GOVERNMENTS CALL ON JAPAN TO STOP ILLEGAL ANTARCTIC WHALING

8 December 1999

LONDON -- Britain has become the latest government to join a growing list of nations calling on the Japanese government to cancel its illegal Antarctic whaling programme.

Yesterday, just days before the Japanese whaling fleet was due to resume whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary (an internationally recognised whale sanctuary surrounding Antarctica) the British Foreign Office advised Greenpeace it had written to the Japanese State Secretary for Foreign Affairs asking for an immediate suspension of the whaling programme.

In other diplomatic moves against Japanese whaling:

Earlier this week the New Zealand Foreign Minister delivered a letter to the Japanese State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, also calling for suspension of “scientific” whaling, and pointing out that much of the data could be collected by non-lethal methods.

In Tokyo, the Australian Embassy made representations to the Japanese Government to protest the hunt.

The US State Department reported it held meetings with a representative from the Japanese Embassy on the day the whaling fleet departed for Antarctica, to express concerns over illegal whaling.

"Japan is facing increasing diplomatic opposition to its illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary in Antarctica," Greenpeace campaigner Dima Litvinov said.

The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was established in 1994 by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), and every year since then the IWC has passed a resolution condemning Japan for continuing to whale in the region. Japan was the only country to vote against establishing the Sanctuary and has continued to hunt there under the guise of “scientific research”.

However, the IWC has judged that Japan’s 'scientific' whaling does "not address critically important research needs for the management of whaling in the southern ocean" (IWC 1998).

As well as openly flouting the Southern Ocean Sanctuary, Japan is also breaking international maritime laws (the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) that require all nations to cooperate with "appropriate international organisations" for the conservation of whales.

"International maritime law clearly requires Japan to cooperate with the IWC where whaling is involved," Litvinov said. "By ignoring the IWC’s repeated calls to abandon whaling in the Sanctuary, Japan is placing itself outside of the law." he said

Greenpeace is calling on all national governments to follow the lead set by the UK, US, New Zealand and Australia and demand that Japan immediately cancel its Antarctic whaling program.

"The world's governments can not just stand by and watch as international laws designed to protect marine life are trampled," Litvinov said.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

- Dima Litvinov +61 2 9263 0351 +61 408 869 788 or
- Kate Johnston +61 2 9263 0359 +61 411 874 819.