear of humans’)
Provide visitors with safe opportunities to view dingoes in environment in near as possible to their natural state (Ed: exploit native Dingoes and their habitat for the benefit of wildlife-based tourism revenue)
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The current Dingo Management Strategy includes a deliberate Dingo persecution set of directives:
Strategy 4: Programs will be implemented to modify dingo behaviour and habits which threaten human safety and wellbeing.
Strategy 5: Any dingo identified as dangerous will be destroyed humanely using accepted methods after receiving appropriate approvals.
Strategy 6: A cull to a sustainable level may be undertaken if research can show the population is not in balance.
A pure Dingo’s cruel fate
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“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.”
~ Chief Crowfoot (c.1821-1890) of the SikSika Nation of southern Alberta, Canada.
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Implementation of the current Dingo Management Strategy prescribes “direct management of dingoes (destruction of individuals or prescribed culling)…implemented if supported
by the results of research and/or in situations where risks to human life or safety are unacceptably high and cannot be diminished through alternative measures.
Responsibilities of the dingo management Rangers include:
Public contact to inform Island visitors of appropriate behaviour concerning dingoes
Enforcement of dingo-related regulations
Monitoring and recording the status of dingo packs in their management unit (photographic records)
When authorised, the trapping and destruction of problem dingoes
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Andrew Powell MP, purely for the Media Queensland Government’s current Minister for Environment and Heritage Protection
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“People…especially people in positions of power…have invested a tremendous amount of effort and time to get to where they are. They really don’t want to hear that we’re on the wrong path, that we’ve got to shift gears and start thinking differently.”
~ David Suzuki
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‘Island Playground’ dictates Dingo Culling
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2009: ‘Residents protest Fraser Island dingo cull’
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<<Hervey Bay residents met last night and called for an end to the hazing and culling of dingos on Fraser Island. Submissions to the review of the State Government’s dingo management strategy closes next week. Seven dingos have been killed this year compared to three last year. The Opposition’s climate change and sustainability spokesman Glen Elmes says the Government needs to listen to the community.
“We have a situation where the current system and the planning that’s put place to deal with dingos on Fraser Island is all wrong – that’s not me swanning in for half an hour and making that statement. We had a meeting in Hervey Bay last night and we listened to about 30 locals, who represented not only the indigenous community but concerned locals from both the mainland and the island.”>>
<<Rangers on Fraser Island have destroyed another dingo at Cathedral Beach, but the K’Gari camp dog ‘Inky‘ still eludes them.
QPWS has decided to bring in a hired gun, a trapper, to destroy this animal. Is this the future of Fraser Island? Residents and visitors are encouraged to throw sticks, shout and kick sand at the animals and to ‘dob in a dingo‘. Some residents have even been advised to shoot them with a slingshot. There is no responsibility placed upon parents who leave children unsupervised or visitors who harass the animals, no fines or penalties, but the dingo pays the ultimate penalty and is destroyed.
The Regional Manager, Ross Belcher, admits the camp dog did not bite anyone, nor did the animal that was recently destroyed, but it has a destruction order because of a complaint by tourists who are considered unreliable and have no understanding of dingo behaviour.
This dingo has been wounded, has a mangled ear due to an infected ear tag and as a result is very wary. Therefore it would seem QPWS has achieved its aim of making the animal fearful of people, why then do they continue their campaign of search and destroy?
Locals lament a time when the dingoes could roam free and occasionally steal a fish or grab a towel from an unsuspecting tourist, it was all part of the Fraser Island experience, but now that animal would be considered dangerous and destroyed.
Unless the Management Strategy review finds in favour of the dingo and not the tourist dollar, the persecution and harassment will continue until there are no longer any animals remaining, this is the legacy of Fraser Island.>>
[Source: ‘Dingo eludes Fraser Island rangers..’, October 2012, by Cheryl Bryant, Save Fraser Island Dingoes Inc., ]
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Queensland Government Rangers ‘hazing‘ a Dingo pup in its native Fraser Island habitat
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‘Hazing’?
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<<Hazing is harassment, where you disturb the animal’s sense of security to such an extent that it decides to move on.
To be effective, harassment must be continuous, concentrated, and caustic, just like torture.
Always remember that you are trying to convince an animal to leave its home or food source. In short, you must become the animal’s worst neighbor. You must convince the animal that you are more bothersome than the possibility of starvation or homelessness.
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I. Continuous Harassment
You must harass the animal on a daily basis for as long as necessary. Don’t be surprised if this activity goes on for weeks.
