Infern0
Banned
Enforce the 'bloody law' over whales - Sea Shepherd
By MICHAEL FIELD - Fairfax Media | Thursday, 20 December 2007
Australia's sending of a fisheries patrol ship to shadow Japan's whaling fleet near Antarctica has been condemned by a frontline environmental group as a waste of time.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has its ship Steve Irwin - named after the late Australian crocodile media star - off Antarctica waiting to confront the Japanese whalers.
In a statement from the ship Captain Paul Watson says rival environmentalists Greenpeace have monitored the whaling for 20 years and this latest announcement from Canberra was nothing new.
"We need enforcement and we need action on this atrocity," said Captain Paul Watson, "we don't need anymore pictures of dying whales. Greenpeace has been taking pictures for years and it has not stopped the killing of the whales....
"Our response to Australia's announcement of their 'plan' to protect the whales is to drop the camera and pick up your guns and enforce the bloody laws, mate."
Sea Shepherd in previous seasons has been involved in close conflict with the whalers, including an incident of collision at sea between ships.
Yesterday Australia's foreign minister Stephen Smith and environment minister Peter Garrett announced they will send a fisheries patrol ship to shadow Japan's whaling fleet near Antarctica and gather evidence for a possible international court challenge to halt the yearly slaughter.
The icebreaker Oceanic Viking, used for customs and fisheries policing, would leave for the Southern Ocean in days to follow the Japanese fleet.
To avoid a high-seas incident and ease concern in Tokyo, heavy machine guns on the ship and side arms used by boarding crews would be locked in storage below decks, they said.
Japan's whaling fleet plans to hunt 935 minke whales, 50 fin whales and, for the first time in 40 years, 50 humpback whales for research over the Antarctic summer.
Humpbacks were hunted to near extinction until the International Whaling Commission ordered their protection in 1966.
Patrols by a low-flying A319 Airbus jet used by Australian Antarctic scientists would also follow and photograph the Japanese fleet, Foreign Minister Smith said.
"We are dealing here with the slaughter of whales, not scientific research. That's our starting point and our end point," Smith, whose centre-left Labor government won elections last month, partly on a promise of tougher anti-whaling action.
Smith said photographic and video evidence gathered by the ship and aircraft would be used before any international legal tribunals to "make the point that what we are seeing is not scientific research, but the slaughter of whales."
"If you read Australian lips, you'll say that slaughtering whales is not scientific. It's cruel, it's barbaric and it's unnecessary," Garrett added.
A Greenpeace ship left Auckland yesterday to chase the Japanese fleet.
PM backs anti-whaling campaign
By NATHAN BEAUMONT - The Dominion Post | Thursday, 20 December 2007
The prime minister has swung behind a campaign to stop Japanese whaling, as Australia prepares to send planes and an armed ship to monitor the whaling fleet near Antarctica.
Helen Clark's support, and that of other political leaders, came as New Zealand whaling commissioner Sir Geoffrey Palmer branded the International Whaling Commission - which has failed to bring an end to scientific whaling - "one of the worst international organisations in the world".
The Dominion Post began a campaign this week to halt the slaughter by Japan of up to 50 threatened humpback whales, 50 endangered fin whales and 935 minke whales.
By last night, more than 2100 people had signed an online petition urging the Japanese Government "to abandon its abhorrent whaling programme", including actress Lucy Lawless, singer Hollie Smith and radio and television presenter Marcus Lush.
Signatures had come from Papua New Guinea, France, the United States - and Japan.
Miss Clark said through a spokeswoman that she commended the campaign, which "reflected the values of New Zealanders".
Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick said the campaign - which began with Dominion Post editor Tim Pankhurst delivering a letter of protest to the Japanese embassy - would increase the pressure on Japan.
"Every effort that exerts pressure is constructive and helpful. We need to do it collectively ... so there is a concerted strategy here to say we find whaling something that really does set the hearts and minds of New Zealanders against it."
National leader John Key said his party did not support the killing of endangered species. "We're pretty bipartisan with the mainstream view on our abhorrence of whaling."
Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said: "This is a crucial time for the world community to send a very strong message to Japan that what they're doing is not acceptable. There is no market for the whale meat."
Sir Geoffrey called for the IWC to be remodelled to end Japan's annual whale slaughter.
The commission is powerless till at least 75 per cent of the IWC delegates vote to change Article 8 of the International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling - the right to scientific whaling - which was approved in 1946.
Anti-whaling countries have tried to change the treaty several times, but failed each time to muster the required support. Recent IWC meetings have been plagued by allegations of vote-buying.
"The IWC is one of the worst international organisations I have been involved with," Sir Geoffrey said. "It is a massively challenging environment.
"Sometimes it feels like I am banging my head against a brick wall. I have spent a lot of years trying to understand the situation, but I still can't get my head around this. It is becoming a joke."
Australian planes and a ship will watch Japanese whaling ships off Antarctica, collecting photographic and video evidence that its government could use in legal action to stop the whaling.
Greenpeace ship Esperanza left Auckland yesterday for the Southern Ocean.
any thoughts on this? or do you guys think it's a matter for the south pacific only?