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Take ActionWhile the crew of the MV Arctic Sunrise is doing everything in their power to stop illegal Japanese whaling in Antarctica, Greenpeace campaigners around the world are mounting a coordinated, international effort to generate diplomatic pressure on Japan to halt its whaling program. Every nation’s government needs to call on Japan to stop their illegal whaling. Below you'll find the latest political developments from our campaign and how to get involved. |
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| Countries That Have Acted | Get Involved | ||||
 The United Kingdom |
The British Foreign Office informed Greenpeace on December 7th that it had written to the Japanese State Secretary for Foreign Affairs asking for an immediate suspension of the whaling programme. |
Help Greenpeace pressure the world's governments into action. Your country's foreign ministry should be urging the Japanese to halt illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. We've contacted these nations (see our letter below) but they need to hear from you.
If you live in one of the countries below, click on your nation's flag to take action. |
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 New Zealand |
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark has criticized the Japanese whaling fleet's treatment of Greenpeace activists in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. The Prime Minister has vowed to ensure that New Zealand strongly challenges Japanese whaling programme at the International Whaling Commission meeting this summer. |
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 Australia |
The Australian government has informed Greenpeace that it has made representations to the Japanese Government to protest the hunt. |
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 The United States |
U.S. State Department officials met with a representative from the Japanese Embassy on the day the whaling fleet departed for Antarctica to express concerns over illegal whaling. | ||||
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The Foreign Ministry on 7 January issued a statement urging the Japanese government to halt the fleet's whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary. | ||||
 Germany |
The German Foreign Minister has informed Greenpeace that he will raise Japan's illegal whaling program when he visits Japan in the spring. | ||||
 Ireland |
The Irish Minister of the Environment has informed Greenpeace campaigner John Bowler that he will urge the Irish Foreign Minister to raise concerns about whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary with his Japanese counterpart. | ||||
 Brazil |
The Brazillian Minister for the Environment sent on 10 January a strongly worded letter to the Japanese embassy condemning the "brutal practice of whaling." | ||||
| Country not
listed? Contact your foreign minister and tell him/her to oppose Japan's illegal whaling. |
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Greenpeace's Letter to Foreign Ministers Dear Sir, On 9 November, Japan's whaling fleet departed from the south of Japan bound for the Antarctic where they intend to catch 440 minke whales within the circumpolar whale sanctuary established by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). Your country supported the creation of this sanctuary and voted for it at the 1994 meeting of the IWC where it was agreed by a vote of 23 to 1. Japan is the only country which refuses to recognise the sanctuary. Japan describes its whaling within the sanctuary as 'scientific' or 'research' whaling but this is just a disguise for what is clearly a commercial operation. The Economist magazine in 1997 called the 'research' label 'a cover as thin as the slices of sashimi that a "researched" whale inevitably becomes". The meat produced is sold on the commercial market with a final value, at the retail consumer level, of over 100 million US dollars a year. The information it produces is not needed by the IWC which has repeatedly passed resolutions calling on the government of Japan to end this whaling. The IWC's Scientific Committee reviewed this whaling in 1997 and agreed unanimously that the information it produced was "not required for management". These facts place Japan in violation of the United Nations Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) which provides that all states must cooperate with a view to the conservation of marine mammals and in the case of cetaceans shall in particular work with the appropriate international organisations for their conservation, management and study. Japan cannot claim to be cooperating with the IWC when it ignores calls by the IWC to stop whaling, ignores scientific judgement and continues to carry out thinly disguised commercial whaling in a designated whale sanctuary. We ask that you write to the foreign minister of Japan, urging the Japanese government to suspend this program and to call the vessels back to port.
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