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II. Concentrated Harassment
Your efforts must focus on the animal causing the problem. For example if you are using noise it must be centered at where the animal is living. Failure to concentrate the harassment technique simply makes the animal get used to the problem because the problem will be everywhere. It’s like living in N.Y. City. You get used to the traffic noise.
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III. Caustic Harassment
The harassment technique must be bothersome to the animal. The greater the discomfort to the animal the faster the technique will develop results. Warning: when you harass an animal there are no guarantees where it will decide to take up residence next. It is not out of the question that a raccoon, upon leaving your chimney will decide to enter your attic.>>
[3] ‘Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy‘, November 2001, Environmental Protection Agency – Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS), Queensland Government, ^http://www.nprsr.qld.gov.au/register/p00500aa.pdf [>Read Strategy]
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[4] ‘Review of The Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy – Terms of Reference‘, Department of Environment and Heritage Protection,
[8] Wildlife Protection Association of Australia Inc. (WPAA), PO Box 309, Beerwah, Queensland Australia, 4519, President: Pat O’Brien, ^http://www.wildlifeprotectaust.org.au/
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[9] Coalition for Wildlife Corridors, Kindness House, 2nd Floor, 288 Brunswick St, Fitzroy 3065, Victoria, Australia, (no website found)
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[10] ‘ If they could talk to the animals…‘, book by Jonathan Knight, in Nature, Vol.414, pp.246-247, (no website found)
<<Many present-day Australians see the dingo as a threat and a pest to human production systems. An alternative viewpoint, which is more in tune with Indigenous culture, allows others to see the dingo as a means to improve human civilisation. The dingo has thus become trapped between the status of pest animal and totemic creature. This book helps readers to recognise this dichotomy, as a deeper understanding of dingo behaviour is now possible through new technologies which have made it easier to monitor their daily lives.
Recent research on genetic structure has indicated that dingo ‘purity’ may be a human construct and the genetic relatedness of wild dingo packs has been analysed for the first time. GPS telemetry and passive camera traps are new technologies that provide unique ways to monitor movements of dingoes, and analyses of their diet indicate that dietary shifts occur during the different biological seasons of dingoes, showing that they have a functional role in Australian landscapes.
Dingo brings together more than 50 years of observations to provide a comprehensive portrayal of the life of a dingo. Throughout this book dingoes are compared with other hypercarnivores, such as wolves and African wild dogs, highlighting the similarities between dingoes and other large canid species around the world.>>
An Ecologically Respectful Custodial Strategy for Fraser Island (by FIDO).
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<<For more than 28 years, the Fraser Island Defenders Organization has been researching the management of Fraser Island to be in the best position to advocate the wisest use of its natural resources. The organization has a longer history associated with the management than any other organization, including the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and its predecessors.
The Fraser Island Defenders Organization has studied and considered the Draft Fraser Island dingo management strategy prepared by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and this submission is a response to that document released in April, 1999.
This organization has examined Draft Dingo Management Strategy and recommends some very important issues which need to be recognized and also some significant changes which need to be made to the actions.
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1. FIDO wants the genetic status of Fraser Island dingoes recognized and protected.
2. Dingoes should be allowed to remain free to roam in the wild on Fraser Island.
3. The strategy should address all of the issues relating to the dingo population, including the characteristics, and the changes during the past century.
4. There is a need to review the population dynamics of Fraser Island dingoes to ensure that the island environment is managed to achieve an optimum dingo population. This needs to recognize that historically there was a much higher population on Fraser Island.
5. Dingoes should not suffer because of the intervention of humans which have induced changed behaviour.
6. A humane system of tagging should be established and all Fraser Island dingoes should be individually identified to provide more precise data on the actual population numbers and to assist in further research on animal behaviour.
7. The strategy should recognize how environmental changes during the last century on Fraser Island have impacted on dingoes and move to minimize these impacts.
8. The QPWS should develop a code of conduct which not only outlaws feeding of dingoes but also one which stops people encouraging dingoes to approach closer than 10 metres to be photographed thus encouraging them to loose their wariness of humans.
9. FIDO generally supports the first four recommendations of the Draft Dingo Management Strategy but is opposed to the recommendations for relocation, destruction, and culling.
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1. Significant Omissions
There are a number of significant omission in the Draft Fraser Island dingo management strategy. The most important omission seems to be a clear objective for the strategy. Other omissions relate to the history of the dingo on Fraser Island, the significance and genetic purity of the dingoes on Fraser Island, the status of dingoes and the impact of environmental changes during the last 100 years.
