ENVIRONMENT – Japanese authorities “want to use me as an example to show that we don’t touch their whaling”. For Paul Watson, founder of the NGO Sea Shepherd, arrested at the end of July in Greenland for his activities to protect cetaceans, Japan’s determination to try him is part of a desire to perpetuate ancestral whaling.
Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd activist whose extradition Japan is seeking, remains in custody for now
Imprisoned for over a month in Greenland, the 73-year-old American-Canadian activist will remain behind bars for 28 more days in the Nuuk penitentiary center, the Danish justice system ruled on Wednesday, September 4. The Danish Ministry of Justice has not yet commented on the extradition request for Paul Watson made by Japan for an action on a whaling ship in 2010.
“Tradition” and “food safety”
The arrest of this whistleblower, who risks life in prison if he is handed over to Japan, is highly political. In fact, the Japanese government justifies whaling on its website in the name of a tradition dating back to the 12th century. The animal was killed for its meat but also its oil, which was once used for lighting, and its bones for tools.
Japan also remembers a serious food crisis that occurred after the Second World War, which whale meat helped it overcome, recalls West France. In a context of malnutrition and American occupation, cheap whale meat was served to schoolchildren in the canteen, adds The World. Millions of Japanese people therefore grew up consuming the mammal.
Another argument put forward by the Japanese authorities: the “food security”the country having few agricultural resources. This argument is inconsistent, believes Nicola Beynon, head of campaigns for the Australian branch of the Humane Society International, an animal protection NGO, interviewed by the magazine Marine and Oceans. “Killing whales that live long, reproduce slowly and are subject to a myriad of anthropogenic threats such as climate change and plastic pollution would do nothing to improve food security.”she emphasizes.
Intensification of commercial whaling
Contrary to what the Japanese government claims, whale meat is consumed less and less by the population. After a peak of 233,000 tons in 1962, the Japanese now eat only 2,000 tons per year. This represents an annual quantity of 23.7 grams per person, according to the Japanese association Ikan. To meet this need, the “Japanese whalers now catch about 250 to 300 individuals per year and Tokyo also buys whales from Iceland,” notes Vincent Ridoux, professor of biology and scientific communication at the University of La Rochelle, with the HuffPost.
Despite the obvious lack of appetite for the meat of this cetacean, Japan is convinced that it can “to restore the Japanese taste for eating whale”, continues the marine mammal specialist. This is why Japan launched a new factory ship in May 2024, the Kangei Marudesigned for intensive and distant hunting. It was this boat, set off on a mission with the sad objective of killing 200 cetaceans in eight months, that Captain Paul Watson wanted to intercept in the North Pacific, where there are whale sanctuaries. He was stopped before reaching it.
To make the investment of such a ship, costing 44 million euros and very expensive in terms of fuel, profitable, “Large fishing quotas are needed to balance operating costs”worries Vincent Ridoux. To earn more, Japan has therefore extended the species fished by adding fin whales, classified as “vulnerable” by the IUCN. The list of cetaceans that can be hunted by its whalers also includes the northern rorqual, another whale “threatened”.
Freeing oneself from international law
Intensive whaling seems completely incongruous in the 21st century. It has been the subject of a moratorium since 1986 adopted by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), aimed at suspending commercial whaling to allow the species to recover.
“Until 2018, Japan was part of the International Whaling Commission and used the argument of scientific fishing to continue hunting whales”explains to the HuffPost Sophie Gambardella, environmental law specialist at the CNRS. The country will indeed divert article 8 of the Whaling Convention for decades “to capture up to 1,300 whales annually under the cover of scientific programs in the Antarctic and the North Pacific. In reality, these whales were then marketed in Japan”adds Vincent Ridoux, also scientific head of the French delegation to the IWC.
This disguised hunt would last for 30 years, until the International Court of Justice ruled that it was illegal. “scientific hunting” ” in 2014. Japan first tried to redefine its research programs before leaving the IWC for good in 2019.
If the moratorium “had a general beneficial effect” Of the most threatened populations, whales are still not out of danger, according to Vincent Ridoux. Not all of them are doing well, like the “blue whale or fin whale which have only made a short journey towards their reconstitution”. If some populations fail to recover their numbers, such as the right whale, it is also because of other threats, such as “ collisions with boats, noise pollution”or climate change, which is contributing to the scarcity of phytoplankton, their main food source. In short, all the problems of whales are linked to man and his commercial activities.
Also see on Le HuffPost :
A69 motorway: Tarn prefecture welcomes rapid deforestation, activists still perched
Southern Lights: A dazzling spectacle took place in Australia and New Zealand
Related News :