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| Controversial: Japan's Yushin Maru is one of several now on a whale hunt in the Southern Ocean. ZUMA Press/NEWSCOM |
Australia eyes role in protesting Japan's whale hunt
Prime Minister Rudd has not ruled out using the military to collect data for an international court challenge
By Nick Squires | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the December 18, 2007 edition
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Sydney - A dangerous confrontation is looming amid the frigid seas and towering icebergs of the Antarctic as environmental activists hunt down Japan's controversial whaling fleet.
But in a radical departure from the conservative administration of his predecessor, Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, says he may add a new player to the effort – deploying the Navy and Air Force to gather evidence to be used in an international court challenge to the whaling program.
"[We have said] we would not rule out the use of Australian assets to collect appropriate data, including photographic evidence, concerning whaling activities," said Mr. Rudd, speaking last week at the UN climate-change conference in Bali, Indonesia.
He declined to say whether Australian ships and planes were on standby, promising to give more details on what he intends to do this week.
The six-ship Japanese whaling armada is on the brink of harpooning 935 minke whales, 50 fin whales and – for the first time in more than 40 years – 50 protected humpback whales. The International Whaling Commission allows Japan to catch a set number of whales each year – which Japan calls culling – for scientific research, and to sell the carcasses commercially.
Humpbacks support a lucrative whale-watching business in Australia, New Zealand, and some South Pacific countries, and this year's hunt has provoked fury across the region. Australia claims 42 percent of Antarctica, and many of the whales are likely to be killed within its exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from the Antarctic coastline.
Rudd's more aggressive stance was criticized by Australia's opposition, the defeated Liberal Party of John Howard, which said sending in the military would harm relations with Japan, Australia's second-biggest trade partner.
"Having warships and Air Force planes down there watching the Japanese whaling – what are our blokes actually going to do that couldn't be done by sending an aircraft or two with some photographers?" opposition leader Brendan Nelson asked.
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