STRICKEN WHALER MAY SINK JAPAN PLANS TO PUT MINKE ON MENUS

by Suvendrini Kakuchi

(IPS) TOKYO -- The stranding of a Japanese whaler off the Antarctic coast may wrecked plans by the government to promote whale meat as part of the country's traditional diet and resume commercial whaling on that basis.

"The ship will have to return minus its full catch which will cause a blow to Japan's plans to renew commercial whaling that is partly based on increasing the public sale of whale meat," Junichi Sato, a volunteer with Greenpeace Japan, told IPS.

The Nisshin Maru left Japan's Shimonoseki port in mid-November with plans to hunt down 850 minke whales and 10 fin whales, approved by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), as a Ôscientific expedition.'

Sato said the ship, that caught fire and is refusing international help, will have to undergo extensive repairs -- a situation that will further delay its return. Questions are now being raised at home about continuing government subsidies for a program that already has dwindling public support.

The Antarctic expedition alone costs $4.7 million and public funds to support scientific whaling expeditions are being criticized at home and abroad as a guise for commercial whaling.

New Zealand, an anti-whaling country, has extended help to the stranded crew members, one of whom has died. There is also the danger of an environmental disaster in the event of an oil spill.

The incident comes on the heels of an informal conference on whaling, organized by the Japanese government, to make Ô'the IWC viable again because it is split between pro- and anti-whalers," said Jiro Hyugaji, an official at the resources management section at the ministry of fisheries.

Hyugaji explained to IPS that Japan must work to Ô'normalize" the IWC, by restoring what he insists is restoring the original goal of the organization -- to function as a resource management center rather than as a conservation group.

The IWC issued a whaling moratorium in 1982, but Japan has been conducting limited whaling since 1987 under the stated purpose of collecting data.

The Japanese government argues that populations of some whale species have increased to point where harvesting is possible under a sustainable policy but activists say that this will seriously endanger the largest mammals in the world.

Proposals for revamping the IWC at the conference included introducing secret balloting, increasing public education on whaling and building a middle group between the two polarized positions.

Anti-whalers disagree. Ô'The conference in Tokyo wanted to start commercial whaling on the pretext of sustainability. But we think that despite that the conference was just a massive public relations exercise for Japan," said Nanami Kurosawa of the Dolphin and Whale Action Network, a non-governmental group.

She pointed out that anti-whaling countries like the United States and Australia have not attended the meeting despite invitations from Japan.

The aggressive stance in Tokyo, according to experts, has pitched the issue of conservation against Ômanagement' of marine resources, already a headache for Japan with its fish resources threatened by over-fishing.

During an international conference on tuna conservation held in Japan last month, the government voluntarily decided to reduce tuna fishing bowing to reports of steadily depleting stocks.

Jun Sakamoto, a wild life expert and lawyer, says Japan's attempts to Ônormalise' the IWC can also be linked to a diplomatic challenge for officials who have been faced with a series of humiliating defeats at the IWC with Tokyo failing to gain approval to resume hunting.

Ô'I view the latest conference as a show held by the Japanese fisheries officials to increase public approval for whaling. It is a waste of tax money which could have been better spent on conservation," he told IPS.

A Greenpeace release pointed out that 53 countries received about 820 million dollars in fisheries aid between 1994 and 2007 but this was conditional only recipients maintaining alignment with Japan on fisheries issues.

Bruno Maini, a delegate from Switzerland, said the conference was a chance to search for an agreement between the two opposing camps against the reality of scientific whaling expeditions that allows hunting. Ô'There is a need to be realistic as scientific whaling increases the number of catches and shows that the moratorium is not working," he said.

Japan will be present at the next IWC conference to be held in Alaska in May. Tokyo will argue that populations of certain whale species, especially minke whales, have recovered and that the time is right for a different, sustainability-based approach.

Officials also insist that whale meat is a traditional diet of the Japanese people and that they have been forced to forgo this only because of the IWC ban.

But such a stance, argue conservationists, has only kindled nationalistic sentiment and isolated Japan internationally.