Time to rock the boat on Japanese whaling, report says

Anne Barker, ABC News 19 Jan 09;

A new report has urged the Australian Government to take a whole new approach to stop Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean.

The expert report argues Australia should open up a new front in its anti-whaling campaign by challenging Japan through the forum of the Antarctic treaty system over the environmental costs of its annual slaughter.

The Southern Ocean has long been protected as part of the world's largest unspoiled wilderness Antarctica.

But Japan's so-called scientific whaling program has sparked passionate debate about whether the area is truly an international safe haven for marine life.

While conservation activists continue to harass whaling ships in the open waters, it is the Australian Government which has led diplomatic efforts to enforce the Antarctic whaling sanctuary.

Now the Australian Government is being urged to take a fresh approach to stop Japanese whaling.

Darren Kindleysides represents the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which wages a less confrontational campaign to end Japanese whaling carried out under the guise of scientific research.

It believes Australia should abandon behind the scenes diplomatic persuasion and change tack by challenging Japan, not on whaling, but environmental grounds.

"It's time to rock Japan's boat on the whaling issue and really pull this into the Antarctica treaty forum as a way of challenging Japan and working towards ending their whaling in the Southern Ocean," he told ABC1's The 7.30 Report.

"Whaling activities pose a greater risk to the environment beyond just the risk to whale populations, risk of oil spills and pollution in the Antarctic, and these really need to be challenged within the Antarctic forum.

"Antarctica is known as a unique environmental asset and we need to keep it that way and avoid any threats to it."

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith agrees, but says the Government will continue to tread carefully.

"It's obviously something which the Government will consider, but our approach on whaling continues to be an objective by diplomatic means to have the Japanese Government desist from whaling in the Great Southern Ocean," he said.

An independent policy report just delivered to the Federal Government urges Australia to hold Japan to account over its environmental practices in the Southern Ocean.

The report identifies four specific areas of concern that could form the basis of a challenge: compliance with environmental pollution standards for vessels in the Southern Ocean; compliance with requirements on safety of life at sea; failure to give Australian and New Zealand rescue authorities details on their precise whereabouts in case of emergency; and refuelling and resupply operations at sea in the absence of an environmental impact assessment.

'Remove viability'

International law expert Professor Don Rockwell says the only way that the Japanese whaling program can sustain itself during the summer is through refuelling.

"It uses a vessel called the Oriental Bluebird to undertake those refuelling operations," he said.

"Making just that refuelling operation, which is environmentally quite hazardous, much more accountable would be one that's clearly a plus for the Antarctic environment."

Professor Rothwell is hoping the environmental regulations are so stringent it is no longer viable for Japan to continue whaling at all.

"Japan might say, 'Well look, the cost involved in meeting these environmental regulations are just such that we can no longer viably undertake our whaling program in the Southern Ocean'," he said.

"Providing that Australia was diplomatically strong and persistent in mounting this case, the Canberra panel's conclusions would be that Australia has a strong argument to mount along these lines."