High Seas Drama/Trauma

Moby Dickheads

It's "a fine line between clever and stupid" according to Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap, and more often than not it takes the kind of idiot like Nigel to cross the line with alacrity and ask, "who, me?"
The news of the week is how the Sea Shepherd is having a showdown with the Japanese whaling fleet. In the latest run of action, a pair of protesters have boarded one of the Japanese vessels. Their return to the protest ship is looking uncertain.

It's believed a government patrol vessel, the Oceanic Viking, has been sent to act as an intermediary as Foreign Minister Stephen Smith repeated demands for the pair to be released.

Two days ago, two crew members of the Sea Shepherd vessel, the Steve Irwin, boarded a Japanese whaling ship.

It's reported 28 year old Australian Benjamin Potts and 35 year old Britain Giles Lane, boarded the other vessel only to hand an anti-whaling letter to the captain.

The whaling ship however, claims they were attacked by activists from the Steve Irwin, who threw acid at their ship, and boarded their vessel as an act of piracy.

The piracy claim may be well founded.

'The acts by Sea Shepherd do fit the technical definition of piracy, under the law of the Sea Convention; so that at least is a strongly arguable case,' said Professor Gillian Trigg, a maritime law expert.

Paul Watson, the captain of the Steve Irwin, says Potts had to struggle to stop the whalers from throwing him overboard, while the boat was travelling at 17 knots.

Colleagues claim the pair was then left tied up on the deck in freezing conditions for hours.

A spokesman for the Japanese Institute for Cetacean Research has denied those allegations, and says the men are being well treated.

Federal Police are investigating the detention, and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith has demanded the men be released.

'The Australian Government wants the two gentlemen returned to the Steve Irwin in a safe and secure condition,' Mr Smith said.

But Sea Shepherd claim that the whalers are refusing to release the men until all anti-whaling action is called off.

And so we go through another round of what can only be called 'whaling non-diplomacy'. It's a bit early this year, as the IWC stoush usually takes place around May. I guess it's because the high seas are filled with busy whaling boats pretending to do science and media-slut eco-terrorists. Meanwhile the news papers have got the populace all stitched up in apoplectic frenzy.

Hundreds of Herald readers took part in a website forum yesterday after two activists were held by a Japanese whaling crew.

Most called for a tough but measured political and legal response by the Rudd Government and a couple jokingly suggested avoiding sushi restaurants and Japanese cars.

But there was also a belligerent fringe who referred to imperial Japan's atrocities during World War II as justification for more sinister action.

Several argued that the Japanese regarded the whale hunt as a matter of nationalism and would not back down.

The comments were vetted to prevent the debate teetering into unabashed Japan bashing and most contributors did not use their real names.

"Do we not have submarines loaded with torpedoes? … I say send the subs down to the whaling sanctuary and any ship that's deemed taking part in whaling activities [be] torpedoed and sunk," said Damo.

"Send in the gunboats!" demanded Dave Collins.

Several suggested the Royal Australian Navy police the Southern Ocean in the same way it does the seas to our north.

"If they were Indonesians fishing in the northern Australian waters, the Government would impound the vessel and imprison the crew … Diplomacy be damned," wrote Frank.

"Treat them the same as other illegal fishermen," suggested Thomas. "Take their boats and burn them, send the whalers back to Japan with a big fine."

In a way, it's score one to the Sea Shepherd and company. If hey can appeal to the base racism and cultural hatred for Japan to get them to support the anti-whaling position, then they've done good. This stuff is pretty far from reasoned debate. I mean, the captain of the Sea Shepherd's ship, the 'Steve irwin' captain is likening the whalers to Al Qaeda. Now that's hysterical rhetoric.
The Japanese position is correspondingly overstated in its rhetoric:

The International Whaling Commission passed a global moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982, without any scientific justification and without recommendation by its scientific committee. Since then, differing opinions have become entrenched as polarised rhetoric. Together with a lack of good faith in negotiations, this raises serious questions about the commission's continued institutional legitimacy and whether it has a future.

The whaling convention is not - nor has it ever been - about protecting all whales irrespective of how abundant they are. When it was agreed in 1946, it was about the proper management of the whaling industry by regulating catch quotas so that whale stocks would not be diminished. That Australia was a whaling country when it signed the convention but subsequently changed its position to anti-whaling in the 1970s does not change the convention.

Australia has sacrificed the principles of science-based management and sustainable use that are the world standard (and which Australia uses in other international forums and for the management of its own wildlife) as a political expediency to satisfy the interests of non-government organisations. Australia's intransigence and continued lobbying of other members of the International Whaling Commission to resolutely oppose any return to sustainable commercial whaling - and research whaling - has helped to bring the commission to the brink of collapse. Australia's hypocritical behaviour has been one of the causes of Japan's desire to form an alternative whaling organisation through which appropriate management of whale resources could be pursued.

Furthermore, the suggestion of Australia's Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, and Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, that somehow Japan's whale research violates international law is without foundation. Article VIII of the whaling convention unequivocally provides the right to kill whales for research purposes.

Japan's research is of vital importance. Australia has no intention at the present time to resume commercial whaling so it has no need for the kind of scientific data needed for a sustainable management regime. However, since this is the purpose of Japan's research there are some kinds of indispensable data that simply cannot be obtained by non-lethal means.

As a result of Japan's research program, we now know more about the status of whale stocks and whale biology than at any time in history and this knowledge increases each year.

That about sums it up. the rest of it is the usual guff of mounting the 'cultural argument'. I'm a little over the cultural argument, as it is clear that the market for actual whale meat is just not what it used to be. So this whaling activity is looking more and more like a state-subsidised industry. Why is Japan willing to stick its neck out this much for a whole lot of meat not even its own constituents want to eat?