Sunday, August 31, 2008

A great evil....

The hypocritical buddhists from the North seek once more to raid the sanctuary. They will come in an armada of killer ships and floating factories. They will bring nothing but death and pain.

They will bring weapons of war, cannon and grenade to the Antarctic. They will bring fuel tankers into iceberg minefields... and they will bring the death scientists who will measure whales, put their earwax in little jars and write up their butcher list.

They will kill the most impressive animals on the planet by blasting out their guts then hanging them upside down to drown or bleed out. Recent footage has shown over half an hour, 6 harpoons and rifle shots to kill a small Minke.

But the Japanese whale killers come not just for Minke. They come for Fin Whales, many times larger. Many times harder to kill. They will die hard, thrashing in a red sea.

Endangered animals with a 0 catch limit, within a wildlife sanctuary.

They will demand the fact they are Japanese makes it all ok. But their race matters not, instead these are men judged by their actions.

Judged and found guilty of obscene and cruel crimes. Guilty of risking the entire ecosystem, of risking the very air humanity breaths.

Its time it stopped.




I really like this song.
Makes me love my nation and all the legends I share it with.
Makes me proud to be who I am.
Makes me strong to act on what I believe in.
Makes me happy to stand up and give those whose power plays impact on those I like, a taste of hell. The whale protectors grow in number each day, we will never give up and the Japanese can never shoot or arrest us all.

Back off Japan.
We shouldn't have to say anymore.
Let alone take action to stop your violation.
You are crossing a line we have asked you not to.

You are forcing our hand.
Do you really want to know how far we will go to save these whales from a pointless death at Japanese poachers hands?



When you listen to Carl talk of monsters,

Of the men who would hunt and destroy a natural wonder.... it does not make me angry like it should.
It makes me sad.

We have people risking the health of the ocean, the survival of our species and yet humanity is more interested in blowing each other up over control of the middle east.

I see the whalers as a greater threat to humanity than the 'terrorists' our governments keep us in a constant state of fear about.

Japan has become an enemy of science. An enemy of reason and logic.
They have let their nationalist pride and ego, blind them to the crimes unfolding in their name.

When the whales are gone, and the oceans suffering... who will we blame?
Ourselves for not acting strong enough? Or the nations that hunted them one by one until they were gone forever?



When Japanese whaling delegate Tadahiko Nakamura was asked if he was concerned about the survival of the whales and would he like to have his children and grand-children see the whales.
His answer was shocking. “No,” he said. “My duty is to my family, my country, and my company and that duty is to make as much profit as I can for them today. I am not concerned with future generations. They will have to find ways to survive just as we must find ways to survive today.”
He was then asked if he was concerned that the whales would go extinct. “They may go extinct but that is not my concern. My concern is to realize the maximum profit from them before they do.”



In that quote and this video we see the same attitude.
If nature has to be destroyed for the Japanese whalers/fishermen to make a $$$$ then so be it! Screw the future and screw the rest of the world!

Its the same, we eat fish and they eat fish... so we must kill them all so we can eat all the fish!

Charming.

Just wait until Japanese scientists discover other animals are breathing oxygen too.

No not just any oxygen BUT JAPANESE OXYGEN!!

OMG!
KILL KILL KILL!!





1) fin whale is an endangered animal, combined with other threats, whaling is sure to make them extinct. LEARN from history! Don't just repeat mistakes as a 'culture'! Grow UP!!

2) Whale/dolphin meat is full mercury, most toxic result EVER was a Minke sample. Many tests of whale/dolphin meat being sold has turned up EXTREMELY contaminated products.

3) The killing is terrible pr for Japan. Do they want to be known as environmental rapists? Do they want hacking up dolphins to be the defining character of their nation? Do they really want to be known as the ONLY nation to kill endangered cetacean species in the whale sanctuary?

4) Japans whaling industry is millions of dollars in debt, its not viable and leads to boycotts. Japans whaling is over 50 million dollars in debt. An operation to supply whale meat to japans richest citizens, funded by the average Japanese tax payer... all while Japanese homeless die on the streets in winter, when they could have been saved with a 20 cent cup of noodles. Surely the few hundred Japanese engaged in killing cetaceans can be found alternate employment so they no longer impact on the sales of ALL Japanese companies?

