It says clearly what I suspected was the situation.

The question is … what can we in Aotearoa/NZ do to help counter it?

eredwen

in japan, we’re not talking about a “small business elite” when it comes to whaling. this is small money when seen from the world’s second-biggest economy.
no, what we have is a minute “chauvenistic-nationalist political/buraucratic elite” that is able to portray japan as the victim of western cultural bullying, and use taxpayers’ (my) money to bribe other countries into supporting their crusade.
japan’s conduct of foreign policy (china, russia, n korea, whaling, peru, yasukuni, s korea, star wars…..) from go to whoa is a disaster for the people of japan.
anyone want to argue with that?

In other words, we live in a society divided by class, and this needs to be understood. The word ‘class’ seems unfashionable these days, particularly in Green circles, which is a pity, as it defines present reality.

What do we do about it? Same as ever, struggle for proper democracy.

“Is this something that arouses strong feelings or something that a narrow lobby of business interests is pushing for … ”

Exactly!

and, on a different scale in a different sphere: to see just how much influence “a narrow lobby of business interests” can have when those in the general population “barely give a damn” … witness American oil
interests and Iraq, Afghanistan etc

So what do we DO now?

One question about Japanese attitudes I have is: does the Japanese population actually care very much either way? Is this something that arouses strong feelings or something that a narrow lobby of business interests is pushing for, but which most people either mildly disapprove of, or mildly favour, but aren’t going to make a fuss about?

Opinion polls can be misleading if the reality is the latter - lot’s of people mught say “yes” or “no” , though they barely give a damn.

Off the top of my head, without checking …

In these current times, Norway and Iceland would be wanting to retain a right to historical small scale indigenous whaling. Their vibrant democracies, given the attitudes of their people, would be most unlikely to allow anything more than that.

Norway was out there in the bigger, international waters, commercial stuff in the more recent past, but times and attitudes have changed a lot since then.

If the whaling nations had their way there’d be no more whales within a decade. At which point we could do what to them?

Not a blessed thing.

So the question of it being “just Japan” we should be targeting is a very good one. There were a lot of countries that voted with the butchers…. and Japan has a lot to answer for in the long run if the species go to the wall.

respectfully
BJ

http://www.iwcoffice.org/_documents/sci_com/SCRepFiles2006/SCREPNEW-GP D.pdf

“The Committee agrees that there appears to be a significant impact from whalewatching and vessel traffic on this critically small bottlenose dolphin population. It recommends that the Government of New Zealand increases protection for this population and other bottlenose dolphin populations in Fiordland as a matter of urgency.”

Ironic it is then that New Zealand continues to oppose the sustainable use of cetacean resources in other parts of the world where species have been more wisely managed.