1.1 The need for a clear objective: The Strategy should clearly state its objective. Without such an objective being clearly and publicly stated implementations of the final three recommendations could result in the extermination of the dingoes on Fraser Island. Is it to protect people from harassment by dingoes or is it to protect the animals? Is it to be an outcome that the genetic strain of Fraser Island dingo is only to be preserved in a zoo or behind barriers or is it to ensure that dingoes are to be allowed to roam wild on Fraser Island?
At present the objective could be construed only as stopping dingoes attacking humans.
The Fraser Island Defenders Organization believes the Final Management Strategy should carry wording such as:
“The biologically importance of the Fraser Island dingo strain is a value which must be preserved in as pure a form as possible. The fact that dingoes have lived on Fraser Island in the wild for thousands of years makes it important that the dingoes are allowed to roam as wild and unconfined animals on Fraser Island.
“The object of this strategy is predicated by the need to ensure that a viable wild population of dingos is maintained on Fraser Island.”
1.2.1 History: The bibliography of the Draft Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy fails to include any reference to any material relating to dingoes prior to 1994. The Draft Strategy doesn’t refer to any material from early in the Century which would give the current situation a different perspective. FIDO believes that this is a significant omission because it fails to give a proper perspective to the current dingo management problems on Fraser Island.
In 1976, FIDO began formally collecting and recording oral history from veterans whose memory of Fraser Island extended back as far as 1905 (Jules Tardent). This collection of historical perspectives has continued since. In all of FIDO’s questioning, there was never any mention of dingoes attacking humans. There were also many reports that dingoes were afraid of humans.
1.2.2 Past Populations: All accounts appear to support the claims that the dingo population on Fraser Island in the early part of the 20th Century was much higher. This needs to be compared with the current estimated “population of 25 to 30 packs peaks at approximately 200 animals during whelping in June-July” which is stated in the draft strategy.
1.2.3 Past population estimates: While all estimates are very subjective were likely to have greatly exceeded 1,000. In personal conversations Rollo Petrie puts the population around 1915 to 1922 as possibly up to 2,000. In “Early Days on Fraser Island — 1913-1922″, he provides a theory of why he believed that the dingo numbers built up rapidly when they no longer had to compete with the Aboriginal population of 2,000 to 3,000 for food.
Petrie refers to comparative number (pp 59-60). He refers to numbers: “(Available food) would not be as plentiful now if there was an equivalent number of dogs on Fraser Island, as in the early 1900’s. The few dingoes now live comfortably on scraps …” Further on he reports: “George Jackson on a trip to Indian Head, found a freshly shot stallion on the beach a few miles south of Indian Head. George … poisoned the carcass and then camped not far away. Next morning he had 100 scalps and not a great deal of the horse was left.”
1.2.4 Relevance of historical dingo population: The significance of the size of Fraser Island’s dingo population in the past is important because it reflects on the carrying capacity in the past. It would seem to indicate that environmental changes are responsible for a diminution of the island’s carrying capacity for dingoes.
Other aspects of dingo numbers are important because most geneticists would regard a population of 100 on an island, isolated from other genetic sources as a very risky. This will be discussed further below as that has major implications for management.
1.3.1 Significance of Fraser Island Dingoes: The significance of the genetic purity and the importance of the Fraser Island Dingo population is significantly understated in the Draft Strategy. The Draft (Para 2) only states, “Fraser Island dingoes … are likely to be the purest strain of dingoes on the eastern Australia seaboard.” Nowhere else does the strategy even refer to the fact that such an important gene pool needs to be protected and perpetuated.
It is FIDO’s submissions that the genetic significance of the Fraser Island dingo strain justifies all efforts to protect and preserve this gene pool.
1.3.2 Preserving the Gene Pool: Assuming that the population peak of 200 is accurate, this is a very small gene pool on which to base a program for further reducing that gene pool. It is more worrying in the context that on anecdotal evidence the population has significantly declined over the past 8 decades.
If the numbers drop below “100 animals when breeding recommences”, as the draft strategy states, then the viability of the gene pool is at risk.
The significance of this special genetic purity of the Fraser Island dingo seems to have been overlooked in the final 3 actions recommended in the draft management strategy which refer to relocation destroying and culling. FIDO is therefore strongly opposed to these three actions.
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2. Keeping dingoes in the wild
2.1 Keeping Dingoes in the Wild: There is little acknowledgment that dingoes have a right to remain on Fraser Island in the wild. This is an a very important principle. It is not stated in any objective.
