17
November 2008 - Innoshima, Japan — Our activists
marked the departure of Japan's whaling
fleet from the port of Innoshima with banners
declaring "Whaling on Trial" and
another in Japanese outlining the whaling
operation's multi-million dollar drain on
Japan's taxpayers. The fleet had attempted
to leave for the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary
unnoticed, by canceling their traditional
high-profile departure ceremony in Shimonoseki.
Instead, the factory ship Nisshin Maru left
with no fanfare, waved off only by the crew's
families and whaling officials.
The whaling industry
has been beleaguered by stories of corruption,
confusion and collapse.
First, our undercover
investigation exposed an embezzlement scandal
at the heart of the industry. We discovered
whale meat being smuggled off the ships,
mailed to private addresses, and sold for
personal gain -- worth so much that one
crew member boasted he had built a house
on the proceeds. Our expose brought calls
from Japan's most respected newspaper, Asahi
Shimbun, and the Tokyo public prosecutor
for a full investigation. The taint of scandal
made sailing aboard the whaling ship become
less attractive and, with the introduction
of tiny official "souvenir whale meat"
allocations, less lucrative. Now, for the
first time ever, the fleet is sailing without
an all-Japanese crew.
Then we went after the
whaling fleet's refueling and cargo vessel,
Oriental Bluebird. It was fined and deflagged
for violations of its Panamanian license.
Without the Bluebird, the fleet will be
lacking the ability to transport whale meat
back to Japan. If they don't find a replacement,
they will be forced to cut back on the hunt.
Oops!
It was no surprise to us when the Japanese
media reported this week, from a source
within the industry, that the whalers were
cutting their self-appointed quota of harpooned
whales by 20 percent. And it wasn't surprising
when this news was then contradicted by
a spokesman for the Japan Fisheries Agency,
who insisted that they would still aim to
hunt the usual 935 minke whales and 50 endangered
fin whales. The Japanese government is divided
over the whaling issue, and this isn't the
first time that the left hand didn't know
what the right hand was doing.
Grab the code and put
this banner on your blog or website.
To add to the evidence of this industry's
downward spiral - it was also announced
that 'Yushin,' the flagship whale meat shop
and restaurant in Asakusa, Tokyo, will close
down in 2010 due to ongoing financial problems.
The whales are winning
Constant pressure on Japan's whaling industry
by the international community has reduced
the fleet to sneaking out of port in a fog
of crisis and scandal, desperate to avoid
attention. It's clear that the entire whaling
programme is a shambles, driven by bad business
and worse science.
This year we're focused
on bringing an end to whaling from within
Japan, where 71 percent of the public do
not support the taxpayer-subsidised whaling
programme.
Beginning of the end
But the whalers won't
go down without a fight. Already, they have
lashed back at our office in Japan, orchestrating
the political arrest of two of our activists,
Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, for their
role in exposing the whaling scandal. They've
been charged with stealing the whale meat
they turned over to the police as evidence,
and face up to ten years in prison. The
police raided our offices, seizing supporter
data, documents, and computer disks
We refuse to be shut
down. We'll continue making the case to
the Japanese people that the whaling programme
is simply a shameful misuse of taxpayers
money. The obvious disarray within the whaling
industry and the extreme overreaction by
the authorities towards the Junichi and
Toru shows that we are successfully pulling
the rug out from under the whaling industry's
feet. It's the beginning of the end and
it's time for Japanese taxpayers to demand
the government stop subsidising this bankrupt
programme, and to order the fleet home.
+ More
Activists block tanker
carying palm oil
14 November 2008 - Dumai,
Indonesia — Activists have blocked the operations
of another tanker bound for Europe stocked
with crude palm oil. The tanker, the Isola
Corallo, was supposed to load up today but
activists onboard the Esperanza moved into
its place alongside the harbour and prevented
the Corallo from taking on palm oil.
Earlier this week an
activist locked onto the anchor chain of
the Isola Corallo for over 36 hours and
stopped the cargo ship from moving. After
the activist was forced to come down, the
Esperanza occupied the palm oil loading
facility to prevent the Isola Corrallo from
loading Sinar Mas palm oil. The Esperanza
was finally forced off the berth by Port
authority tugs after a seven hour face-off.
Read more about the showdown.
Sustainable or Greenwash?
The palm oil the Corallo
was due to collect is owned by the Sinar
Mas group, Indonesia’s largest palm oil
company, they account for around 10% of
production. Sinar Mas is a key member of
the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil,
a self-regulated industry body that celebrated
the first shipment to Europe of “sustainable
palm oil” this week.
Sustainable palm oil
sounds great. However, our investigation
shows that the RSPO is little more than
greenwash. One company receiving RSPO certification
- United Plantations, a supplier of Nestlé
and Unilever - is involved with deforestation
in the vulnerable peatland forests of Kalimantan
in Indonesia. Sinar Mas also is involved
with deforestation all over Indonesia, including
in Kalimantan and Papua and has aggressive
expansion plans for the future.
RSPO certification dictates
the rules for plantations that want to become
certified. However these rules do not fully
prohibit forest clearance, even on peatlands,
which is a key element in fighting climate
change. In particular, the clearance, drainage,
and burning of peatland forests makes Indonesia
the third biggest emitter of greenhouse
gases in the world. Unfortunately, RSPO
members are not obliged to change anything
in their practices, until they enter the
certification process.
Forests for climate
With the current speed of cutting and burning
forests, the Indonesian lowland rainforests
will have largely disappeared within the
next 15 years, the standards of RSPO are
insufficient and in its current form the
RSPO will not solve the problems of deforestation
in South-East Asia. Both industry and government
need to take urgent action to protect our
forests.
Today’s action follows
several weeks of activists on the Forests
for Climate Tour taking action and bearing
witness. Read more about the Esperanza's
journey through Indonesia on the ship tour
blog.
