Comments on: Japan Says We are Witnessing the Death of the International Whaling Commission

By: South Korea Planning to Kill Whales : EcoWorldly

South Korea Planning to Kill Whales : EcoWorldly — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:11:03 +0000

[...] the melodrama from last year’s International Whaling Commission meeting, it’s hard to know what to expect to happen with Japan’s request and subsequently [...]

By: Festive Underwater Whale “Party” Discovered Near East Timor Caps Exciting Year in Whale News : EcoWorldly

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:23:02 +0000

[...] Japan Says We Are Witnessing the Death of the International Whaling Commission [...]

By: Even Japan Supports Closing Mediterranean Tuna Fishery

Even Japan Supports Closing Mediterranean Tuna Fishery — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:02:31 +0000

[...] that it’s jokingly called the “International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna,” Japan openly gloated about how they ruined the International Whaling Commission this [...]

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:54:16 +0000

Japanese say it is their cultural right to hunt whales. Well, if they feel that is the truth, let them hunt whales in the cultural way – wooden boats and hand thrown spears instead of factory ship fleets with tenders supplying fuel and food and so on.

If they dont agree to that I think it is time to start calling for an International Japanese Hunting Commission to limit the number of Japanese whalers that can be hunted before their extinction. For my part, I dont think Greenpeace go far enough. They ought to take a leaf out of the French Military handbook and do to the Japanese whaling ships what the French did to the Rainbow Warrior.

Where’s PETA when they REALLY are needed instead of sticking themselves in front of cameras, the lazy layabouts?

By: Cypher

Cypher — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:48:38 +0000

Common Japan….. So Progressive in Every Way, But can not give up their Sea Food Heritage.

By: Captain Ahab

Captain Ahab — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:16:48 +0000

South Pacific islanders have traditionally eaten human flesh.

Should they be allowed to harvest people from Japan, Norway and Iceland?

PS – World fish yield peaked in 1987. Overfishing is real.

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:20:32 +0000

I’m from Norway, and I have no problem with whale hunting, There are 3 countries in the world that hunt whales, and all the countries kills a relatively small number compared to the number of healthy individuals of each species.
If there is something you ought to have a problem with it would be the overfishing being done by EU vessels around Africa and the Russians in the north.
C’mon, Japan, Norway & Iceland were fishing nations as far back as history goes, and guess what, we are the only ones who will have fish in the next 50 years aswell because we dont overfish – we did it once with whales 200 years ago. Now everyone else overfish and points a finger to the guys who are hunting whales!
Btw, whale tastes quite good actually

By: Jimmy Jones

Jimmy Jones — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:12:48 +0000

Wow, the Japanese people in general are SO cool.

JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com

By: david

david — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:29:48 +0000

wmscott,

As you notice, Japan will ultimately get to hunt whales either way (actually it wants to hunt a sustainable number of whales, not “1000″ specifically).

The point of the IWC was never to ban whaling indefinitely. A “moratorium” is a temporary measure, not a permanent one. What the IWC is seeing today is a concerted effort by whaling nations to get a useless moratorium replaced with more realistic and practical solutions. Some whale stocks can sustain certain levels of hunting. So let’s allow that, and maintain a moratorium for all the other species.

The IWC can not make whaling illegal. The IWC is not some godly body that can decide the rules. Each nation has their own position, each nation is sovereign, and if they don’t like the rules they need not agree to them. It’s like any other international agreement.

So, you are right – Japan wants to use the IWC to legalize their activities. If the IWC does not do it, another agreement will be made with other sovereign states that are interested to do it instead.

By: david

david — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:17:51 +0000

You are quite harsh.

The whaling nations have all the best cards in their hands.

Hogarth has no choice but to try to hold the organization together. It is about to fall to pieces. What Hogarth has done is ensure that that does not happen… yet.

Whether this happens eventually (in the next 12 months probably) is largely dependant on the attitude of the anti-whaling nations that have hijacked the whaling commission.

If they are prepared to back-down and accept sustainable whaling, the IWC has a future.

If they aren’t prepared to accept it, then the result is that the whalers will jump ship, and the IWC will be dead as a cooperative international organization seeking to regulate whaling.

Of course, if one is anti-whaling then saving the IWC as an organization that permits sustainable whaling is not very satisfactory at all. But is having an organization that was set up to regulate whaling so that it be sustainable destroyed beyond repair a desirable outcome? Probably not, but for them at least they can maintain their anti-whaling policies.

I think the IWC could have a future, but for political reasons I expect the IWC to die, because the anti-whaling nations will lose more domestically if they cave into the desires of the whaling nations and allow whaling, than if they maintain their anti-whaling stance and play the whaling nations as the bad guys to their domestic constituencies.