Battling for whales by Tatiana Hadarova

Many of you have probably heard about breaking the international law by Japanese government, which ban the commercial hunting of some endangered species of whales. This multi - lateral agreement called International Convention for the reduction of whaling has been signed by several countries,which food industry is partly based on the whaling, including Canada, Faroe Island, Greenland, Norway and also Japan. Of course, non of these countries strictly obey this agreement, but nowadays, the most controversy causes Japan, which refers their whale hunting for the commercial purposes to their old traditions. Firstly, the Japanese government declared that their whaling is only for the scientific purposes, but after some time it has been discovered, that the most of the whale meat ends in the restaurants as a part of Japanese traditional dishes. Nowadays, the most vocal opponents of the Japanese are Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Japanese ships hunts mostly in the South Pacific and in Antarctic area close to australian coastline. That is why in 2007, Australian government decided to use Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air force to monitor Japanese ships, to collect photographic and video evidence, which could be used in a future international court challenge against Japanese whaling. Lot of controversy is also caused by Greenpeace and by another anti-whaling organisations. On January 15, 2008 two members of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society jumped on the board of the Japanese mother-ship and were held there for two days. Although, they have been successfully transported back home, this little battle is only a small part of the long & term war between commerce and tradition and love to the nature.

related story: http://malaysia.news.yahoo.com/ap/20080118/tap-as-gen-antarctica-whaling-1st-ld-wri-d3b07b8.html

by Tatiana Hadarova for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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