Environmentalists on Friday lashed out after Japan imported 2,000 tonnes of frozen whale meat from Iceland, in what they say is continued defiance of world opinion over the hunting of the mammals.
Packages reportedly containing meat from fin whales were unloaded on Thursday last week from a vessel that had traveled from Iceland to Osaka, western Japan, Greenpeace Japan’s Junichi Sato said.
Environmental groups and news reports said the ship left Iceland in March carrying a cargo equivalent to almost all the whale meat imports from the north European country for the past six years.
An official at the port in Osaka confirmed the arrival of the ship.
“The ship, named Alma, arrived on May 7 and we were informed in advance that it would carry whale meat to be unloaded at Osaka port,” he told reporters.
Greenpeace said it was puzzled by the size of the cargo.
“We don’t know why Japan had to import such a huge volume of whale meat,” accounting for about two-thirds of the nation’s annual consumption, Sato said, adding: “No matter what, we oppose such shipments.”
ICELAND
In December last year, Iceland said it had increased quotas for whaling this year in a move likely to intensify international condemnation of the practice.
Since it resumed whaling in 2006 despite an international moratorium, Iceland, along with Norway, has been subject to furious criticism from environmental groups and some other countries.
Icelanders eat little whale meat and most of the catch is sent to the Japanese market.
Japan also hunts whales, but qualifies the activity as scientific research, even though whale meat finds its way to its restaurants.
UN COURT RULING
In March, the UN’s top court ruled the annual so-called “research mission” to the Southern Ocean by Japanese whaling vessels was a commercial hunt masquerading as science to skirt the international ban.
Tokyo said there would be no hunting in the Southern Ocean in this year’s season, but that vessels would be there to carry out “non-lethal research.”
However, the announcement raised the possibility that harpoon ships would return the following year.
That would keep Japan in the crosshairs of antiwhaling nations like Australia, which brought the case to the International Court of Justice. Although not difficult to find in Japan, whale meat is not a regular part of most Japanese people’s diet.
Vessels involved in Japan’s permitted coastal whaling program and in its “scientific” hunt in the Pacific Ocean left harbor last month.
CULTURE VS COMMERCE
Supporters argue that the hunting and eating of whale is part of Japan’s culture and complain of double standards from antiwhaling nations with large beef industries.
However, critics say Tokyo’s position is influenced more by a desire to support vested interests in the whaling industry than to protect a source of food that is no longer widely consumed.
They claim the country has large stocks of frozen whale meat from its own hunts that it cannot sell because there is insufficient demand.
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