I’ve been watching the blow-by-blow account of the trial in Japan of the Tokyo Two, especially Sara Holden’s excellent explanatory video on the Greenpeace International web-site. That’s the Greenpeace Japan activists who were arrested a couple of years ago for trying to reveal corruption in the so-called “Scientific” whaling programme and instead found themselves charged with stealing whale meat and facing ten-years imprisonment if found guilty. I have to say my first reaction was “No big deal, and a bit of a diversion from actually trying to stop that obnoxious activity”. I’ve been on commercial fishing boats and fisheries research vessels and know it is quite normal for crew and scientists to leave the ship with a bag of fish for their family; part of the perks of the job and a compensation for mal-de-mer.

But I’ve changed my mind.

This trial is revealing many aspects of the corruption of the entire “scientific whaling” programme. I have become a sort of specialist in that and will write more about it later. These are the people that some Governments (guess who – USA and New Zealand! Would you believe it?) are now trying to legitimize by giving them catch quotas for ten years in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

I’ve been writing that scientific whaling is not just about killing protected whales during the moratorium, even in sanctuaries. The IWC rules let you evade ALL rules. One of those, that has been in effect since the first international agreement on whaling, under the League of Nations in 1931, is that whale calves and their lactating mothers are a no-no. Now we learn that Japanese “scientists” send the most prized calf meat off to “eminent persons” as “souvenirs”, not in shopping bags but in 50kg boxes labeled “cardboard”.  Great story! I think the Tokyo Two deserve to get more than ten years hard labour for interfering with that sort of benign charity.

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Sidney Holt, ‘retired’ in 1979 after 25 years working for the United Stations as Director of the Fisheries Resources and Operations Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and Director of UNESCO’s Marine Sciences Division. Dr. Holt’s many retirement activities have included serving on the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission as well as a delegation member and advisor of various nations. While some may seek out retirement in Florida Dr. Holt resides in Umbria, Italy however did recently visit the sunshine state to attend the small working group meeting of the International Whaling Commission. This is Dr. Holt’s first contribution of the IFAW Whale Program Blog and we look forward to his occasional contributions.

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