5) if Japan does it, others can do it and the whales will be wiped out. After all its racism not to let everyone take 20,000+ cetaceans each year like Japan. What right does Japan have to undo the greatest global co-operation on an environmental issue yet?



Today, only one country in the world continues to conduct whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary: Japan.

"There was a time in Japan during the food shortage hardships of the postwar period when whale meat was taken as a valuable source of protein. We are alive today thanks in a very real sense to this gift, so should we not reach out in gratitude to whales now and seek a path of peaceful coexistence?"


This is the message behind a beautiful new animated work by director Yamamura Koji.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Takashi Matsumura arrested by Japanese police for being a SSCS terrorist?



“In the world of mammals there are two mountain peaks, one is Mount Homo Sapiens and the other is mount Cetacea.”
~ Professor Teizo Ogawa




Does anyone have any more infomation? Is this true?
It means that Japan is no longer arresting just GreenPeace and Sea Shepherd members but has moved onto every day Japanese anti-whalers.

From what I have seen Takashi Matsumura had no connections to Sea Shepherd but just believed in whale protection. He was certainly no terrorist!!

Madness! Our thoughts are with you Takashi!
Hold out bro!

Together we will all save the whales, together we will show that you can be anti-whaling AND pro-Japan!

Eating the “totem animal” of sentimental Westerners can serve to express one’s belonging to “the Japanese tribe."


I don't think you have to eat whale to be Japanese. I don't think that killing whales should be the thing that defines Japanese culture either. I mean really, do you honestly support what Japan has done to the whales and dolphins already this year? I am not kidding, the list below is the bodycount.


100 sei whales ( Balaenoptera borealis )
59 minke whales ( Balaenoptera acutorostrata)
50 bryde's whales ( Balaenoptera brydei)
2 sperm whales. ( Physeter macrocephalus)
551 minke whales ( Balaenoptera bonaerensis)
8,396 Dalls porpoise (Phocoenoides dalli)
7,916 Dalls porpoise (Phocoenoides truei )
960 Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus)
670 Striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba)
360 Pacific White-sided Dolphin (Lagenoryhnchus obliquidens)
100 False Killer Whale (Pseudorca crassidens)
835 Pantropical Spotted Dolphin (Stenella attenuata)
532 Risso's Dolphin (Grampus griseus)
339 Short-finned Pilot Whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus)
66 Bairds beaked whale (Berardius bairdii)

And they are not through yet. Now the whalers are coming to kill whales that I enjoy. I like these whales and I am going to raise hell to defend them.

"There is no humane way to kill a whale at sea. Collective action by nations across the globe is needed to protect whales for future generations,"
~ Sir David Attenborough


I love Japan, and I have never met a Japanese person I didn't like.
So, I apologise in advance if I cause offence along the way. These whales are important to me though, and I am not being anti-Japanese for sticking up for them. I will try and stop ANYONE who tries to kill them.



"It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese."
~ Carl Sagan

Sunday, August 3, 2008

BOOTY POST!

Booty Post


LOL enjoy your stay :)

If you do, give us a stumble thumbs up! Theres lots of good data here, take the time to explore and you will uncover many gems.


OK beware.
There is a monkey pig.
You cannot unsee the monkey pig.
I will give you 2 choices, I reccomend you do not take either!!

skip to the alien skull

1 DAMNED IF YOU DO
2 DAMNED IF YOU DON'T


I have the alien skull I promised ( or an albino tawny frog mouth)!
Now I realise you are probably as shocked as you were the first time you saw Mars Bigfoot! (As opposed to common Earth bigfoots)
But from what we know,
Alien skull comes in peace....

