Threatened Whales

 Whales are marine mammals that live all around the world. These creatures have become threatened from the hunting of whales for their oil and meat. Greenpeace is one of many major anti-whaling groups. They strongly try to keep commercial whaling banned forever. Japan Whaling Association (JWA) wants to allow commercial whaling and says that it is part of Japans culture to hunt whales. The Inuit in Greenland also hunts whales but in very few numbers. They are allowed to hunt for whales. To help this problem of whaling these groups should decide on a solution to help all sides.

Greenpeace is an independent campaigning organisation that takes action to expose global environment problems and finds solutions non-violently.  Greenpeace believes that the history of whaling is a history of serial disasters, the extinction of one species after another. There is a ban throughout the world on commercial whaling but Greenpeace still believes that the whales are still not safe. The threats to them are the illegal hunting of whales by Norway, Japan and Iceland. Also climate change, ozone depletion, pollution and overfishing of the whale’s food source.  Greenpeace is doing a lot to end all commercial banning and to make sure that these countries do not succeed in lifting the ban of commercial whaling. They continue to work in the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to help the decisions made. They are also taking international legal action by urging the Australian government to continue diplomatic acts at the IWC. Greenpeace are also confronting the whalers by trying to disrupt and delay the whale hunt.

3.2 Japan Whaling Association (JWA) is a private organisation with the aim to resume commercial whaling. They say that if commercial whaling becomes legal again that over-exploitation will not happen again. JWA say that whaling is one of Japans cultures and asking them to abandon this tradition is the same as telling Americans to stop eating hamburgers and Australians to stop eating meat pies. Japan has undertaken research on whales in the Southern Ocean. Anti-whaling organisations try to blame Japan that this action is commercial whaling in disguise, because after the whales are studied the remains of the whales are frozen and sold. JWA believe this is a tactic to disprove the research credit. Whaling is still occurring around Japan as small type whaling which the Japanese government strictly regulates. This whaling is outside the JWA jurisdiction.