Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for January 2006

ICR Responds to Greenpeace: Whaling is Sustainable

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In the following blog post Dan Goodman, Councillor, Institute of Cetacean Research, Tokyo, responds to an earlier post by Greenpeace’s Adele Major in which she quotes John Frizzel explaining why whaling can not be sustainable, click here to read the Greenpeace position.

In this response Goodman puts the case for sustainable whaling and explains the importance of the current research effort in Antarctic waters:

Greenpeace has been misleading the public on issues related to whaling for many years (If Greenpeace told the truth about whaling, The Japan Times, 2nd January 2002). They clearly have an economic interest in continuing their campaign of “hype, half-truths and posturing” as it was described by a former director of Greenpeace International (Nature Vol. 396, December 10/98).

John Frizzel’s arguments are simply more of the same with additional errors of fact and omission. His advocacy is for the most part fiction rather than science.

Frizzel’s argument that because past commercial whaling depleted whale stocks, whaling should never be attempted again ignores the fact that science related to whales and resource management has very substantially progressed in the last 50 years.

His argument also ignores the fact that past whaling was for whale oil which was a commodity valued worldwide whereas current and future whaling is for food for a very limited market. The argument is also contrary to the views of the IWC’s Scientific Committee which developed and unanimously recommended to the Commission a risk-averse procedure for calculating catch quotas for abundant species of baleen whales. Clearly the Scientific Committee, and indeed the Commission itself which adopted the procedure in 1994, were of the view that sustainable whaling is possible.

Frizzel notes that the blue whale is only showing slow signs of recovery from past over-harvesting but he should also have informed readers that data from Japan’s research program is providing important information to explain why this is the case.

Flawed logic also leads Frizzel to conclude that because the IWC has established a sanctuary in the southern ocean, “Japan’s research program is gathering data to set commercial catch limits on a population for which commercial whaling has been forbidden” but he omits the fact that Paragraph 7 (b) of the Schedule to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling which established the Southern Ocean Sanctuary includes the words “However, this prohibition shall be reviewed ten years after its initial adoption and at succeeding ten year intervals, and could be revised at such times by the Commission.”

Presentation of data to the IWC from Japan’s research program clearly shows that the Southern Ocean Sanctuary, which was established without advice from the Scientific Committee was required for conservation reasons, clearly shows that the sanctuary is not required. If the IWC followed the requirement of the Convention for its regulations to be based on scientific findings the sanctuary would be abolished. In addition, Japan filed an objection to the Southern Ocean Sanctuary with respect to minke whales as is the right of any member of the IWC. The meaning of this in legal terms is that the sanctuary does not apply to Japan.

Frizzel quotes a genetics study by Roman and Palumbi (2003) suggesting that pre-whaling abundance was much higher than previously thought however, he fails to note that this study has been severely criticized in the scientific literature and that in 2004 the IWC’s Scientific Committee agreed that “figures presented by Roman and Palumbi could not be considered reliable estimates of pre-whaling abundance”.

Work by Palumbi and colleagues following the 2004 meeting of the Scientific Committee did not resolve issues raised by the Scientific Committee (IWC/57/REP 1 page 38).

Frizzel also mis-stated the findings of the Scientific Committee concerning recent preliminary and not-agreed estimates of southern hemisphere minke whales when he says that “The new estimates are half the old in every area that has been resurveyed.” The fact is that the estimate for Area VI is higher from the more recent surveys (IWC/57/ REP 1, page 24).

He is, however, correct that the possible reasons for the differences in estimates derived from circumpolar surveys conducted more than 20 years ago and more recent surveys are not yet understood. Factors such as differences in survey design and areas covered, differences in ice and whale distribution and species interactions where increasing abundance of fin and humpback whales may be reducing the availability of krill for minke whales may all be contributing to the difference in estimates of abundance.

On the other hand, data from Japan’s 16 year whale research in the Antarctic (JARPA) which used the same survey method each year shows a stable level of minke whale abundance and there are no indications that biological parameters such as natural mortality rates, pregnancy rates and age of sexual maturity have changed to the degree which would be required to reduce the population by half over the past 20 years.