TOP 3 FREE ONLINE GAMES


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

THE LINK CHEST

Animal madness 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, * * * * * * * * * Fish 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, * * * * * * * * * * Evolution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Caddy? Montauk Monster? * * * * * * * * Just plain awesom 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69,70, 71, 72, 73 ,74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Sustainable Technology 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Ice Berg? 1, 2, 3, 4, * Whale War Satire 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Ninja 1, 2, Pirate 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, Real War Link 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, * * * * * * * * Nukes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
* *



MAPS


Old map from WWII showing new world order! atlas of insanity Secret Submarine Base! People map Carrier top view Me and first other posters from stat counter, hello all, 6th Aug 08 visitor map awesomness map human influence Blue Beauty world flash tour Earth at night Iraq bodycount on US map And of course good old breathing earth Sun light maps 1 and 2 The worlds water graph Ocean Slaughter Australian Territorial Waters A Global Map of Human Impacts to Marine Ecosystems Map of CO2 emission hotspots in the USA oceans atlas Lots of History Maps Monopoly March of democracy Sea Level map Nice map showing the rise and fall of empires trying to hold the middle east. singles map virtual map library old Try new street level view GOOGLE MAPS Climate time machine military maps factory farm map (only for USA)


Music

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62,



Whales and Dolphins are Awesome!
vid1, vid2, vid3, vid4, vid5, vid6, vid7, vid8, vid9, vid10, vid11, vid12, vid13, vid14, vid15, vid16, vid17, vid18, vid19, link1, link2, link3, link4, link5, link6, link7,


Would like to end by wishing Isobel a speedy recovery!

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Dolphin Killers II

Watch this from the Oceanic Preservation Society.
This footage was all filmed undercover and the OPS will be releasing a full length movie documentary in 2009 about Japans dolphin drives called THE RISING. Millions of people across the world will see just how obscene Japan's dolphin drives are.


And here is a video from SaveJapansDolphins.org which shows how and why the dolphin killers hide the slaughter from their own people and the world.
Dolphin Killers Hide slaughter from the Japanese People!


There is also the dolphin dealers
As seen in that video they are shady bastards and above the law.

Of course the most graphic view of the dolphin drive industry remains this one. I don't think its possible to watch without a little bit inside of you dying.
:(


The Japanese Dolphin Killing Fisheries were kicked into high gear after the 1986 ban on whaling. A 1999 Environmental Investigation Agency report revealed that Japan had killed more than 400,000 dolphins and small cetaceans in only 20 years (1979 to 1999) with its dolphin fisheries.

Tuna fisheries, which in the past had high dolphin bycatch levels, are still responsible for the death of many sharks. An estimated 300,000 cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) also die as bycatch each year, because they are unable to escape when caught in nets.

This is a huge percentage of the whales and dolphins killed worldwide, and is a very black and white reason to focus anti-whaling operations on the dominant whaling nation.


When it is released please support the movie

Infact considering past quota has frequently topped 40,000 is a nice surprise to see the 2008 official quota is 20,108. I doubt the whalers will manage to keep it.


No international treaties cover this slaughter other than CITES, which lists some dolphins and porpoises on Appendix I, banning trade, and the rest on Appendix II, which regulates it. The fisheries may be endangering numerous species and eliminating local populations. Japanese fishermen are killing Dall's Porpoises (Phocoenoides dalli) in large numbers. These porpoises are known to "bow-ride" in the wake of their small dories. Taking advantage of this apparent dolphin game, fishermen are harpooning the frolicking dolphins in their backs with steel-barbed weapons, causing a painful and slow death. The meat is then marketed as "whale." At least 560 boats are killing these small black-and-white porpoises off the Japanese coast (Currey 1990). Approximately 111,500 of these porpoises were killed by Japan from 1986 to 1989 (Nowak 1999). In 1990, the IWC passed a Resolution calling for a reduction in the number of Dall's Porpoises killed to at least 10,000, but Japan killed 17,634 the following year (Chan et al. 1995a). The Japanese continue this killing, using 80 fishing boats that pursue migrating herds throughout the year. An estimated 67 percent of Dall's Porpoises have been killed by the Japanese, who killed 65,159 of these porpoises between 1990 and 1993 (Chan et al. 1995a). Annual kill is now about 20,000 and seems to involve mainly immature animals (Nowak 1999). The 2000 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species lists this species as Conservation Dependent, in spite of the fact that there seems to be little conservation preserving this species.

