Australia Orders Illegal Whale Hunt Stopped

Australia Orders Illegal Whale Hunt Stopped

 January 2008  - The Humane Society 
International today won a historic decision from the Australian Federal 
Court which the environmental group says could save hundreds of whales 
from Japanese harpoons. The court ruled that a Japanese whaling company is 
in breach of Australian law when it kills whales in the Australian Whale 
Sanctuary and has ordered that the hunt be stopped. 
This is the first time the Japanese whalers have been taken to court and 
the ruling confirms that the hunt is illegal. The Japanese government says 
it is conducting research whaling, which is allowed under an international 
whaling moratorium, but critics of Japan say no research is involved. 
The Japanese whaling company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha has a permit from the 
Japanese government to kill up to 935 minke whales and 50 fin whales in 
Antarctica this summer. Based on records of previous hunts, some 90 
percent of these whales will be killed in the Australian Whale Sanctuary, 
the Humane Society said.

The court states that since 2000 the Japanese whalers have killed 3,558 
minke whales and 13 fin whales in the waters off Antarctica. 
Justice James Alsop ruled that the Japanese company, which did not appear 
in court at any time during the proceedings, has violated the Environment 
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, or the EPBC Act.
The company's offenses are having "killed, injured, taken and interfered 
with Antarctic minke whales (Balaenoptera bonaerensis) and fin whales 
(Balaenoptera physalus) and injured, taken and interfered with humpback 
whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Australian Whale Sanctuary..." 
Australia's sovereignty in Antarctica is the jurisdictional basis for 
Australia declaring under its own domestic laws a whale sanctuary within 
its exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles under the United Nations 
Convention on the Law of the Sea, UNCLOS. 
Judge Alsop declared in his ruling that "the waters within 200 nautical 
miles from the Australian Antarctic Territory land mass are within the 
Australian Whale Sanctuary." 
The judge acknowleged that "Australia's claim to sovereignty over the 
Australian Antarctic Territory is recognised only by four nations (New 
Zealand, France, Norway and the United Kingdom), themselves with asserted 
(and otherwise disputed) claims over various parts of the Antarctic land 
mass." 
"Japan rejects Australia's purported exercise of jurisdiction over waters 
that are considered by Japan to be the high seas," Judge Alsop wrote. 
"This is not a ground for invalidity of the EPBC Act: the sovereign claim 
by Australia to the Australian Antarctic Territory is not a matter capable 
of being questioned in this Court in this proceeding..." 
Judge Alsop ordered the company to stop whaling immediately. 
Humane Society International said it will serve the order that the hunt be 
stopped at the company's headquarters in Tokyo right away and calls on the 
company "to abandon the hunt immediately." 
Barely six weeks old, the government led by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has 
supported the Humane Society's case against the Japanese whalers in 
contrast to the previous government led by John Howard, who opposed it. 
"HSI calls on the Rudd government to live up their pre-election commitment 
to enforce the Federal Court injunction against the whalers immediately so 
that no more whales are killed in the Australian Whale Sanctuary this 
summer," the Humane Society said. 
Meanwhile, in the Southern Ocean, the captain of the Japanese Whaling 
Vessel Yushin Maru No. 2 is holding as hostages two Sea Shepherd crew 
members from the conservation vessel Steve Irwin who attempted to inform 
him that whaling is illegal. 

Australian citizen Benjamin Potts and British citizen Giles Lane have been 
tied to the radar mast of the harpoon vessel. The captain of the whaling 
vessel has refused Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson's demand for the 
release of the crew members. 
Potts and Lane boarded the whaling vessel today with a message to inform 
the Japanese that they were illegally killing whales in the Southern Whale 
Sanctuary. 
Watson is demanding that "Australia and Great Britain demand an immediate 
release of these two crew-members."
The letter that Lane delivered to the captain of the Japanese whaling 
vessel states, "I have come onboard your ship because you have refused to 
acknowledge communication from our ship pertaining to your illegal 
activities in the waters of the Australian Antarctic Territorial Economic 
Exclusion Zone." 
"I am not boarding your ship with the intent to commit a crime, to rob you 
or to inflict injury upon your crew and yourself or damage to your ship. 
My reason for boarding is to deliver the message that you are in violation 
of international conservation law and in violation of the laws of 
Australia. It is my intent to deliver this message and then to request 
that you allow me to disembark from your vessel without harm or seizure. " 

