sophie wrote:Hello,
Right now Japan is pushing hard to get rid of the moratorium on whaling. I was wondering if whale hunting is very important in the cultural definition of Japan, or if it was suggested by the occupying US forces after WWII (as I remember reading somewhere).
I'd like to know if this is being reported a lot in Japanese newspapers, and I'd also like to know if Japanese people love whale meat or just don't care...
Most Japanese people don't like whale meat. It's a quote-unquote "delicacy", but I've asked TONS of students if they've tried it, and only the elderly ones had. (They ate it when they were in elementary school as a nutritionary supplement. Lots of fat & protein in whale meat that they just couldn't get elsewhere at the time.) As I recall, they weren't overly thrilled about eating it.
IMHO, it's a very, very small Japanese contingent that wants whaling to continue, namely, the ones who make money from it. There is a long tradition of whaling in Japan, and I think Japanese people themselves are divided on the issue, if they have an opinion at all. Much like Canadians and sealing.
There's a lot of misunderstanding about this topic, and I've done quite a bit of research about it, so I'll just paste in here a letter that I got published in a Thai newspaper, where I was travelling the last time that Japanese whaling became a topic. The newspaper had just announced that one of Japan's major private whaling companies had called it quits (and were subsequently bought out by the Japanese government). It was hailed as a major victory for anti-whalers. They edited out some of my more salient points, but oh well...
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Whaling is an international, not just a Japanese, issue
Re: "Greenpeace declares victory as Japanese firms give up whaling", News, April 4.
Quoting the article: "
Japan uses a 1986 loophole in the international moratorium on commercial whaling that allows the killing of whales for research, but it makes no secret of the fact that the meat ends up on dinner tables." This is patent rubbish.
First: "
Japan uses a 1986 loophole in the international moratorium on commercial whaling..."
Untrue. The right to kill whales for scientific purposes is specifically enshrined in Article VIII of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling: "
[A]ny Contracting Government may grant to any of its nationals a special permit authorising that national to kill, take and treat whales for purposes of scientific research."
Second: "
... it makes no secret of the fact that the meat ends up on dinner tables."
Nor should they. In fact, they would be in violation of the 1946 convention if they didn't use the carcass to the fullest extent possible: "
Any whales taken under these special permits shall so far as practicable be processed."
In fact, since it is the Japanese government that gets to choose the merit of its own scientific research programmes, it is in full compliance with the convention.
This is the real problem. Japan took about 800 whales in 2005 for "scientific research". Although their intentions with the whales may be dubious, the article you published villainises Japan for what is a failing of the international community.
Despite best intentions, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) is a joke. Its findings, recommendations and regulations carry no weight, as they are not international law, and members of the IWC are free to ignore them as they choose. Norway, for example, by merely lodging an objection to the moratorium, is no longer bound by it. Japan abides by their findings only under threat of boycotts from the United States.
If Greenpeace, and anti-whaling countries like the UK, US and New Zealand want to stop whaling, they will have to change international law. All they've accomplished is to drive the Japanese whaling industry into the hands of the government, which is where their most successful businesses typically lie.
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