Striped Dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) have been nearly eliminated along the Japanese coast (Currey 1990). Recent statistics from the IWC show that Japan whales 18 species of small cetaceans, and kills many thousands more as incidental catch in its fisheries (Chan et al. 1995a). The 76,295 of these dolphins killed directly make up only a portion of their human-caused mortality; added to this, 35,002 Striped Dolphins drowned in fishing nets, for a total of 111,297 killed between 1990 and 1993 (Chan et al. 1995a). The combined killing from these two causes is resulting in declines. It, too, is listed as Conservation Dependent by the 2000 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.


Link


Although traditionally hunted for their meat, the Conservation Society said that dolphins in Japan are used for fertilizer and pet food. The drives, the Whale Dolphin Conservation Society argues, "are conducted as a form of pest control."

link

Two council members from the whaling town of Taiji, Japan, have come out publicly against the feeding of dolphin meat contaminated with mercury to children in school lunch programmes. It is the first time Japanese elected officials have criticised whaling and consumption of cetacean meat, and issued warnings of a potential public health disaster as the country attempts to boost domestic consumption.

Independents Junichiro Yamashita and Hisato Ryono from Wakayama prefecture recently announced laboratory test results of dolphin meat samples at a press conference. “We tested some samples purchased at the Gyoko supermarket in Taiji and Super Center Okuwa in the nearby city of Shingu,” Japan Times quoted Yamashita saying.


One dolphin sample had a mercury content 10 times above the health ministry’s advisory level of 0.4 parts per million (ppm), while the methyl mercury content was 10.33 times over the ministry’s advisory level of 0.3 ppm. Another dolphin sample tested 15.97 times and 12 times above advisory levels of total mercury and methylmercury, respectively.

Human nervous system is sensitive to all forms of mercury. Methylmercury and metallic mercury vapours are more harmful than other forms.

About 20,000 dolphins are killed in Japan every year; 2,300 dolphins are killed in Taiji alone. The town is planning to construct a us $3-million dolphin processing plant.

The news conference coincides with the annual dolphin hunt that begun in Taiji recently. Conservationists oppose this hunt—the largest kill of dolphins anywhere in the world. Every year, the hunt begins in September and continues for six months.


link


A coalition of marine scientists has launched a campaign to halt Japan's annual "dolphin drive," in which thousands of bottlenose dolphins are herded into shallow coves to be slaughtered with knives and clubs.

"We contend that the Japanese drive hunt of dolphins and small cetaceans is a brutal and inhumane practice that violates all standards for animal welfare," said Diana Reiss, director of the marine mammal research program at the New York Aquarium's Osborn Laboratories of Marine Science.

Because dolphins learn from one another, he said, major cullings can have a serious impact on surviving individuals' ability to persevere. "When you remove a bunch of animals, you remove not only them but the knowledge that they have."


link


The guru hoju saram

I am going to copy paste a comment from here.

Its easy to hand pick the most extreme elements of the anti-whaling lobby for target practice, without actually addressing any of the relevent issues that have been raised. What’s more laughable, someone who says that Whales are intelligent - great laugh, that one - or a body that claims to have a cultural mandate for kiling them, when we all know that there is no link between seaborne slaughterhouses operating on the other side of the world and traditional whaling in Japanese coastal waters. Even beter - your quirky uncle would love this one - the need to harvest them on a massive scale to better manage them. Ha!

Lets get to the crux of the matter so that you have something to actualy argue about instead of googling the silliest arguments you can find and barrel shooting them.

Japan is targeted by anti-whalers because

1. They hunt (or hunted until recently) whales that are endangered (fin) and vulnerbale (humpback). Most Cow species are not endangered.

2. They hunt these animals in what Australia considers territorial waters. Australia designated these waters as a breeding sanctuary, so that the whale stocks might increase from their current levels.

