Roger Hanney
An even more strongly worded press release from Environment Minister Garrett has since been removed from his homepage. What seemed a firm commitment to action has become a delayed and symbolically weak, though diplomatically crafty, deployment of the contracted customs vessel Oceanic Viking to shadow the whaling fleet for up to 20 days, with the possibility of additional air surveillance. Unlike NGOs that have already been actively in pursuit for the last month, the government vessel will do little to stop whaling.
JAPAN’S whaling fleet is currently scattered in Antarctic waters, pursued by the Greenpeace ship Esperanza and Sea Shepherd’s Steve Irwin, formerly the Robert Hunter. Based on the rhetoric of Peter Garrett and Kevin Rudd in May of last year, it was expected that Australian naval vessels would be under orders to monitor and intercept the whalers.
This now seems unlikely.
While the new Australian government successfully joined the US government, pressuring Japan to abandon plans to target humpback for the first time in years, Greens Senator Rachel Siewert feels that the real coup belonged to Japan. The Greens, says Siewert, felt that the whalers were always planning to postpone their humpback take.
“After talking up their response,” said Siewert, “the new Labor Government has done little more than the previous Howard government to tackle the whale slaughter.”
To emphasize this fact, deep ocean activists Sea Shepherd recently appointed former Howard environment minister Ian Campbell to their international advisory board. Shepherd Captain Paul Watson said “I believe he did as much as he was able to do to convince the Howard government to oppose Japanese whaling and he did more than the current government of Kevin Rudd is doing.”
In May of last year, the Rudd/Garrett partnership promised firm action to curtail whaling. Measures included the use of international courts and tribunals, the enforcement of Australian bans on whaling within Australian waters, and the use of Australian naval vessels to monitor and intercept whaling vessels deemed to be operating illegally.
An even more strongly worded press release from Environment Minister Garrett has since been removed from his homepage. What seemed a firm commitment to action has become a delayed and symbolically weak, though diplomatically crafty, deployment of the contracted customs vessel Oceanic Viking to shadow the whaling fleet for up to 20 days, with the possibility of additional air surveillance.
Unlike NGOs that have already been actively in pursuit for the last month, the government vessel will do little to stop whaling. This, of course, is frustrating for any groups concerned to see commitments honoured and animals saved.
If, however, these vessels do gather evidence which is to be used in legal proceedings against Japan – another Rudd/Garrett commitment – then hundreds of whales slaughtered now may prevent thousands of deaths in future.
What evidence remains to be gathered, however, remains a mystery. Over the last 4 years, Humane Society International has taken legal action against Japan which was constantly undermined by the federal Attorney-General. From the whaler’s very own records, HSI determined that over 400 whales have illegally been killed in Australian waters over the last decade, while more than half of the whales killed in last year’s slaughter were pregnant at the time of death.
The hunt continues.