Dingoes have roamed free on Fraser Island probably since they first appeared in Australia which is at least thousands of years. Therefore, dingoes have a right to continue to roam freely over the island within the constraints of any wild animal which has learnt to be wary of other predators such as humans in their natural environment.
2.2 Saving a wild population in the wild: This organization does not want to see the Fraser Island dingo gene pool preserved only in wildlife parks or zoos or in special enclosures on Fraser Island. The establishment of large dingo free areas while it could be administratively convenient would be unacceptable. However, having said that this organization believes that it is important to try to ensure that dingoes do not become dependent on humans. Therefore they should be discouraged from areas where there is likely to be unnatural close interactions with humans. FIDO therefore would like to see more attempt made to deter dingoes from frequenting the settlements and camping areas such as Central Station and Lake McKenzie.
FIDO is vigourously opposed to any form of enclosure and artificial feeding programs. This is only encouraging a naturalized animals to behave unnaturally. Furthermore the Thylacines became extinct because they were hunters and would not accept being fed in a zoo. While dingoes are opportunistic feeders and will accept any handouts, it is still unnatural to hand feed them.
The loss of dingoes in the wild on Fraser Island would represent a much greater tragedy than the loss of the European wolves, because whereas wolves threatened humans in their domestic circumstances, Fraser Island dingoes only represent threats to humans in their recreation. We see the need to recognize and state these principles categorically in the final form of the management strategy.
Recommendation: In view of the above FIDO urges that a new section be written into the Strategy which addresses all of the issues relating to dingo population, the characteristics, the changes during the past century, and the need to maintain a viable population in the wild.
3. Population
We need a much better idea of the Fraser Island dingo population. We need to know the dynamics of reproduction and replacement rates, distribution of the population, the degree of interbreeding and an understanding of the reasons for any changes.
3.1 Accurate data needed: Because of the apparently critical size of the gene pool, there is an urgent need to have more precise information about the current population both in a macro and a micro sense.
More detailed work is needed to accurately determine:
(a) the current population in total,
(b) the distribution,
(c) the annual loss deaths of marked animals,
(d) the recruitment of new animals to the population on an annual basis and
(e) the identity of individual animals to that their behaviour can be observed.
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3.2 Tagging: We believe that it is necessary to have a more precise estimate of numbers on Fraser Island even if this may mean tagging of every individual. This would then enable a better understanding of the numbers and the distribution and assist in identifying individuals.
The process of tagging also has other potential implications for dingo management which are discussed below. Depending on how it is done it could help reinstate a greater caution of humans and encourage them to keep their distance. This organization is aware that the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service tagged every crocodile in the East Alligator River as part of its program to better manage the largest single population of estuarine crocodiles in the world. If it was possible to tag every crocodile in this part of Kakadu 20 years ago, it should be possible to tag the estimated 100 dingoes on Fraser Island before whelping. The results of that tagging which was done almost 20 years ago continues to yield valuable research results in helping understand the behaviour of those animals. We believe that crocodiles are a more dangerous and difficult animal to catch and tag than dingoes and therefore this should be a priority task to any ongoing research program.
Recommendation: A humane system of tagging should be established. All dingoes on Fraser Island should be tagged to enable them to be readily identified. The objective of tagging would be also to provide more precise data on the actual population numbers and to assist in further research on animal behaviour.
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4. Environmental Changes
The Draft dingo management strategy makes no reference to the environmental changes which have occurred on Fraser Island during the last century. A reference to old photographs and Petrie’s Fraser Island memoirs will show that there have been very significant environmental changes to the whole island during the past 80 years. Petrie’s observations are confirmed by all people who knew Fraser Island before the 1930s. These observations are also borne out by photographic evidence.
It is FIDO’s belief that these environmental changes have very significantly impacted on the dingo food sources.
4.1 Understorey changes: In “Early Days on Fraser Island 1913-1922”, Petrie described a number of changes. He described the lack of understorey on the island. Evidence of this is demonstrated by the number of horses which the island accommodated. Petrie estimated numbers as high as 2000.
With the change in the fire regime the understorey has caused not only the loss of grass but also the loss of a number of small mammals such as bandicoots. For example, “Bandicoots were fairly plentiful in the 1915 to 1920s in the Wanggoolba area,” Petrie said.