3.Whale -watching is an important industry in Australia and the South Pacific. In Tonga and Fiji, for example, whale-watching is very important to their tourism industries, the funds benefiting many poor local communities. Also, people happen to like watching them, swimming with them and surfing with them (gasp!)

4. The techniques used to kill whales are cruel when compared to other animals. Whales often take up to an hour or more to die.

Japan is targeted by Australia more than, say, Norway, specificaly for reasons 2, and 3. Not, as you suggested before, out of some bizarre link to the Stolen Generation, which I stil haven’t managed to figure out yet.

Perhaps, insead of talking about French sexual theorists, you might consider actually arguing about the points in contention. Just an idea.


Fin Whale

Fin Whale


Status
Today the fin whale is listed as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and included on Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Threats to the Species
The fin whale was spared from early hunting particularly by its speed. However, the 20th century invention of both steam-powered vessels and explosive harpoons changed all that and the fin whale was hunted in larger numbers than any other whale species during this time period. In the Southern Hemisphere alone, approximately 725,000 fin whales were killed. Although provided protection by the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) whaling moratorium in 1986, fin whales continued to be hunted by Iceland for scientific purposes. Current threats include disturbance from seismic operations; collision with large vessels; entanglement in fishing gear; pollution (including noise pollution and increasing amounts of plastic debris at sea, oil spills and dumping of industrial wastes); and a decrease in krill. Fin whales would also most likely be targeted by commercial whaling should such an activity resume.

International Trade
Listed on CITES Appendix I which prohibits international trade.


What about the mystery 2 Fin Whales?
One lead was

You can se Please see recent stranding and entanglement record, kept by Japan's ICR.

Item "M-1199" is for a fin whale ('nagasu kujira'). It was caught in Iwate, in a large trap net (大型定置網). In accordance with the ministerial ordinance, the DNA sample was taken by ICR, and the whale was sold. This whale was 10 meters, so it was just a baby it seems.



But there is also a good chance pirate whalers had put the meat on a black market defended by people in power.


Luckily this last whaling season Japan could not find any Fin Whales to kill!
Yup thats why they call them endangered. Despite being the second largest animals on Earth, when they are rare they are rare.

Human enemies of whales

Japanese whalings PR companies

Shandwick

By that I of course mean this rebranded company


link 1
link 2
link 3
link 4

You wonder why people say
1) Whales eat all the fish
2) We dont tell you not to eat meat pie
3) Hindu like the cow
?
Well all 3 were multi-million dollar marketting campaigns.

Of course the new wave of bought mouthpieces like Glenn and Flan man are paid to spout the "Minke eat krill" argument... which yes is true... but no does not mean that all the Minke need to die to save the Blue Whale from extinction. Perhaps instead the Japanese could cut back on harvesting krill?

Tele-Press Associates

These are the fellas responsible for constantly attacking the sanctuary.

You hear Japanese people claiming there is no IWC Southern Ocean whale sanctuary and thats Tele-Press in action.

Omeka

Japan's NZ based PR cronies, headed by Glenn Inwood and co.

Parliamentary Whaling League

These are the powerful men who keep Japan a pro-whaling nation.



Many environmentalists around the world hope that the whaling issue in Japan will simply fade with the now moribund industry. In Japan, though, the political prowhaling lobby has never been stronger.


Japan's domestic campaign is backed by the 98-strong Parliamentary Whaling League (PWL), whose members include Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, LDP high-flier Yoshimasa Hayashi (both from the whaling district of Shimonoseki in Yamaguchi Prefecture), Foreign Minister Taro Aso and Yokohama Mayor Hiroshi Nakata.

All the major political parties back whaling -- even the Communists -- and the Diet boasts just one antiwhaling lawmaker, Okinawa's Shokichi Kina. Supporting the antiwhaling cause in Japan would be as politically popular domestically as cheering on whaling boats in the Houses of Parliament in London.

Much as Japan's politicians champion logic and science in the service of their cause, however, it is clear that nationalism is one of the pillars that props up the campaign. Many of the most active prowhalers are on the right of the political spectrum, and the vast majority of the PWL has no electoral or commercial ties to whaling. In fact, only around 10 percent come from districts with a direct connection to the whaling industry.