"I am empowered to act to uphold these laws in accordance with the United 
Nations World Charter for Nature and the laws of Australia." 
"I am boarding you with the request that you please refrain from any 
further criminal activity in these waters and cease and desist with the 
continued killing of endangered whales in this designated Whale Sanctuary 
in violation of the IWC global moratorium on commercial whaling and that 
you cease and desist in continued violations of Australian law by killing 
whales within the territorial waters of Australia without permit or 
permission from the government of Australia." 
Back in Canberra, Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett would not 
say that the government would seek to enforce the injunction and try to 
stop the Japanese from killing whales. 
"We will have an adequate and comprehensive monitoring in place," Garrett 
told reporters. Garrett and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said last month 
that the Australian government would monitor the Japanese whalers to 
gather information and video evidence to back a lawsuit of its own against 
the Japanese. 
An Australian Customs vessel left Perth last week on a 20-day monitoring 
mission. 
On the weekend, the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza found the Japanese whalers 
in the Southern Ocean. The crew says they "engaged in a high speed chase 
over hundreds of miles through fog and increasingly rough seas." 
"The factory ship Nisshin Maru has now been driven out of the hunting 
grounds and all whaling has stopped - for now," said Greenpeace crew 
aboard the Esperanza. 
But Glen Inwood, the official New Zealand spokesperson for the Japanese 
whaling says Greenpeace claims of a victory in the Southern Ocean are 
false. According to a New Zealand radio spokesperson, Inwood says the real 
trouble will begin when a ship from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society 
catches up with the whalers.

"That sounds about right," said Watson. "Greenpeace claims to have chased 
the Japanese whalers out of the whaling grounds yet the Japanese have 
never run from Greenpeace before. The truth is they are running from us. 
They have run from us every time we have engaged them in the past and they 
are running now." 
The Sea Shepherd vessel the Steve Irwin has stopped chasing the Nisshin 
Maru, which is out of the whaling area, and is concentrating on pursuing 
the killer boats. 
In Tokyo, Japan Whaling Association president Keiichi Nakajima Saturday 
warned Greenpeace to "stay away from the Japanese vessels conducting 
research in the Antarctic." 
"Past activities of Greenpeace have been responsible for vessel collisions 
that risk the lives and safety of our researchers and crew and are illegal 
under international maritime law," Nakajima said. "I urge Greenpeace to 
desist from any harassment of the research vessels and to keep a safe 
distance" he said. 
Nakajima said that Japan's research whaling "is perfectly legal under the 
International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling" and that a review 
of the results of the research by the IWC's Scientific Committee concluded 
that "have the potential to improve management of minke whales in the 
Southern Hemisphere." 
"We are concerned that once again Greenpeace will use this opportunity to 
conduct more publicity stunts as part of the campaign that misinforms the 
public to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the organization," 
Nakajima said. "We respect the right of safe, peaceful and lawful protest 
and urge Greenpeace to keep their activities within those limits," he 
said. "In the past this has definitely not been the case." 
Greenpeace says, "Modern scientific research does not require whales to 
die." The organization, which got its start in the 1970s by interfering 
with Russian whaling, has a non-lethal research program. 
In collaboration with scientists from the Cook Islands Whale Research, 
Opération Cétacés of New Caledonia and the International Fund for Animal 
Welfare, Greenpeace scientists are doing satellite tracking, skin biopsy, 
and photo identification of whales to demonstrate the effectiveness of 
non-lethal research. 
Greenpeace calls Japanese research whaling "an expensive hoax" and says 
most of the whale meat is "stockpiled in commercial freezers or ending up 
in dog food." 

---