I was astonished, dismayed, and angry, by all the footage, and some of my colleagues at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said that is was very hard even to watch. There is no special effects on the images, it is true blood and slaughter.

But a full year would pass by before I had the chance of seeing the full version. It was played at the room 303 of the Pestana Casino Hotel, the same venue where the IWC 61st meeting was being held. Then I realised that I started to see some of the main characters of the movie in different occasions and places.

The man who opened the door was Charles Hambleton, one of the cameras, but I recognized him from before. Back in 2006, he was also at the same beach I was in St. Kitts, he was holding a camera, and I was being arrested for “unlawful demonstration”, the term used on my deportation order. Yes I got deported from that Caribbean island.

Also the day prior to that, Ric O’Barry also did his demonstration holding a flat screen with images of the Taiji bay dolphin killing season rolling, in the face of the Japanese delegation, in the middle of a ongoing schedule of the IWC meeting.

Also in 2008, during the IWC meeting in Santiago, Chile, I met Captain Paul Watson, the leader of Sea Shepherd, Dave Rastovich and Howie Cooke, 2 of the minds behind Surfers for Cetaceans.

I watched the movie next to Junichi, a Greenpeace activist arrested and now waiting for trial, for exposing the true nature of the “research” endeavour Japan takes every year in the Southern Ocean, killing around 1000 whales.

In the end of the movie Junichi pointed out that Hideki Moronuki, Deputy of Fisheries for Japan, was not fired, as the film claims. This a policy of the Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), he was reassigned to a different position. This is in fact very cleaver, leaving us, the activists and people working on the issue, never knowing who is where.

Is is behind doubt the best documentary I’ve ever seen! So arm yourself with knowledge and learn what you can do!

However, I must say I don’t get the critics to Greenpeace and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). We also (me having made part of IFAW in several occasions, and Greenpeace on others) make a lot of effort in trying for things to come around, maybe Ric O’Barry and Sea Shepherd, do things a little different or on other fronts, I don’t condemn them even though sometimes I even might disagree with some of their tactics, but ultimately we are working towards the same goal.

No one is perfect, neither is Ric O’Barry, Greenpeace, IFAW, Sea Shepherd, or all of them combined. I don’t really get the point of these pointing fingers …

Although I do agree that perhaps Greenpeace and IFAW could take a much more active position on this. However the work they have done inside the IWC has made possible in many fronts a better world for whales and dolphin. And I do know and have been working with passionate people that do whatever they can to stop whaling.

Better, not enough…
Still, 23.000 dolphins are killed or sold alive every year, coming from the cove of Taiji, and what keeps this going is the DOLPHINARIUM INDUSTRY! Every time you go and watch a dolphin show at a zoo or sea-life aquarium, you are actively contributing to the slaughter and suffering of these animals, there is no way around this fact!

But this is part of a bigger picture and to put a stop to these we need to work together, not away from each other and pointing finger out.

However I do understand Ric O’Barry claims, and can also relate to it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw5qgVp0jng

Ric O’Barry argues that all dolphins should be delivered to their natural habitat, the ocean.  I agree! No cetacean should be taken from the ocean to be put on a swimming pool, but if we learned anything from the Orca Keiko (main character on the movie “save willy”), is that the releasing of animals with long period of confinement back to the ocean, leads to almost certain death. However all dolphins capable of readapting to their TRUE and NATURAL environment (the ocean), should be released AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

I would also propose a phase-out. No dolphin is captured for aquariums of any kind, and there would be no more reproduction in captivity. When the last captive dolphin dies, the industry dies with it. Ah, an no more dolphin circus-like activities, too, please! This blocks the mind of people, who watch the shows, it is an animal doing tricks for food, there is nothing emotional or educational on that.

I also agree with something that Ric O’Barry says that, Dolphins are whales, size doesn’t matter! In fact even on scientific terms there are no whales and dolphins, there are Mysticetis (Baleen whales) and Odontocetis (toothed whales). Dolphins and Whales are common-names, derived from the family delphinidae, a sub-group of Odontocetis. For example a Pilot Whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus) is not a whale is a dolphin, also The Orca (Orcinus orca), also known as killer whale, is not a whale is a dolphin, the largest of its family. So big that is has the same size of a minke whale (Balaenoptera bonaerensis), now the main target of Japanese whaling (since all larger whales were hunted to the break of extinction), but still Japan argues that some species are whales and other should not be under the mandate of the IWC.

Furthermore, Japan says that whaling and the killing of dolphins is part of their heritage and tradition, is this is so, why is that most of the Japanese population doesn’t know about it? All is it is a bogus claim and a fat lie.

