Greenpeace protesters alongside a dead whale are dragged inside a whaling ship
CITES
All trade in endangered species is governed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Following the IWC's announcement of a whaling moratorium in 1982, CITES classified the great whales as protected species, and outlawed international trade in whale products.
Japan and Norway have fought this ban for years. They want to resume international trade and dramatically increase their whale catches. Norway in particular is desperate to export to Japan, where whale meat is a delicacy and prices are many times higher. To quote one Norwegian whaler, "When the export ban is lifted, whoever has a license to whale will be sitting on a gold mine".
Japan and Norway want to "downlist" certain populations of whales from Appendix I to Appendix II of the CITES list, removing their protected status and so allowing the highly damaging trade in whale products to resume.
Greenpeace is determined to expose how any resumption in the international trade in whale products will not just be damaging to the whale populations which have been downlisted but how inevitably it would lead to the depletion of endangered species of whales by providing a market which would then be xploited by pirate whalers.. It would be a disaster for whales.
At sea actions against whaling
At the heart of the anti-whaling campaign are ship actions. They are designed to confront the whalers, and through non-violent direct action hinder their whaling activities and expose to the world the reality of commercial whaling.
Over a two month period around December 1999/January 2000 Greenpeace followed a Japanese whaling fleet to Antactica in the MV Arctic Sunrise. Although officially off-limits to whalers, Japan kills over 400 Minke whales a year inside the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. Its fleet consists of a number of catcher vessels and a massive factory ship, the Nisshin-maru. Once caught, each whale is transferred on a tow-line to the factory ship for processing.
On the 12 January two activists in a inflatable boat (rib) were dragged half way up the Nisshin-maru's stern ramp after they attached their boat to a line being used to transfer a harpooned minke whale from a catcher vessel. When the tow-line was completely taught, one of the whale boat crew slashed it with a long-handled flensing knife - normally used for sectioning whales - sending the rib shooting back down the stern ramp out of control.
As the Nisshin-maru moved away at high speed in order to resume whaling, six activists (including Japanese activist Yasuhiro Ito) jumped into sub-zero waters in front of the ship in an attempt to bring it to a halt. The factory ship refused to alter its course, or even slow down. Miraculously no-one was injured, and both incidents were captured on film.
Whaling ships often try to disrupt opposition by blasting our ribs with water cannon. In a neat piece of role reversal, Greenpeace has developed a "wall of water" technique to prevent harpoonists getting a clear shot at their target. Using a water pump mounted on the stern of a rib, activists sprayed an eight metre wall of water directly in front of the harpoon of the catcher vessel Toshi Maru No.25, blocking the line of sight and preventing the killing of whales.
Frustrated at the success of these measures, the captain of the Nisshin-maru rammed the MV Arctic Sunrise when it once more blocked his way. Once again no-one was hurt, and Japan tried to dodge responsiblity by blaming Greenpeace for the collision.
Until Japan and Norway stop whaling Greenpeace will continue to take whatever peaceful action it can to confront the whalers on the high seas.
International Whaling Commission (IWC): for whales or whalers?
The IWC was established in 1946 by the world's 14 major whaling nations. Its stated aim is the "orderly development of the whaling industry" through "proper conservation of whaling stocks."
In reality it was a whalers' club and each country was solely interested in maximising its own profits. Catch quotas were set so high that the populations of the largest species(which give the greatest oil yield) declined dramatically, and the hunters were forced to seek out smaller species.
By 1972 this disasterous policy had reduced the number of blue whales from 200,000 to 6,000. Humpbacks showed a similar decline, and populations of Pacific gray, sei and sperm whales had been halved.
With extinction a real threat for some species, Greenpeace, in conjunction with other conservation groups, acted to wrest control of the IWC from the whalers. In 1979 Australia abandoned whaling, and the Indian Ocean Whale Sanctuary was created. Yet it was not until 1982 that commission members voted to adopt a moratorium on commercial whaling that would take effect in 1986.
Some of the world's whaling nations refused to give up, however. Today Japan and Norway, the two remaining whaling nations, are gaining ground in the IWC. More IWC members are voting in favour of whaling as a result of Japan's vote buying tactics. If the present trend goes unchecked, Japan will have effectively bought a return to large-scale of commercial whaling, putting the world's remaining whales at risk.
This was demonstrated during the IWC meeting in 2000 when proposals for new sanctuaries in the Southern Atlantic and South Pacific oceans were rejected, and a resolution passed to speed the development of the Revised Management Scheme (RMS).
The RMS is the set of rules that would be used if the IWC agreed to allow commercial whaling. Its completion and adoption is required before the IWC can lift the moratorium on whaling.
Greenpeace believes it is unnecessary and unwise to embark on development of a scheme whose only purpose is to allow for a resumption of commercial whaling. It brings no conservation benefits to whales and does nothing to assist the recovery of whale populations, which were decimated by commercial whaling (some of it conducted under the auspices of the IWC) and remain depleted. For these reasons, Greenpeace strongly opposes the completion and adoption of the RMS.
