Negative Economic Impact on the Japanese Economy due to Illegal and Unrestricted Whaling - Term Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages In the context of over-fishing, the prime concern of the world right now is the problem of whaling. In Eco Pre Meeting, Issue 1, it has been reported that the Japanese government has thrown down the gauntlet to the IWC by proposing to expand its so-called "scientific" whaling. Next in line for slaughter are sperm whales, the huge and endangered species immortalized by Melville in Moby Dick, and Bryde's whales. This is on top of the more 500 minke whales they kill annually. Although commercial whaling was banned by the Commission in 1986, Japan has killed mink whales in the Antarctic since 1987 and in the North Pacific since 1994. Under a loophole in the IWC Convention, countries need only inform the Commission of their plans to kill whales for scientific purposes. The IWC Scientific Committee has regularly declared that Japan's proposed research provides little or no information that would contribute to the proper management of whale populations. And the full Commission has repeatedly urged Japan to refrain from granting themselves research permits for such whaling. Nevertheless, Japan has continued to kill whales and sell the meat commercially. Yet the killing goes on.
More recently, (May 11, 2006) Japan announced that "Japan has announced a new marketing push for its most unwanted export: whale meat. A new company, with a sales target of 1000 tonnes per year, started works a few days ago. But finding someone, anyone, to buy it will be a challenge. Domestic demand is at a historic low. Japan's stockpile of frozen whale meat was a record 4800 tones last August, unofficial reports say. And that was before the most recent season when more than 850 minke whales, each weighing about 10 tonnes, were caught in the Southern Ocean. The decision by Japan's whale research body, the Institute of Cetacean Research, to set up a company to find new markets comes a month after the country's second-largest seafood company, Nissui, said that it would abandon its whale meat canning business." (Cameron, 3)  ...Download file to see next pagesRead More