Greenpeace, the international environmental activist group, is launching a major offensive from Cape Town against Japanese whaling ships in the southern oceans.
Two Greenpeace ships docked in Cape Town last Thursday, two days after a Japanese whaling fleet set off for the Antarctic to hunt at least twice the number of whales it normally catches each year.
Greenpeace aims to confront the Japanese whalers and convince them to stop killing whales. It also aims to raise anti-whaling awareness in Japan and, at the same time, put pressure on the global corporate entities that are funding the whaling fleet.
The two Greenpeace ships, Esperanza and Arctic Sunrise, are reportedly under heavy police surveillance in Cape Town harbour. The activists are attributing the surveillance to a Greenpeace anti-nuclear protest that breached security at Koeberg in 2002.
While the South African government does not support commercial whaling and provides sanctuary for breeding whales — drawing flocks of tourists to the Western Cape coast in late winter — the seafaring mammals are fair game for whalers once they head further south.
Greenpeace ship expeditions played a big role in helping to defeat Japan’s 2002 drive to reintroduce commercial whaling through the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The activists boldly harassed the whalers on high seas and drew public attention to their controversial activities.
Japan justifies its continued whaling by calling it a “scientific research” programme. Last week, a six-ship fleet set off from western Japan, aiming to catch about 850 minke whales — almost double its previous annual target of 440 — and 10 fin whales.
The IWC passed a non-binding resolution at a meeting in June that urged Japan to scrap research whaling altogether. Japan threatened to withdraw from the IWC and defiantly doubled its target of whales, which end up on store shelves and the tables of gourmet restaurants.
Greenpeace scheduled a press conference on November 18 to launch its “most ambitious ship expedition”. The offensive is part of a “Year in the Life of Our Oceans”, a 14-month voyage that aims to raise public awareness about the bad shape of the oceans.
Millions of “ocean defenders” will be invited to sail with the organisation in an attempt to pressurise decision-makers around the world to set up marine reserves and promote sustainable use of ocean resources.
“The blue planet is in bad shape and almost nobody cares,” says a Greenpeace strategy document for 2006. “Oceans are Greenpeace’s domain. We are the only organisation sailing to the high seas to confront factory trawlers and other destructive fisheries. We are the only one denouncing — through direct confrontation at sea — the devastating practice of bottom trawling on seamounts.”
As in its previous “Save the Whales” campaigns, the plan is to focus on iconic species such as whales, dolphins and dugongs as symbols of the need to preserve the entire marine ecosystem.
“We [will] also promote our message on equitable sustainability; highlighting how greedy interests from rich countries are literally stealing fish from community fishermen in West Africa, India or the Pacific,” says the document.