Mercury poison, is all that is left after eating a dolphin from the bay of Taiji, the recommended total level of mercury in seafood, by Japanese standards should be 0.4 ppm (parts per million), analysis of meat from dolphins killed in the bay of Taiji account for 2000 ppm!!!

But the aim of the killings in the bay of Taiji is not the meat, that is a by-product, resulting from the dolphin not selected to be sold for dolphinariums around the world for 150.000 dollars each!

Is that’s their tradition, and heritage?

People say they relate to dolphins and feel connected with them in this way. What a stupid thing, they just want to please themselves with something they relate to, in their twisted mind, having a creature in confinement doing repetitive movements, no singular movements or free will, all trained for the purpose of pleasing someone that wants to kiss, touch and hug… is this you relate to? Think again!

A semana passada, uma pessoa do Oceanário de Lisboa perguntou-me se as pessoas ligadas a instituições como a Greenpeace e o Fundo Internacional para a Protecção da Vida Animal (IFAW), como é o meu caso, viam ou não com bons olhos o trabalho desenvolvido pelo Oceanário de Lisboa.

Esse penso ser um estigma já ultrapassado, porque acredito que desde que sejam dadas as devidas condições para os animais serem mantidos em cativeiro, e existem vários indicadores de bem-estar que podem ser monitorizados, estes transformam-se autênticos embaixadores do mundo oceânico, que permitem a milhares de pessoas (o oceanário festejou recentemente a visita do visitante 12 milhões) ter contacto com um mundo submerso que de outra forma seria totalmente impossível.

Mas uma coisa é a posição oficial da Greenpeace ou IFAW, outra é as pessoas que trabalham com eles, que nem sempre reflectem a posição pública da ONG, e que muitas vezes é algo extremista.

Penso ainda que existe uma diferença abismal entre uma instituição como o Oceanário de Lisboa e por exemplo, empresas como delfinários (onde se proporcionam espectáculos com golfinhos e outros animais, que fazem truques e acrobacias a troco de comida, para contentamento da audiência), em que nestes não é possível proporcionar um bem-estar adequado. Os golfinhos baseiam a sua vida na acústica, e para um animal que consegue distinguir uma bola com 6,5cm de outra com 7,5cm a 70 metros de distância, através de meios acústicos, uma vida numa piscina em que cada uso do seu sistema de ecolocação  se converte em tortura com o reflexo do som em todas as paredes do tanque onde estão cativos a entrar nos seus cérebros e a descarregar informação de confinamento. Estes em cativeiro deixam mesmo de usar o seu sistema de percepção sensorial.
Claro que a solução não é libertar estes animais, visto que muitos deles, já nascidos em cativeiro (que é um evento não muito comum, difícil de acontecer naturalmente e de manter as crias vivas até à idade adulta), não se adaptariam ao meio natural.
Contudo oponho-me à captura destes animais, do seu ambiente natural para piscinas de entretenimento, para satisfazer a um público que fica com uma ideia totalmente deturpada do comportamento natural destes cetáceos, da sua fisiologia, ecologia e  dignidade.

O papel do Oceanário de Lisboa, bem diferente de um delfinário, e de instituições similares na actualidade é vital para a conservação e consciencialização social para os problemas que assolam os oceanos e as criaturas que vivem e de ele dependem.

“O Oceanário celebra a vida na Terra através de uma visão deslumbrante da vasta e complexa diversidade de seres vivos que habitam este Oceano Global, evocando o papel vital que este exerce na saúde e evolução planetária.”
Francisca Menezes Ferreira in “Pavilhão do Oceanos – Exposição Mundial de Lisboa de 1998″

As pessoas quando vêm acreditam, quando lêem, nem sempre. Ou é uma realidade tão distante que não se conseguem relacionar. É esse o papel do oceanário, aproximar realidades, e deslumbrar-nos, sempre que olhamos para aquele enorme tanque.

E esta é uma história de que como este papel é importante.

“O Pollock do Alasca (Theragra chalcogramma) caiu de “a melhor escolha” para “uma boa alternativa” para os consumidores, na última avaliação da espécie pelo Monterey Bay Aquarium, que publica a lista/cartão Seafood Watch usado por milhões de restaurantes quando encomendam peixe.”

E com as falhas na governança internacional a todos os níveis que esta tenta actuar resta-nos a nós, através de instrumentos como este fazer uma escolha, e que essa seja um futuro melhor para nós e as gerações vindouras.

