Japan tipped to wrest control of whaling commission

[Yollam]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060612/ts_alt_afp/environmentwhalingdiplomacyiwcjapanus_060612124210

Japan tipped to wrest control of whaling commission
by Stephen Collinson Mon Jun 12, 8:42 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Japan looks poised this week to seize a dominant grip on the world body frustrating its commercial whaling ambitions, and to deal a sickening blow to the global Green movement.


Tokyo is tipped to emerge from a cliffhanger vote on Friday along with fellow pro-whaling states with a simple majority on the 70-nation International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in St Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies.

Environmentalists fear Japan, backed by other pro-whaling nations, would use a majority to chip away at a two-decades-old moratorium on commercial whaling and to block conservation efforts.

They also fear Japan would try to remove Greenpeace's observer status at the IWC and introduce secret ballots.



This is very distressing. This is my adopted country, but for some reason, the Japanese insist on continuing to hunt whales, and they want to take more. Why?!?! Today's Japanese don't even like whale meat. Even the amount they take now they have to mark down to get it to sell! Why this insistence on taking more? What's more, Japan and China are taking so much fish at this point that the fisheries around Japan and China are nearly depleted so that the fishermen have to go further and further out to catch anything.

It's really tragic, when you consider that here in Japan, so much of this food goes to waste. :-(

[LeftyMom]

1. It's sick

They already have so much more than people will eat that it gets thrown in long term storage, made into school lunches and even dog food, but they're increasing quotas and going after progressively more endangered species.

[Yollam]

2. There's a kind of bizarre nationalism in this, too.

Even my wife, who is a lefty and environmentalist, insists that Japan should be able to harvest whales, because it's "unfair for the western countries who depleted whale stocks in the first place to tell Japan that it can't catch whales".

I tell her that the west was wrong to do that too, and that now we know better, and we need to stop this. But it's like there's a blind spot about this issue. I don't get it. Will Japan not be satisfied until the ocean floor is a huge, wet DESERT?


(((sigh)))

[flvegan]

5. Well, Japan, they, like us

don't like being told what to do. Is it right? No. Ego is funny that way.

[alarimer]

3. Japan is one of the worst offenders when it comes to

overfishing of all species. Their huge factory ships are very destructive to many species. Many other countries are of course guilty as well.

[flvegan]

4. Very true.

This is the plan of the pro-whaling nations. However, even a vote at this year's meeting won't change the IWC take on whaling, it just sets the stage for future movement backwards.

That said, two words...Paul Watson. A faster boat...oh, you whalers...in advance, I'm sorry.

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