It also needs to be pointed out that even if minke whale abundance was half of the 1990 estimate of 760,000 animals, the current level of take under JARPA II (the new Japanese research program begun this year) is approximately only 0.02%. Clearly this level of removal is not a conservation concern.

Frizzel states the Greenpeace view that “whaling in all forms must be stopped” because of threats to whales other than whaling. Here again he fails to note that the Revised Management Procedure for setting catch quotas developed by the IWC’s Scientific Committee takes account of uncertainty including uncertainty related to environmental change. His statement that “Expectations for the recovery of whale populations have been based on the assumption that, except for commercial whaling, their place in the oceans is as secure as it was a hundred years ago” is therefore simply false.

Finally, Frizell opines that very little is known about southern fin whales and that most civilized cultures recognize the need to preserve biodiversity and conserve species that are endangered and protected. The fact that little is known about southern fin whales is precisely the reason we will sample a few whales of this species

Martin Ferguson Breaks Rank

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I was going to title this blog post ‘Martin Ferguson for Prime Minister’ – but I don’t really know that much about Martin Ferguson.

He gave a great speech in defence of Tasmanian foresters some weeks ago, click here.

Yesterday The Australian newspaper published him asking that we move beyond politics and embrace the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate.

The speech and the article are revolutionary because Ferguson is a senior member of the Labor Party and he is taking a stand against traditional green politics yet over recent years the Labor Party has not only consulted with, but encouraged environmental activists, including Don Henry from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), to write Party policy (see the Latham Diaries).

Ferguson is redefining what it means to be an environmentalist and reshaping environmental politics in Australia. In yesterday’s The Australian he wrote:

“Unprecedented world economic growth is creating unprecedented global energy demand, rising energy prices and faster depletion of non-renewable energy resources. These are genuine threats to our future economic wellbeing. Maybe worse, the unequal distribution of energy resources across the world is a real threat to future geopolitical stability.

International initiatives such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate have the potential to ease both these tensions. But although greenhouse gas reduction targets may be necessary, any frank review must conclude that the world’s greenhouse emissions are not going down in the short term: they are simply being shifted from one country to another.

After all, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters are not bound by Kyoto. The US, as the world’s biggest emitter, has refused to ratify the agreement. China and India, the second and fourth biggest emitters, are not required to reduce their emissions. And while we are often reminded by the Greens that Australia has the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions, let’s not forget there are good reasons for that.

Australia’s relatively high energy intensity has to be considered in the context of the country’s size and its relatively low population density, its climate, its heavy reliance on coal for power generation, and the presence of energy-intensive industries such as aluminium which form the backbone of the nation’s wealth-generation capacity.

That is why it is a significant achievement of the Asia-Pacific Partnership’s first meeting that the aluminium industry in the member countries reached an agreement on working together to reduce emissions. This is essential to overcome the problem of simply shifting emissions from one country to another and at the same time shifting Australian manufacturing jobs and prosperity offshore, to countries with lower environmental standards.

It is extraordinary that the Greens could place the economic security and jobs of their constituents at risk and at the same time advocate a worse greenhouse outcome by displacing Australian industry to countries with lower standards.

It’s time to abandon the political correctness espoused by the green movement. Let’s be real: without getting business on board we cannot achieve anything.

Read the full article by clicking here.

The Australian newspaper continues the theme with its editorial today. The the last paragraph includes:

