Junichi speaks out for whales in Morocco
On Thursday ( June 24th) after a full day of discussions, disagreements and minimal deliberation in the plenary session of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Agadir, Morocco, NGOs have been given the opportunity to address the attending delegations.
Tokyo Two defendant Junichi Sato was given one of the few spots available, and after presenting to the commissioners and a stony-faced Japanese delegation., He was rewarded with a round of applause, many handshakes and a hug from Greenpeace alumni Paul Spong.
He presented in Japanese, but here is his speech in English:
Thank you Mr Chairman.
My name is Junichi Sato. I work for Greenpeace in Japan.
I will speak in Japanese.
This year is the International Year of Biodiversity. There will be the conference of the parties of the Convention of Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan and this is the important year for the protection of biodiversity.
Junichi speaks out for whales in Morocco ©GreenpeaceThis IWC was the chance for the Japanese government to show the leadership as the host of the Conference of parties of the CBD, to regain the international trust by announcing the breakthrough for the protection of the whales and committing to the decision to keep the marine diversity as the important agenda for Japan. However, in the past six months alone, the controversial decision regarding to the bluefin tuna in the CITES meeting, and this IWC, Japan is losing its credibility. Saying that the biodiversity is important agenda, it is regrettable as a citizen of Japan to see how Fisheries Agency of Japan is failing to address environmental issues because of the restrictions of the beaureucratic system.
Given the fact that the Japanese ex-commercial whaling companies have promised not to restart commercial whaling, the demand for whale meat is falling in Japan, it is not acceptable for the Japanese tax payers to see the money is used to continue the whaling and keep the organisation that have been hosting of the retired officials from Fisheries Agency of Japan alive in return to the severe criticism from the rest of the world.
As a citizen of Japan, I have another grave concern.
There are many scandals and corruptions that have been pointed out in the Japan's whaling programme. Japan has been said to be using its Fisheries Aid to secure votes in this organization. Also, I have witnessed and exposed the embezzlement of the whale meat from the Japanese whaling programme. The precious part of the whale meat was given to not only the high-ranking crew members, but also to the inspector of the Fisheries Agency and the researchers. There are also testimonies pointing out the presence of cancer tumors of the whale bodies taken in the Southern oceans, and also a large amount of the whale meat thrown away from the Japanese whaling mother ship in the Southern Ocean.
Not only Greenpeace has pointed out those corruption. Ex-crews members who worked on board of the whaling vessels are the ones who blew whistles from inside with brave. They whistle-blew although they were pro-whaling, because the corrupted situation of the whaling programme was simply too terrible for them to pretend not to look.
Japanese government is making up every excuse not to investigate those cases. I must say that this is a clear backward movement from Japan's aim of gaining international reliability. I also would like to address that IWC should also investigate in order to carry out its responsibility as an international committee.
There are many members of the Japanese delegation in this room. I respect the hard work they do, but I simply wish they make great political decision to be the leader of marine conservation by listening to the voice of others and the future generation.
Unfortunatly, the delegation of Japan made a speech as if "listening to the public opinion" is a bad thing to do. I disagree and I believe the pubic opinion is important. In this opportunity, I suggest the delegation of Japan to open up its press conference to the foreign media and NGOs, and even include the NGOs like Greenpeace to be in the delegation to allow the diversity of opinion.
Again, I hope that the IWC and every country in this organisation is capable to investigate these accusations and make the IWC to be a self-fixing body.
Thank you Mr. chairman.
