ANALYSIS: Why is Japan so adamant about whaling?

By Takehiko Kambayashi Dec 8, 2011, 7:04 GMT

Tokyo - Japan's whaling fleet set sail this week for its much-criticized annual hunt near Antarctica with detractors saying the country missed a good opportunity to end it in the wake of this year's earthquake and tsunami.

Many people wonder why Japan has an inflexible stance on whaling, which has drawn an international outcry and hurts the country diplomatically.

The hunt is a money-losing operation because most Japanese don't eat whale meat, but vested interests are keeping it running, critics said.

Instead of spending taxpayers' money on whaling, Japan should put it to reconstruction of the areas affected by the March disaster and the nuclear accident it caused, citizens groups and non-governmental organizations argued.

Instead, Japanese bureaucrats exploited the quake, tsunami and nuclear crisis to benefit whaling, said Wakao Hanaoka, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace Japan.

Japan approved a 12.1-trillion-yen (155.6-billion-dollar) supplementary budget in late November to fund reconstruction in the tsunami-ravaged areas of the north-east, but 2.28 billion yen of the money is going for whaling, critics said.

The disaster left 15,840 dead and 3,529 missing. Since the quake and tsunami hit the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the plant has been leaking radiation into the environment. Tens of thousands of residents have been forced to leave the area.

Japan's whaling is subject to a 1986 international moratorium and is opposed by many other countries. Japan officially halted commercial whaling in 1987, but it has used a loophole in the moratorium to continue whaling under the premise of scientific research.

Many people do not pay much attention to whaling in Japan, where many regard whales as fishery stock rather than as endangered animals.

'Japanese people do not hold such negative feelings about using whales as fishery resources as those in other countries,' said Nanami Kurasawa, executive director of the Dolphin & Whale Action Network. 'Those in their 50s and 60s used to eat whale meat for school lunches, which I believe has partly contributed to the perception.'

Although the United States has opposed Japan's whaling, its occupation authorities after World War II ironically helped establish the practice, urging the war-ravaged country to serve whale meat at schools as a cheap source of protein.

One of the problems has been a lack of public awareness about the issue as the mainstream media, often criticized as government mouthpieces, fail to provide what critics called fair, comprehensive coverage.

Most of the media reports concerning the issue in recent years have been about the obstruction of whaling by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and much less about what so-called research whaling is all about.

Not surprisingly, nationalism plays a part in Japan's pro-whaling campaign. Japan's media coverage and Sea Shepherd's tactics, including boarding whaling ships and sailing into their paths, have contributed to it, critics said.

The whaling issue gives some politicians a chance to raise their public profiles, Kurasawa said. 'Unfortunately, it has become an important mission to protect the whaling fleet from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society with the group labelled as terrorists,' she said.

The Japan Coast Guard said Monday that it would protect the fleet from Sea Shepherd obstructions after the whaling ships had to cut short their hunt last season in mid-February because of the anti-whaling group.

Tatsuya Nakaoku, a fisheries agency official, defended Japan's whaling.

'From long ago, Japanese people have eaten whales,' he said. 'Our family often eats whale meat at home.'

But critics said such eating habits were rooted only in limited areas of the nation. The real reason for supporting whaling stems from national honour, they said.

'The fundamental root cause of the whaling issue is a kind of trauma since Japan was labelled a cruel country and a culture of eating whales was denied,' said Tetsu Sato, professor of ecology and environmental studies at Nagano University.

'It is a problem of government and bureaucratic pride,' he said.

Sato said anti-whaling nations also have the trauma of having been misled by Japan, which they have criticized for using its scientific research whaling as a cover for commercial hunting.

'As both sides have such traumas, I believe that has had an adverse impact on subsequent negotiations,' Sato said.

'As Japan's pro-whaling group feels they are the ones who always have to compromise, they need a kind of victory of their claim being accepted,' he said.