An interesting article printed in my newspaper today regarding whaling
I agree with the writer 100%
Anti-whalers are tone deaf - Opinion: views on the news on Stuff.co.nz
At the risk of being harpooned by the anti-whalers, could I ever so tentatively suggest that we ponder a change of approach from the dangerous full-on confrontations, ship collisions and drama in the dangerous Southern Ocean.
Without a doubt, continued Japanese whaling is a huge impediment to relations with Japan, our third-largest trading partner. But if there is one thing that will rally Japanese patriotism, it is foreigners pushing the country around in public. That makes it impossible for Japanese politicians to budge, especially as the Western furore over whaling is incomprehensible in Japanese terms.
I recall a Japanese ambassador's daughter snookering me, many years ago, in a discussion on the subject.
Newly arrived in Wellington from Tokyo, the intelligent, articulate university student was genuinely puzzled about our obsession.
She was incredulous that New Zealanders could shoot and eat Bambi. And also those little white lambs that looked so pretty frolicking around in our fields. She could not bring herself to do this and could not comprehend the contradiction in our stance, though, like most Japanese, she would not eat whale meat either.
This came to mind when newly appointed Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully warned last week that taxpayers could not be expected to fund rescue operations when protestors came to grief challenging Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean.
The bravery, skill and idealism of the anti-whaling protestors is without doubt. The trouble is, these high-profile ritual protests seem to be contributing to the problem as well as endangering the participants. Far from hastening the end of whaling, they may actually be helping to prolong it.
The dramatic protests, while great for Greenpeace's image and fundraising, reinforce Japanese intransigence and make it more difficult for rational Japanese diplomats and bureaucrats to win the debate in the hugely powerful bureaucracies in Tokyo, and then in the Japanese parliament.
This was made clear in a revealing interview on these pages last week with Tomohiko Taniguchi, the official spokesman for the Japanese Foreign Affairs Ministry for the past three years.
No longer a government official, he candidly admitted he loathed having to defend whaling because it was damaging to Japanese interests and irrelevant to the economy.
Whaling accounted for only .0014 per cent of the economy and employed only a few thousand in a country of 130 million.
"The stake for Japan is near zero."
About 80 Japanese politicians supported whaling, but it was a core issue for only six to eight, Mr Taniguchi pointed out.
His view was that a lowering of the level of protest could help the persuasion progress within Japan, rather than entrenching political support.
Anti-whalers are more inclined to the Bob Tizard full- frontal approach, in spite of the useful signals from Mr Taniguchi, and the Sea Shepherd protest ship will continue confrontations this year. But Greenpeace, interestingly, has opted instead for a public relations campaign in an endeavour to sway Japanese public opinion.
Of course, no one is taking the long view, to the period following a whaling ban. Ultimately there will need to be culling of non- baleen whales, which eat tonnes of fish, in much the same way as some African countries cull elephant herds to match the environment.
Either that or, as these species proliferate, we may see certain fish stocks depleted to such an extent that they are priced off our tables.
And then there are those protected and proliferating seal colonies around our coasts, consuming vast amounts of fish.