Then during the Rip Curl Pro Search, surf championship, in Peniche (October), Portugal, I had the chance, thanks to Melanie Salmon and George Duffield (producer of the movie) of screening it to a small audience, and see their faces of astonishment for the facts lay down before them.

Last November, the Portuguese Platform of Non Governmental Organizations, PESCA (meaning fishery in Portuguese), hosted a great event at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, followed by a debate on the state of fisheries, worldwide. Present at the discussion was the author the book that inspired the movie, Charles Clover; César Deben from the European Commisson; representatives from NGOs and Portuguese fisheries. It was very interesting, and I was impressed by Mr. Clover direct and intense responses at the EU politician present, basically saying that “what your are doing is not enough, do better, do it now!”. Superb!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bedirwk95Oc

About the movie:
I was blown away by it, and felt a few shivers down my spine, when confronted with the facts and concrete reality of today’s oceans, our responsibility towards them. Fish is running out, and we (humans) are not slowing down to get every last one of them! The United Nations state the ocean as property, not of fisherman, not of any company or multinational, nor from an entity but from the citizen, like you and me. It is time to claim them back, care about them and allow it to heal, recover, and so we can still use the resources it offer us, on a sustainable way, and perpetuate its uses into the future.

Now, it is clear, we have reached the limits of what the ocean is capable of providing; the end of a finite resource that will run-out if we do not take appropriate measures, NOW!

“Scientists predict that if we continue fishing as we are now, we will see the end of most seafood by 2048.

The End of the Line chronicles how demand for cod off the coast of Newfoundland in the early 1990s led to the decimation of the most abundant cod population in the world, how hi-tech fishing vessels leave no escape routes for fish populations and how farmed fish as a solution is a myth.

The film lays the responsibility squarely on consumers who innocently buy endangered fish, politicians who ignore the advice and pleas of scientists, fishermen who break quotas and fish illegally, and the global fishing industry that is slow to react to an impending disaster.

The End of the Line points to solutions that are simple and doable, but political will and activism are crucial to solve this international problem.

We need to control fishing by reducing the number of fishing boats across the world, protect large areas of the ocean through a network of marine reserves off limits to fishing, and educate consumers that they have a choice by purchasing fish from independently certified sustainable fisheries.”
Read more here!

Greenpeace developed a Seafood Red List. Using it you can power yourself to change things around by your ultimate decision-making as a consumer. If there is no market, there is no industry for it, pretty simple.

The problems of the ocean are easy to forget, with calm seas, blue skies, a gentle breeze, a wonderful sunset the problems beneath the surface, are far from sight, thus far from mind.

We need to save the oceans from harm sway. If we want to see the Tuna, Shark, Cod, Salmon, Shrimp and so many other species, strive and recover and the endangered stamp they have been “awarded” taken away.

It is time for something; we humans are normally afraid, CHANGE.

CHANGE in fishing methods;
CHANGE in fishing practices;
CHANGE in fish consuming habits;
(to allow fish stocks to recover)
CHANGE the way we think about the oceans;
(and the need of Marine Protected Areas off limits to fisheries)
CHANGE our MIND and CLAIM the oceans back to us!

This sentence to me marked that meeting and period, when Japan uses corruption end to meet his aims, with no regard to nature and the livelihood and heritage of the next generations, using resources for profit or stubbornness, if that resources goes extinct, it doesn’t really matter. The IWC61 itself was a big hole full of nothing, and especially big governmental mouths full of empty words and no actions, no resolutions and no whales saved during that meeting.

Mr. Mark Simmonds summed it up very well when he wrote on his blog: “So where were we – ah yes in the gloom of a vast meeting chamber of a big international meeting room where ‘nothing is decided until everything is decided’ … or possibly just ‘nothing is decided’”

I was profoundly sad and as it has been usual during the last period that I’ve attended the IWC and done actions and contributed to the movement devoted to end whaling, I was feeling what I like to call a “post-action depression”. Happens after a very intense period of work and by the end of it nothing has been accomplished. Our struggle was in vain, and it has been since Japan started whaling in the southern ocean sanctuary, to recruit countries to their side, and established a stalemate inside the IWC, meaning that nothing changes year after year.

But some light is shinning ahead, maybe it is a tunnel end, or not…

In the beginning of the year I wrote an entry titled “And if the crisis would solve the whaling issue?” where I wondered that even though “we cannot really forecast what will happen, and do nothing but wondering about it [while we keep fighting to make whaling history], the fuel prices will fell dramatically, the Japanese whaling industry and hardware is getting old and they been having repeated misfortunes lately. The Oriental Bluebird, the refueling vessel that would go down to the Antarctic lost its registration and Panamá flag and is now registered in Japan requiring more staff and funds etc.”