The reactionary response to the Asia-Pacific Partnership meeting this week demonstrates that support for Kyoto cloaks the green movement’s real desire – to see capitalism stop succeeding. Extreme greens cannot bear to accept that our best chance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions will occur when free enterprise has incentives to implement solutions. While power providers and big electricity users will howl, we need a national carbon trading scheme, with permits bought and sold in the free market, as a means of meeting greenhouse reduction targets set by Canberra. And we need tax concessions for industries that develop new technologies to clean up power supplies. In the long term geo-sequestration, which buries carbon dioxide pumped from power plants, may be a solution. And research into technologies to clean the coal burned in electricity generators is already under way, including development of a power plant in Florida designed to deliver much lower emissions. When the incentives exist business will use technology to find a way. For a century London was plagued by pollution that killed people. No longer. People now fish in the great lakes of North America which were once sludgy industrial swamps. And the idea that cars could emit much less pollution would have seemed impossible to environmental doomsayers 30 years ago. They would not have even conceived that commercial cars could run on batteries, with hydrogen power on the horizon. Whatever the extreme greens say, we can address global warming without adopting a medieval mindset that sees electricity as inimical to the environment. This week’s meeting was a practical step forward by six nations whose legitimate energy requires continued use of coal – perhaps with more nuclear energy to follow. It worried environmental activists – because it showed up their messages of doom for what they are – hot air.

What a difference a week can make!

Greenpeace Lied & It Matters

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It was Wednesday evening before Australian television started showing video of the ramming by Greenpeace’s boat the Arctic Sunrise of Japanese mothership the Nisshan Maru in Antarctic water the previous Sunday morning.

In contrast, online news ‘Crikey’ ran a link to my blogsite in their Monday email and then again on Tuesday with a piece by Christian Kerr titled a ‘whale of a story going ignored’, click here.

Today there was more in Crikey,

Greenpeace arguments lost at sea?

Christian Kerr writes:

Get ready to hear more and more about Dr Eric Wilson from Monash University.

Japan has accused Greenpeace of ramming a whaling ship in the Southern Ocean and then selectively editing video coverage of the collision for the world’s media

Methane Research Punches Hole in Kyoto

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The Prime Minister John Howard seems to get all the breaks. There was Tampa a couple of federal elections ago, then the terrorists bomb plot uncovered the day he introduced the IR legislation into parliament and now, the week the Prime Minister gets to host the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, science journal Nature publishes a paper attacking “one of Kyoto’s conceptual cores“.

Under Kyoto, trees are good. Forests count as a sink for carbon, with carbon credits for trading being available to those who plant forests in accordance with Kyoto rules.

But carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas, there are a few others including methane. Methane is about 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a warming gas.

The new study led by Frank Keppler of the Max Planck Institute in Germany has found living plants emit methane and calculates that all the world’s living vegetation (forests included!) could emit between 62 and 236 million tonne of methane per year. This is apparently equivalent to between 10 and 30 per cent of all annual global emissions.

The finding is being hailed as an explanation as to why methane emissions had been reducing – by about 20 million tones a year during the 1990s. And I had been sure methane emissions were going up and up, click here for related blog piece with graph of atmospheric methane levels.

The reason methane levels are now thought to have been reducing during the 1990s is because we apparently cut down 12 per cent of the world’s tropical forests during that decade, click here.

How have global methane emission being trending over the last 5 years?

How does planting a forest compare with defrosting a Siberian swamp – in terms of adding methane to the atmosphere?

What are the implications for Kyoto participants if forests are a source rather than a sink for greenhouse gases?

Australia, a Kyoto dissident, is nevertheless on target to meet its Kyoto targets because it has banned broad scale trees clearing. But hang-on, maybe it will now be OK to clear regrowth?

So many questions!

I had avoided the issue of carbon trading and targets in the piece I recently wrote for the Courier-Mail about the the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, click here. It looks like the rules might have to be rewritten now anyway.

Imagine trees emitting methane! Who said the science was settled?

Greenpeace Position on Sustainable Whaling & More Video Evidence

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In the following blog post Adele Major, Web Editor, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, explains why Greenpeace does not believe sustainable whaling is possible and provides links to more video evidence:

Last I read you are an “environmental blogger” so logically I would assume you are interested in the actual environmental impact of whaling, rather than entire threads devoted to your interpretation of an inconclusive piece of footage on a pro-whaling website.

Is sustainable whaling possible?

I am not a marine mammal expert, and don’t claim to be, although I have read a lot about this issue. However the information below was prepared by John Frizell, whale campaigner and Greenpeace’s representative at the IWC, who is an expert on issues related to whaling.

