reports

Publication date: May 2002

Summary
Science is arguably the most powerful force in society today. Technological advance has already transformed Western lifestyles over the twentieth century. But positive developments, such as consistent food production, new entertainment opportunities and cures for disease, are tempered by negative impacts, such as the erosion of cultural traditions, and climate change.

Technology: taking the good without the bad?

Technology: taking the good without the bad?

A critique of the fisheries agency of Japan's document "What Are Japan's Whale Research Programmes".

Publication date: Dec 2001

Summary
Commercial whaling is one of the most environmentally destructive practices of all time and was responsible in the last century for taking many populations to the brink of extinction Yet the Fisheries Agency of Japan is determined to secure a return to large-scale commercial whaling and a hunt taking thousands of whales every year.

Publication date: May 2002

Summary
Despite a history of repeated failure to control commercial whaling under a succession of management regimes, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) is currently in the process of developing a new set of rules, known as the Revised Management Scheme or RMS, which could be used to manage commercial whaling operations at some point in the near future and, if agreed, could herald the lifting of the moratorium on all commercial whaling.

How Japan is buying control of the IWC

Publication date: May 2002

Summary
On the 6th November 2001, the Japanese whaling fleet left for Antarctic waters to hunt 440 minke whales. Japan claims that this hunt is for 'scientific research' but in reality it is just one tactic in a long-term strategy orchestrated by the Fisheries Agency of Japan (FAJ) to re-establish large-scale commercial whaling.

Bulletin No. 9