Now it seems that my thoughts were not so astray.

The eminent change it is not only due to crisis, but to a number of given situations lead by it. Political change in Japan itself; shortly after taking office last October the Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama confide his dislike for whale meat saying that “I hate whale meat”.

Even thou the government at the time was showing no signs of discontinue the policy followed by his antecedents; buttressing up an unnecessary, unsustainable and uneconomic industry that has no place in the 21st century, now things seem to be changing.

IFAW was also focusing efforts inside Japan and with other NGOs such as Greenpeace urged the new Prime Minister to rethink about Japan stance on whaling and its national fleet.

The end of whaling in the southern ocean seems a possible reality now! I have withstand long conversations with Milko Schvartzman from Greenpeace International, and his belief was that if we are to save whales, the frontline of resistance must be inside Japan, our activism our efforts must come from within. Us on the outside are like little helpers, and can do just up to some point. My dear friend Sidney Holt also shared that vision; he always says that whaling has to be so economically unbearable that it is abandoned.

Now it seems that crisis will also affect whaling. We hope!

Information arrived to me via the Greenpeace International website with the topic: End of Japanese whaling might be in sight.

On it you can read:

“A major review of Japanese government spending could spell the end to whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

Commissioned to cut wasteful programmes by Japan’s new government, a review committee has proposed massive cuts in subsidies to a body which funds the so-called whaling research programme.

Without government subsidies, the whaling programme would be doomed.

The Spending Review Committee recommended that the Overseas Fisheries Cooperation Fund (OFCF), which gives loans to the Institute for Cetacean Research (ICR) to run the discredited science programme, have all of its funding revoked, except monies needed for loans in 2010.

The OFCF claims it needs 70.4 billion yen (around US$780 million) for various programmes, including whaling, in 2010. The Review Committee and Cabinet Office will determine by early next year if the proposed operations for 2010 are actually “necessary” or should also be cut.

The Institute for Cetacean Research, which runs the whaling programme, has failed to repay government loans for several years now, as demand for whale meat has plummeted and the cost of whaling increased. Practises which would have lead to bankruptcy for any commercial firm have been the target of outspoken criticism not only from Greenpeace Japan, but from the business press and even the former spokesperson for the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Tomohiko Taniguchi. Taniguchi lamented the financial propping up of a programme that caused endless headaches for Tokyo abroad and generated revenues worth “less than one-tenth the value of the country’s annual market for toothbrushes.”

With the change in government at the recent election, a new focus on reducing  spending and cutting wasteful programmes.

Two Greenpeace activists, Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki, have spoken out against the cost of the whaling programme and the fact that only a handful of fat-cat bureaucrats really profit from the programme. Last year alone it cost 8 billion yen, or nearly US$90 million, to run the annual Southern Ocean whale hunt. Of that, 1.2 billion yen, or more than US$10 million, came from government subsidies. The rest is in theory covered by the sales of whale meat.”

Still I’m not 100% convinced and I’m afraid that what Japan does is to resize their fleet, keep its recruited countries in sufficient number to take away a 75% majority to the pro-whale bloc inside the IWC thus preventing them from taking resolutions to vote that are binding; and keep on whaling. Other perspective if for Japan to hold its status as it is until the Small Working Group (SWG) negotiations are finished, and accomplish its goals and face-saving.

But I’m optimistic; the actions lead by Junichi and Toru had a big impact, not only in the media but also, because there was some tight control over meat coming from the Antarctic, some Japanese whalers stopped from going boarding for the Antarctic whaling season. Because, without the extra money they were making from meat they kept for free, after returning from the Antarctic, it was not worth to embark on that voyage. For this reason Japan had to start hiring and training whalers from Korea and other countries of Southeast Asia, making whaling even more expensive. Also the toll they get with their recruiting programme in order to have enough support inside the IWC and control roughly 50% of votes is so big that I wonder until when can it keep up, with an industry that doesn’t contribute to the Japanese economy health, and in fact it is a drag and forces Japan to spend taxpayers’ money, rather than making profit.

Now we need to keep up with our work, in my opinion we should even direct more actions and efforts inside Japan, and watch as a economical crisis and the necessity of cuts on public spending, take whalers from the southern ocean sanctuary forever, as it should be!

