Greenpeace to confront Japanese whalers in Southern Ocean

WELLINGTON (AFP) - A Greenpeace ship is set to sail from Auckland for the Southern Ocean to confront Japanese whalers as the New Zealand government released film of the fleet slaughtering whales. The Esperanza will attempt to manoeuvre small inflatable boats between the whaling ships and their prey, preventing the Japanese from firing their harpoons."It is risky and the environment of the Southern Ocean has its own risks but everyone on board acknowledges the risks," Greenpeace team leader Karli Thomas said on the eve of departure.Thomas said the environmental organisation's campaign aimed to prevent as many whale deaths as possible and to raise awareness during the whaling season.A global moratorium on commercial whaling has been in force since 1986 but Japan still catches whales for what it claims is scientific research. However, it admits the whale meat ends up on dinner plates.A fleet of six Japanese ships has been sent to the Southern Ocean with plans to kill up to 850 minke whales and 10 fin whales during the December to March whaling season, the Japanese Fisheries Agency said.New Zealand Conservation Minister Chris Carter Friday released footage of the Japanese fleet harpooning and cutting up whales caught in the Southern Ocean.The film was taken in the previous 48 hours from a New Zealand Air Force surveillance aircraft which had been policing illegal fishing.Carter told a press conference the government had taken the "very unusual" step of releasing the film to allow the public to make up their own minds about Japanese whaling. "Is it science or is it butchery?" he said.Also protesting the Japanese whaling is another protest ship, the Farley Mowat, from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.Sea Shepherd president Paul Watson said earlier this month he planned to use a specially designed ram to tear the hull of the Japanese whalers above the waterline.Carter said last week he was worried about the possibility of violence in the Southern Ocean as the protest groups confront the Japanese fleet."Captain Watson seems intent on having a violent confrontation with the Japanese whaling fleet," he said. He also said powerful water cannons used last year by the Japanese against the protesters put lives at risk."I urge all parties to refrain from any acts that may be a risk to human life."The New Zealand and Australian governments have led a campaign to persuade other countries in the International Whaling Commission to oppose a proposal by Japan and other pro-whaling countries to resume commercial whaling.

Greenpeace says Icelandic whale meat piling up unused

REYKJAVIK (AFP) - Two hundred tonnes (220 tons) of Icelandic whale meat have been stockpiled in Reykjavik since October 2006, evidence that hunting the animal served no purpose, environmental group Greenpeace said. "The Icelandic market has not proved to be what whalers expected. Domestic demand (for whale meat) was not what it was 20 years ago. People are choosing alternatives," Greenpeace's whaling spokesman for the Nordic region, Frode Pleym, told AFP. "The market is proving it (whaling) doesn't make any sense," Pleym added.He said 200 tonnes of whale meat and blubber had been stored in freezers in a warehouse owned by the Hvalurj whaling company near Reykjavik.The meat had been there since October, when the whale hunt ended due to poor weather and a lack of daylight. The company was awaiting the results of toxicology tests and an export licence from Tokyo before exporting it to Japan."Japan's agriculture ministry has said that Japan has stockpiles of over 4,400 tonnes of whale meat. There is no incentive for continuing whaling," Pleym said. "The (Icelandic) government must face the fact that whaling makes no sense economically or politically," he added.No one at the Icelandic fisheries ministry nor at Hvalurj was available for comment on Wednesday. Iceland announced in September 2006 it had authorised its whalers to hunt 30 minke whales and nine fin whales by August 2007 for export.The move made Iceland only the second country after Norway to openly defy a global moratorium on commercial whaling, approved in 1986 by the International Whaling Commission (IWC).The decision sparked protests from environmental groups and a number of countries, including Australia, New Zealand and the European Union. But Reykjavik argued that none of the planned catches involve any endangered or threatened stocks of whales."They only involve abundant stocks and are linked to Iceland's overall policy of sustainable utilisation of marine resources," the fisheries ministry said in September.According to the IWC, there are close to 70,000 minke whales in the central North Atlantic, of which around 43,600 are in Icelandic waters.The fin whale is the second largest species of whale after the blue whale and the animal's population numbers around 25,800 in the central North Atlantic.

WTO plans threaten sea life: Greenpeace

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Pirates and licensed trawlers are pillaging the world's oceans, while proposals on the table for trade ministers meeting in Switzerland next week could prove the final blow to sea life, Greenpeace said on Friday. Three-quarters of global fish stocks are now classed by the United Nations as fully or over-exploited, and the conservation group said World Trade Organization plans to slash or cancel fish and fish product tariffs would be a disaster."Under trade liberalization, only a few countries will benefit, and then only in the short term," Daniel Mittler, a political adviser on trade for Greenpeace, told reporters."The reality is, all other countries will lose. There must be regulated trade and proper management...The last thing the world needs is a relaunch of the Doha global trade round."The world's seas are already ravaged, with waters off developing nations most at risk from pirate trawlers flying cheaply purchased flags of convenience, Greenpeace said.At any one time, some 600 foreign vessels are fishing off the Kenyan coast, said Athman Seif of the Kenya Marine Forum, particularly targeting lucrative hauls of yellow fin tuna. Some of the boats are licensed, many are not, he said."They are sophisticated and unscrupulous, and something must be done," he said at the launch of the report in Nairobi.Greenpeace says illegal fishing will boom if tariffs are cut or dropped, as trawler crews hunt lucrative export stocks while dumping tons of unwanted "bycatch" caught in their huge nets.The tariff plans are included in the suspended Doha round of trade talks begun in 2001. But discussions have continued behind closed doors, Mittler said, and next week in Davos, Switzerland, ministers will try to rescue the round.Greenpeace said studies in Mauritania, Senegal and Argentina showed that trade liberalization in fisheries was a disaster for the marine environment as well as for local food security."Not even the economic case for liberalization is convincing," it said in its report. "Argentina, for example, is estimated to have lost at least $3.5 million in future earnings by over-exploiting its fish resources after liberalization."The group called for an end to double standards that saw countries like Spain declaring protected marine reserves in their own waters to guard tourism incomes, while sending deep sea trawlers to harvest distant seas off developing nations.Less than 1 percent of the world's oceans is protected under marine reserves, and Greenpeace said that figure urgently needed to be boosted to 40 percent -- alongside robust monitoring and prosecution of illegal fishing practices."It's the 'Wild West' out there," said Sari Tolvanen, a marine biologist with the group. "We need to protect large areas, logically and biologically connected, the world over."