Discussions in Japan about the loss of whaling are inevitably tinged with loss of national pride.

This from Hamada: "We're talking about managed whaling, so why are we being told we can't take any; that hunting whales is wrong? We were told to stop eating whalemeat because of pressure from abroad, and that it is barbarous. They eat dogs in South Korea and monkeys in China, and they call that barbarous too. We should start by accepting the other side's culinary culture and avoid telling them what to do."



link

Many of the commission's 21 newest members, such as the Marshall Islands and St. Kitts & Nevis, have no history of whaling, while several, including Mongolia and Mali, have no coastlines. All the newer members are developing countries in desperate need of foreign investment, and nearly half are from West Africa.

This power shift could clearly only have been achieved by a sustained campaign to win the support of so-called neutral nations in the IWC -- a fact acknowledged by leading prowhaling lawmakers such as the LDP's high-flying Yoshimasa Hayashi.

Because foreign aid was already used, in Hayashi's words, "with certain conditions," and was "even given to antiwhaling countries," he and other supporters of the Parliamentary Whaling League insisted that whaling -- a matter of "important national interest" -- should be shoved near the top of the list of conditions.

Indeed, the Foreign Office's own records show officials from the prime minister down raising the whaling issue in meeting after meeting with foreign dignitaries. As prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, for example, expressed his gratitude to the president of Nicaragua, Enrique Bolanas Geyer, at a summit meeting in June 2004. One month later, Japan canceled Nicaraguan debt to the tune of $ 118.4 million. Japan's whaling diplomacy has been built on hundreds of similar approaches.

Hayashi explains the impact of this strategy:

"I think most of the countries that have newly joined [the IWC], including the Caribbean, African and Central American countries like Nicaragua, have joined as the result of joint efforts by the prowhaling camp. We cooperate and recruit new countries. You know, nobody joins without an invitation or lobbying (laughs). When the moratorium was passed we were less than one quarter, so now we finally have a majority."

link

Mr. Yoshimasa Hayashi - Member of the Japanese Parliament, Secretary General of the Parliamentarian League for Whaling.

Hayashi YoshimasaA leading member of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, Yoshimasa Hayashi is the leader of the Pro-Whaling League in the Japanese Diet. As such he is maybe the most influential Japanese politician in connection with the whaling issue.



I argue we need a complete list of all the members of the Parliamentary Whaling League along with their contact email and address.

Glenn Inwood




Glenn Inwood is the founder of Omeka Public Relations, a small PR firm based in Wellington, New Zealand.

Background

A biographical note on his company's website states that he "has written and edited for newspapers that include the Christchurch Star, The Press in Christchurch and the Evening Post in Wellington, and produced Radio New Zealand's flagship programme Morning Report".

It also states that in 2000 he won an award from thye Public Relations Institute of New Zealand for "Stop The Wall", "a campaign on behalf of Waterfront Watch, Wellington. (Winner of PRINZ Crisis Communications Award and PRINZ Supreme Award 2000)".

Inwood and the World Council of Whalers

In September 200O Inwood was working four days a week as a press secretary for Lianne Dalziel, who was Immigration Minister in the New Zealand Labour Party government. The other day a week it was reported that Inwood worked for Morris Communications, where he was working on the account of the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission. The Fisheries Commission was hosting the 3rd Annual General Assembly of the World Council of Whalers in Nelson in November 2000. After Inwood's dual role as a Ministerial press adviser and speaker at a pro-whaling conference was raised in parliament, Prime Minister Helen Clark directed that Inwood not to attend. On September 28, 2000 Inwood resigned his position as Dalziel's press adviser.

One of the other speakers at the WCW conference was Eugene LaPointe, from the International Wildlife Management Consortium. In conjunction with the WCW conference, an inaugural general assembly of the Sustainable Use Parliamentarians Union (SUPU) was held and chaired by then U.S. Congressman Richard Pombo.


