JANUARY 14, 2011, 8:05 PM JST
Japan's Whale Diplomacy: More WikiLeaks
A swath of cables released by WikiLeaks show that Iceland looked to fellow pro-whaling nation Japan to bolster its case to ease the international ban on whale hunting. But Japan was hard-pressed to help.
(AFP/Getty Images
The Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin, right, pursues the Japanese whaling fleet, left, during clashes in the Southern Ocean on Jan. 1.)
Iceland has been criticized by environmental groups and the international community for continuing whale-hunting missions despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling set by the International Whaling Commission. Japan also fends off attacks for whale-hunting, claiming it is for scientific research, a crack in the ban that allows whales be caught for research purposes.
Several cables originating from the U.S. embassy in Reykjavik, posted online with a release date of Jan. 13, discuss Iceland's slippery decision to export 60 tons of fin whale meat to Japan in June 2008. While Iceland hunts both minke and fin whales, the former is the only kind of meat consumed and sold domestically, requiring the fin meat to find a welcoming market overseas. The sale raised hairs among anti-whaling countries at the time. It was the first international commercial trade since the early 1990s and seen as a move to open a new export market, which would boost pro-whaling groups' push to overturn or ease whaling restrictions by showing there is a healthy appetite for whale meat. But comments made by employees of Hvalur, the company that exported the whale meat to Japan, in a cable dated July 9, 2009, from the U.S. embassy in Reykjavik show that the outlook for a blustering new whale market was bleak.
"Staff members of Hvalur, hf, which is the only company in Iceland with the capability to hunt large whales, told Emboff [embassy officials] on July 3 that whaling is providing jobs for 150 to 200 people. However, they admitted they are keeping their fingers crossed that there is a market for the meat and said, otherwise `this is a doomed operation.'"
The cable goes on to add that the Japanese Charge d'Affaires at the time informed embassy officials that "he didn't believe there was a market for the fin meat in Japan." Japan's whale meat stocks have increased sharply in recent years, indicating a drop in consumption of the meat.
Despite the Japanese official's comments, however, it appeared U.S. officials continued to speculate that Iceland would eye Japan as an export destination three months later. A cable dated September 24, 2009 from the U.S. Secretary of State posited that the Nordic country's "significant increase in whaling activity" may mean "that this large fin whale harvest will be exported to Japan (note: there are several non-governmental organizations who believe that the Japanese market is currently saturated by Japan's own whaling activities.)"
And speculation wasn't far off. It was learned that the Icelandic whaling firm Hvalur shipped up to 600 tons of finback whale meat to Japan in 2010, according to Japanese media reports in late October. Hvalur had suspended exports of whale meat the previous year.
0 comments:
Post a Comment