“Everywhere whaling has been practised, including around the coast of Japan, it has lead to depletion of whale populations. That’s why Japan started Antarctic whaling in the 1930s, their own coastal waters were already showing marked drops in catch after 30 years of whaling using imported technology.

The statistics say it all. The blue whales of the Antarctic are at less than 1 percent of their original abundance, despite 40 years of complete protection. Some populations of whales are recovering but some are not.

Only one population, the East Pacific grey whale, is thought to have recovered to its original abundance, but the closely related West Pacific grey whale population is the most endangered in the world. It hovers on the edge of extinction with just over 100 remaining.

For this reason we believe commercial whaling should not be attempted again. In the case of the Southern Ocean, the IWC has made it a whale sanctuary where no whaling is permitted. So Japan’s ‘research’ program is gathering data to set commercial catch limits on a population for which commercial whaling has been forbidden.

Recent DNA evidence shows that the impact of commercial whaling may be even worse than previously thought. Most estimates of historic whale population size have been extrapolated from old whaling figures, but this method is often very inaccurate, argues marine biologist Steve Palumbi of Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station in California, USA.

In 2003 Palumbi and his colleagues used DNA samples to estimate that humpback whales could have numbered 1.5 million prior to the onset of commercial whaling in the 1800s. That number dwarfs the figure of 100,000 previously accepted by the IWC based on 19th century whaling records. Humpback whales currently number only 20,000.

In the case of the Southern Ocean, Japanese delegates to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) constantly refer to a 1990 estimate of the Antarctic minke population of 760,000. But that figure was withdrawn by the IWC in 2000 because recent surveys found far fewer minkes than the older ones. The new estimates are half the old in every area that has been resurveyed. The IWC’s scientists do not understand the reasons for this and so far have not been able to agree a new estimate. A substantial decline in Antarctic minke population has NOT been ruled out.

Additonally, whaling is no longer the only threat to whales. The oceans, or rather, human impacts on the oceans, have changed dramatically over the half-century since whales have been protected. Known environmental threats to whales include global warming, pollution, overfishing, ozone depletion, noise such as sonar weaponry, and ship strikes. Industrial fishing threatens the food supply of whales and also puts whales at risk of entanglement in fishing gear.

Expectations for the recovery of whale populations have been based on the assumption that, except for commercial whaling, their place in the oceans is as secure as it was a hundred years ago. Sadly, this assumption is no longer valid. This is why we believe that whaling in all forms must be stopped.”

This year, fin whales will be added to the hunt. Fin whales are the second biggest creature on earth after the blue whale, and are listed as ‘endangered’. There is no justification for hunting an endangered species. Very little is known about southern fins and most civilised cultures recognise the need to preserve biodiversity and conserve species that are endangered and protected (such as in Australian waters which they migrate through).

By the way, in the interests of a balanced approach for your readers, I would suggest you also link to our footage, available in longer form here and with a voiceover here. And since it seems you are also an expert on maritime navigation regulations and are calling for the resignation of Captain Sorensen based entirely on this piece of video, you can read his own account of his actions, click here.

As I have mentioned previously, Greenpeace is committed to a long history of non-violent protest and ramming is not a tactic we use.

End of text from Adele Major.

Japanese Release Footage of Ramming by Greenpeace

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The Institute for Cetacean Research has now uploaded two videos of the ramming by Greenpeace of their ship the Nisshin-Maru in the Antartic last Sunday, click here. The videos taken from the Nisshin-Maru show Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise heading for, and ramming the Japanese boat.

There are now at least three videos and two photographs that contradict the Greenpeace media release and in particular the claim by Greenpeace Southern Ocean Expedition Leader Shane Rattenbury that

“…the Nisshin Mura suddenly disengaged from the supply vessel coming around a full 360 degrees before making for the Arctic Sunrise and striking it on the port side.”

When will Greenpeace stand Rattenbury aside and relieve the captain of the Arctic Sunrise of his command?