4.2 Changes to the traditional Fire Regime: FIDO attributes the loss of habitat of small mammals, which would have been traditional dingo food, to the changes away from the traditional Aboriginal burning regime. There is strong evidence to link the growth of the dense woody understorey, and in turn the reduction in small mammal population, (and in turn the decline of Fraser Island’s dingo population) with the absence of fire particularly in the tall forest where fire was deliberately excluded for more than a century.
Recommendation: FIDO believes that Fire Management Plan for Fraser Island to return the island to a habitat which is more suitable for small mammals and in turn for dingoes should be developed and implemented as a matter of the highest priority
4.3 Tradition hunting on beaches: Petrie also said that then dingoes used to eat wongs (eugaries) from the beach and fractured shells were regularly found in dingo droppings. It is apparent the use of the beach by so much beach traffic has denied this source of food to dingoes and / or they have lost this traditional hunting skill.
FIDO believes that some more research should be undertaken to identify ways which would encourage dingoes back to this traditional food sources such as wongs from the beach.
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5. Modifying the Animal Behaviour
The major problem seems to result from the changed behaviour of animals to humans. FIDO contends that to a large extent this changed behaviour is human induced. In this section, FIDO focusses on what needs to be done to modify animal behaviour.
5.1 Domestic Animals Attacked: Petrie and others referred to the fact that domestic animals were vulnerable to dingo attacks. “I have seen working bullocks bogged in the peat swamps. … The dingoes started eating them from the rear.” (p59) and “… my horse Moses was freshly bogged and already dingoes were circling around him…” (p 60) The writer has recorded oral history of dingos cornering brumbies in the surf. There are many stories of dingoes attacking and eating domestic dogs in the 1970s until domestic dogs were banned from Fraser Island. However, despite the predatory behaviour of dingoes towards other mammals, there are no records or reports of dingoes representing threats to humans on Fraser Island.
5.2 Loss of Fear of Humans: FIDO attributes the recent behaviour of dingoes to the fact that dingoes have lost their fear or wariness of humans. That the change dingo attitude is apparent from this recorded Petrie anecdote: “Recently when I camped out on the island, I heard something close by. I sat up in my swag. In the moonlight, I saw two dingoes about 15 feet away. I picked up a bit of wood and tossed it towards them. The dogs trotted to the stick and smelt it. It was a far cry from the days when they would have fled at my first move.” (p 60) Similar stories were reported by other early visitors to Fraser Island.
5.3 Problem Not Confined to Fraser Island: This behaviour change has only happened in the last fifteen years but the boldness of the dingoes continues to grow manifesting itself into an increasingly serious problem. The problem is coincidental with changes to dingo behaviour in other Australian National Parks with significant dingo populations. This was demonstrated by the Azaria Chamberlain case at Uluru. However, similar patterns are now being observed at Kakadu and in Jabiru township where dingoes refuse to be chased away as the writer observed as recently as February, 1999.
5.4 Feeding is Not the Only Problem: The Draft Management Strategy makes a case for feeding dingoes as the main reason that dingoes have lost their fear. FIDO has reason to believe that it is not only feeding which has transformed dingo behaviour. Dingoes have been fed by humans on Fraser Island for at least 50 years in the writers experience. Ignoring the past history is to overlook the underlying cause for this quite dramatic change in behaviour from one of wariness of humans to one of boldness.
5.5 Tagging to aid research: As mentioned above, if there are only 100 animals now left on Fraser Island, then tagging every animal is not an insurmountable problem and it will greatly assist identifying rogue animals and in studying animal behaviour. It should be noted that on Maria Island where detailed studies are made of the Tasmanian native hens, every animal in the vicinity of Darlington is tagged and these tags are observed to identify individuals when studying behaviour. The whole estuarine crocodile population in the east Alligator River section of Kakadu National Park was also caught and tagged.
5.6 Tagging to Discourage Approaching Humans: Normally animals who are trapped are very wary of approaching humans again. This is particularly true of cats, foxes and dingoes. However, some animals welcome the gentle treatment after trapping and back up again and again to be caught. The trapping must be done humanely but in ways which dramatically increases the wariness of approaching humans. Each animal should be trapped and tagged in ways which subsequently discourage them from approaching too close to humans.
5.7 Destroying Rogues: As indicated above, this organization is opposed to the destruction of rogues. We are more alarmed because by our estimates more than 30 animals have been destroyed over recent years. This great loss to the population has not diminished the occurrence of dingo attacks on humans.