Working for the Whalers

In March 2003, Inwood was the organiser of a tour of Australasia by the former secretary of the International Whaling Commission, Dr Ray Gambell, who was urging an end to the moratorium on commercial whaling. The tour was sponsored by the World Council of Whalers. The New Zealand Herald identified Inwood as a PR consultant to the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission and Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), the Japanese agency which is responsible for its commercial whaling operations. As of 2007 Inwood continues his work with the ICR. [2]

In January 2006 the New Zealand Herald reported that Inwood also works for Te Ohu Kaimoana, "the sole voting shareholder in Aotearoa Fisheries (AFL), which owns a 50 per cent shareholding in Sealord. The other half-share in Sealord is owned by the Japanese company, Nissui, which is a major shareholder in Japan's Antarctic whaling fleet. [3]


Contact Details

Omeka Public Relations
PO Box 12-490 Thorndon, Wellington
New Zealand
Ph +64 21 498 010
Fax +64 21 787 570
E-mail omeka AT omeka.com


link

The Institute of Cetacean Research's tireless New Zealand spokesman is a controversial figure in his homeland, writes Ben Cubby.

TO ENVIRONMENTALISTS he is a 21st-century Tokyo Rose; to Japanese whalers, a hired gun.

Glenn Inwood, the Japanese whaling industry's embattled spin doctor, has one of the toughest public relations gigs in the world: selling commercial whaling to the planet.

A former press secretary to a New Zealand cabinet minister, Mr Inwood resigned in 2000 after the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, found his connections to the whaling industry distasteful.

His tireless promotion of whaling for Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research has made him a controversial figure in his homeland. But the normally garrulous Mr Inwood was reluctant to discuss his role when contacted by the Herald.

"I understand the news interest from you guys, but it really doesn't matter that there's a New Zealander talking about whaling," he said. "It's really not about me; it's about whales."

Mr Inwood is a seasoned public relations operative, but also a true believer in the whaler's cause, according to people who have worked with him.

Drawing on his Maori heritage, he believes hunting whales is a respectable tradition. He has little respect for the Australian Government's position on whaling which, he has written, has allowed emotions to interfere with common sense and international law.

"Its stance at the [International Whaling Commission] reflects an emotive environmental movement that has continued unchecked for 20 years or more, and has even been encouraged for reasons of political expediency, simply because there is no longer an Australian whaling constituency," he wrote in an opinion piece published in The Canberra Times in 2005.

But hunting whales also provides Mr Inwood with his own bread and butter.

The New Zealand Herald reported in 2006 that he has worked as a consultant for Te Ohu Kaimoana, an organisation devoted to advancing Maori fishing interests. It is also reportedly the sole voting shareholder in Aotearoa Fisheries, which in turn owns half of the major New Zealand seafood company Sealord. The other half is owned by a Japanese company, Nissui, which is also a shareholder in Japan's whaling fleet.

An experienced public relations agent, Michael Smith, whose former company took on a contract for Japanese whalers nine years ago, likened Mr Inwood's role to "representing seal clubbers".

Mr Smith's firm, Shandwick International, ran into trouble running a campaign on behalf of the Japanese Whaling Association. The company also had a contract with the International Fund for Animal Welfare to run a campaign in Britain against fox hunting - a deal which Shandwick lost when its whaling work became known to the animal-welfare activists.

In retrospect, it had probably been a mistake to take the brief, Mr Smith said. "It was just a case of the Japanese were sick of coming to Australia and getting ambushed everywhere, they wanted to get their own story out."

Mr Smith, who is not pro-whaling, said Mr Inwood would continue to face an uphill battle to sell his message, but that it would be unlikely to affect the whales themselves.

"I don't think the Japanese really care that much about public opinion in Australia."

Bob Burton, author of Inside Spin and an observer of the whaling industry's twists and turns, said Mr Inwood was a valuable asset for the Institution of Cetacean Research but the public relations battle could not be won.

"It's a bit like the asbestos industry - they are defending the indefensible, and the strategy is to keep on stalling. In the long term, though, it's hard to see anything other than the strategy unravelling."


Tim Flannery

JAPAN, NORWAY, ICELAND