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A recent law promoting whaling allows Japan to take a key step towards resuming commercial hunting of the giant mammals that are "a great source of food," officials said on Thursday.
Japan defies international protests to carry out what it calls scientific research whaling, having repeatedly said its ultimate goal is to whale commercially again. In the 2016-2017 season, its fleet took 333 minke whales in the Antarctic.
The new law, passed in June, will help enshrine as a "national responsibility" an activity that was previously just a tacit policy, said Shigeki Takaya, director of the Whaling Affairs Office at Japan's Fisheries Agency.
"While the government has given its support to the implementation of scientific research into whales, it is heartening to see that the law clarifies its position even further," Takaya told a news conference.
In 2014, the International Court of Justice ruled that Japan should halt Antarctic whaling.
Per the Huff, Japan's government thumbs its nose at international law at the behest of their commercial fishing industries, and gives permission to "deal with" protesters.
In a 2012 poll conducted for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), 88.8% of the Japanese public said they had not bought any whale meat in the past 12 months. While 26.6% said they supported Japan's scientific whaling, 18.5% opposed the hunts and the rest of the population were undecided, hardly a ringing endorsement of Japan's bloody whaling policy.
Much of the whale meat brought in from the scientific whaling scheme is being held in warehouses, frozen because it does not sell well on the Japan market. Sales of dolphin meat have also plummeted. Because sales of whale meat are so poor, the Japan government has subsidized the scientific whaling scheme at 5 billion yen ($44.7 million US) annually.
Furthermore, the new legislation allows Japan to send vessels to Antarctica with the fleet specifically to deal with harassment from such organizations as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which seeks to interfere with whaling activities they contend violate international law. [...] The legislation also gives new authority to Japan immigration enforcement to deal with people who may be "likely" to sabotage or harass whaling vessels in Japan. This is an obvious effort to legalize the blocking of people, such as members of Sea Shepherd, who come to Japan to legally and peacefully protest the dolphin hunts in Taiji.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Saturday July 22 2017, @04:02PM (1 child)
I really don't want any whaling, however I want to relate an anecdote on poaching in sub-Saharan Africa. I don't remember the specifics, but two countries took two different approaches to poaching in the same time frame: zero tolerance death penalty vs legalization of harvesting ivory. Ultimately the country with legalization had reduced poaching, because land owners now had incentive to protect the elephants on their land: they are now a resource.
Oceans are more tricky as there aren't property laws, so we get into the tragedy of the commons. If Japan is the only country whaling, they would be motivated to treat all whales in the ocean as "theirs", and treat them as a sustainable fishery. I'm skeptical though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22 2017, @06:42PM
> If Japan is the only country whaling
Comment #542821 says that Iceland and Norway are whaling.