While destruction of rogues is a recognized short term solution such methodology should have been carrying out with more foresight. For example if others in the pack saw a rogue approaching a human or the human approaching the rogues and then seeing the rogue die, this would be soon communicated widely amongst dingos. Instead, in some cases such as following a Happy Valley attack, whole packs were eliminated.
Nothing was gained from this slaughter other than creating a territory soon taken up by other animals which were not witness to the killing of their reasons. Thus, FIDO can’t support such a counter-productive spontaneous reaction.
5.8 Identifying Humans with Unpleasant Outcomes: It is important that when reprisals do occur all animals are able to identify humans with the unwelcome outcome. This will help to reinstate the wariness of humans.
While aversion baits might be important to discourage scavenging for food scraps, this program is unlikely to ensure that dingoes to keep their distance from humans or even attacking them. However, we accept that aversion baiting may reduce scavenging.
5.9 Use of repellents: This organization supports more research to find and develop more effective dingo ultrasonic deterrents. If this is successful they should be used at all significant places where humans congregate such as Lake McKenzie, Central Station and the urban centres to try to keep dingoes out of these places.
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6. Changing Human Behaviour
The Dingo-Human interaction part of the Strategy should identify the two distinct aspects of the problem. Just as important as causing dingo behaviour to revert to its previous pattern, the public must be better educated by both carrot and stick to recognize that every human has a responsibility to ensure that dingoes keep their distance.
6.1 Camera enticements: FIDO considers that the most overlooked factor has been the fact that dingoes have been increasingly enticed to come closer and pose for the cameras. This enticing of dingoes to approach humans without fear is quite deliberately saying to the animals that they have nothing to fear from humans. FIDO believes that this is even more subtle than feeding the animals as a form of changing animal behaviour and it should be stopped. The change in dingo behaviour to humans seems to occur only on national park and areas where there is no threats to the animals. The increase in the frequency of photography of the animals seems to have contributed significantly.
Recommendation: The QPWS should develop a code of conduct which not only outlaws feeding of dingoes but also one which stops people encouraging dingoes to approach closer than 10 metres to be photographed. This should be enforced with vigour.
6.2 The Blind Eye: It is true that feeding has been a factor but it is also true that a blind eye has been frequently turned towards the feeding of dingoes. On every occasion the author has spent more than 5 days he has observed someone feeding dingoes.
FIDO therefore support the recommendation in the Draft Dingo Management Strategy that feeding will be prohibitted. We just hope it will be pursued with more determination than we have observed in the past.
6.3 More active Interest from the QPWS: This organization also believes that more concern needs to be taken of the reports of dingo attacks on humans. In 1996, the writer’s sister who has been visiting Fraser Island for more than 30 years was subject to an unprovoked attack by an animal on the beach as she was walking alone near the surf edge. She reported it to the Eurong Visitor’s Centre to a completely disinterested staff and she is not even sure that any record was made of her report.
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7. Destruction, Culling and Relocation
This Organization supports the first four recommendations of the Draft Dingo Management Strategy in principle with some modifications and revision in the light of the above submissions. We particularly believe that more research is warranted to understand the behaviour patterns of particular animals.
FIDO though is opposed to the last three recommendation options in the Draft Fraser Island dingo management strategy, relocation, destruction, and culling. These have all been used regularly over the last five years without any significant benefit in improved dingo behaviour. In fact the dingo behaviour has if anything changed to the dingoes becoming even bolder. While such measures may assuage the injured feelings of the public immediately after any attack by dingoes on humans, it has been demonstrated over the years that they provide no long term improvement in animal behaviour.
Therefore on practical as well as humane grounds, FIDO is opposed to these measures. However, more significantly, in view of the size of the dingo gene pool on Fraser Island of just 100 breeding animals, we do not believe that these measures can be justified on conservation grounds. The preservation of genetic diversity must be one of the foremost objectives of the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Thus we are opposed to further reducing the gene pool of Fraser Island’s pure dingoes.
The Fraser Island dingo should not become like the European bears, wolves, and an number of other wild creatures which culled to the point of extinction outside zoos and a few isolated populations because they competed with human populations.>>
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Ed: When will government grow up and become wise, accept its stewardship, plan long term and slow down?
"We're coming to you from the custodial lands of the Hairygowogulator and Tarantulawollygong, and pay respects to uncle and grandaddy elders past, present and emerging from their burrows. So wise to keep a distance out bush."
Despite Southern Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) being endangered,
the Australian Government continues its weak policy of appeasing the Japanese – the main poachers and customers of Bluefin Tuna.
Japanese eating the Endangered into Extinction