]]> http://www.frangoncalves.com/2009/12/the-end-of-whaling-in-the-southern-ocean/feed/ 1 http://www.frangoncalves.com/2009/03/200-ballenas-piloto-varadas-en-tasmania/ http://www.frangoncalves.com/2009/03/200-ballenas-piloto-varadas-en-tasmania/#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:36:54 +0000 Chico http://www.frangoncalves.com/?p=603 Ayer estaba hablando con Milko (Greenpeace Argentina) sobre el varamiento de ballenas piloto (o calderones) en Tasmania. El me perguntaba “que crees que este pasando en el mundo? según parece cada vez hay mas varamientos, mayoría en Tasmania y Australia. Es algo que cada día me intriga mas, a veces se sabe que es por el sonar de baja frecuencia, o por mucha contaminación sónica. Puede ser que siguen a un compañero de manada perdido o enfermo. Pero seguro que hay otras causas, como la contaminación que les baja las defensas, la falta de oxigeno en el agua en algunas regiones etc.”

Es muy raro lo que pasa con estes animales y estes varamientos en massa. Especialmente en Australia en que este verano los varamientos fueran mas que muchos. A fines de noviembre quedaron varados 187 calderones en Sandy Cape Beach, de los que sólo pudieron ser salvados 32. Una semana antes la gente había logrado salvar a 11 de las 64 ballenas atrapadas en la playa de Anthony’s. En enero murieron 48 cachalotes en un banco de arena frente a la isla de Perkins.

Puede esto ser debido a los ruidos por actividades sísmicas como las perforaciones submarinas para extraer gas o petróleo?

Leer otras fuentes de información: ámbito.com y El Universal (Caracas)

Scandal within the IWC in again on top of the table…
“Apparently” (IFAW and I have been saying this since the IWC meeting in Chile on last July) the Bush Administration is trying to reach a deal with the Japanese to solve all the whaling issue. (We also start the meeting saying other things that turned almost everyone against us but in the end of the meeting many press releases came out saying what we badgering all along!)

Washington Post story about the attempts to craft a deal
IFAW’s press release on the secret Bush’s administration plan to legitimise Japanese whaling

NGOs are now asking President Obama to cancel all negotiations regarding this “coup d’état”.
Read Greenpeace pledge to President Obama to assert authority and replace officials

I keep saying that this year things will get very interesting, the only down side seems to be me stuffed down on a suit and tie … funny!

The website has been a little abandoned but it was due mostly to my trips and the difficulties I experienced with technology (yes the computer I got to replace the one lost in STP was giving me loads of problems, took almost 2 weeks to fix it!). However I’m preparing my portfolio (FINALLY!) and it should be available the next few weeks…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VFtnWWwqmM

I asked if I could speak to him about Nicaragua and its position on whaling. Well it happens that the Consulate of Nicaragua was no longer there!! That is only the residence of his family and because they lived in Nicaragua for a long time and had connections with the government, his father was asked to be the consul in Portugal. They are not Nicaraguans even, they are British. We delivered the letter we had prepared to his father and he said that since his father still has connections with the government, he will ask him to convey our message to Managua.
Well, Nicholas the son of the supposed Consul told me that he personally is against whaling and he thought the idea of making the action in 14 different countries would help to change Nicaragua’s position (and apparently it did http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/2007/04/10/nacionales/45840 – it says that Nicaragua will no longer vote for whaling!) after a chat, and some exchange of ideias, he invited us for a tea, but we were running late, so we politely said no.
We got his contact and of his father to send him some news of the actions around the world and its repercussions, what I’ll do after finishing this text, that is right about now…

Congratulations to Milko Schvartzman from Greenpeace and everyone involved. I’m looking forward to know that Nicaragua voted NO when Japan voted YES :-) also many thanks to Catarina a friend of mine that helped me to manufacture the whale tails.

Click here to read about the government change of position regarding whaling.

BLUE! Light blue, dark blue, baby blue, clean blue, smiley blue, what mattered was to wear something in blue, wasn’t it the day of the BIG BLUE MARCH. An event taking place around the world with a single purpose to send a message to the 72 governments gathered at Anchorage, Alaska for the 59th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), the body that regulates and manages the whaling activity around the world. The IWC meeting takes place from the 28th to 31st of May, 2007.

The day here was cloudy and rainy, and since most actions were planned for beach sites, it was going to dictate how successful we would be. Plus, there was an important football game on; the final of the Portuguese Cup, in which of the teams had a blue uniform, so some of the people involved in the big blue march were thought to be supporters from that same team.

The Portuguese leg of the Big Blue March was divided into 3 fronts; one at Baleal, Peniche; another at Carcavelos, Lisbon; and other at Ponta Delgada, Azores.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FugGhXprxEk