Japanese perspective on whaling

Public opinion in Japan

Most of the public outside of Japan thinks that the Japanese public supports whaling, because the Japanese government is emphasising this point all the time. Sometimes they claim that 90 per cent of the public want to resume commercial whaling.

This is the backbone of their argument for continuing whaling. However, this is simply not true.

You will be surprised how little the Japanese public know about what the Japanese government is doing regarding whaling.

The survey we commissioned last June shows that more than 92 per cent of the Japanese public do not know that their government is killing more than 900 whales, some of which are endangered species, in the Southern Ocean whale Sanctuary.

Also more than 95 per cent of the public have never eaten or very rarely eat whale meat. This is particularly true with the younger generation many of whom have never eaten whale meat or know anything about the whaling done by Japan. And when they were asked what they think about whaling in the future, 69 per cent of the public said they do not support whaling in the high seas – this includes the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The Japanese government's propaganda about the public's support of whaling is usually only communicated in English and to those outside of Japan. Very rarely is it in Japanese to the Japanese public. This is because it does not reflect the real situation in Japan.

I want to emphasise that the desire and will of the majority of Japanese people is the same as yours – to end whaling in the southern ocean whale sanctuary. Please do not get misled by the Japanese government’s propaganda.

Just imagine how many Japanese tourists go to whale watching in Australia, New Zealand, Alaska, and Hawaii all the way from Japan. And they are true whale-lovers.

Whale meat stockpile

As I explained previously most Japanese people do not eat whale meat.

There is about 5000 tons of whale meat stockpiled in Japan. This is more than double compared to the situation10 years ago. This is also about the same amount of meat taken by the Japanese government annually.

The Japanese government is putting a lot of effort into selling or giving the whale meat away to local governments in order to reduce the stockpile. However, these efforts have not been as successful as they wanted. We will probably see more stockpiles every year if we allow the Japanese government to continue whaling.

If you consider the situation of the growing stockpile, there is no way that this business can be considered to be economically viable. Any company operating on such a basis would have collapsed by now.

They are doing fake research and also wasting the whales for nothing. By now, you will be wondering why Japan continues whaling, when there is no public demand nor market for the whale meat in Japan.

Why does Japan continue whaling?

We have the Southern Ocean Whale sanctuary in the Antarctic to protect whales. However, we also have a "whalers sanctuary" inside the Japanese government where a small number of the bureaucrats, whalers and Diet members can enjoy their vested interests in whaling and keep their nationalistic stance.

This whalers sanctuary is very small, so the Japanese public never realise it even exists. And when it gets some attention inside Japan, around the time of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), it is well protected by a wall of nationalism.

As Japanese people grow more indifferent to this issue and the public outside of Japan get more furious, this wall of nationalism gets stronger, because the government mislead the public by saying that foreigners are trying to destroy our culture and telling the Japanese public what to do.

This propaganda works quite well for Japanese media and the public.

This is how they maintain whaling. They do not have reasons to stop whaling because they have this whalers sanctuary. For them, having virtually no market for the whale meat and strong criticism from outside Japan is not a problem. However, if criticism from inside Japan were added to this mix, then they will be in deep trouble. And this is what Greenpeace Japan is working on.

We need your help to stop the Japanese government’s whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

I’m asking your governments to take back the IWC - because if we lose key votes at the next IWC it will give the whaling bureaucrats more reason to make their sanctuary even stronger, and it will get very difficult to dismantle it in the future. So this year we must win back the IWC.

Please bear in mind when you take your strong action against whaling, make sure that you do not give them the opportunity to characterise you as ‘anti Japanese’ in their propaganda.. "We love Japan, but not whaling" is a concept that you might always keep in mind.

-- Junichi Sato, project manager for the whales campaign at Greenpeace Japan