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ACTIVISTS BLOCKADE ILLEGAL WHALE HUNT: DAY 10

Greenpeace calls for a peaceful Millennium free of whaling

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SOUTHERN OCEAN - 10 Greenpeace activists are today using four inflatable boats to prevent Japanese whale catcher ships from illegally hunting whales inside the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. For nine days Greenpeace has used a variety of peaceful tactics to disrupt and delay Japanese whaling in the icy waters surrounding Antarctica.

“On the threshold of a new Millennium it shouldn’t be necessary for humans to place themselves between a whale and a harpoon in order to stop the illegal hunting of whales,” John Bowler, Greenpeace campaigner on-board the MV Arctic Sunrise said. “Whaling should be relegated to the past with all the other outdated destructive practices that have damaged the planet over the past 1000 years.

“The dawn of a new century is the right time for nations to truly begin working together to ensure a safe and peaceful future - and they should start by bringing diplomatic pressure to bear on Japan to live up to its existing international commitments and stop illegal whaling,” Bowler said.

By hunting whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary Japan in violation of articles 65 and 120 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas, (UNCLOS – adopted in 1982) which requires all states to cooperate with the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in the matter of whale protection. Every year the IWC passes a resolution condemning Japan for whaling in the Sanctuary and calls on it to stop its so-called “scientific” whaling program.

So far only Britain, the US, Australia and New Zealand have taken soft diplomatic moves to pressure Japan to live up to UNCLOS and abandon its whaling program.

The IWC has also found that the data collected from Japan’s “research” whaling program is not required for whale management, because commercial whaling will never be allowed within the sanctuary. This year Japan intends to hunt 440 Minke whales in the name of “scientific research”, even though the whale meat produced will be sold on the open market in Japan.

The Southern Ocean around Antarctica was formally declared a whale sanctuary in 1994 by the IWC and has been off limits to commercial whaling ever since.

The activists inside the four inflatables are: Daniel Rizzoti (Argentina), Nicolass De Jong (Netherlands), Cristina Bonfiglioli (Brazil), Sue Jolly (Australia), Richard Pearson (Australia), Zeger Zel (Netherlands), Frank Kamp (Netherlands), Namhee Kwon (South Korea), Deb McIntyre (Australia) and Yasuhiro Ito (Japan).