Author

Amber Murakami-Fester

By Amber Murakami-Fester

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released an in-depth report earlier this year that seemed just short of a climatic Armageddon. The report, released in three parts in September, March, and April, detailed the results of an extensive assessment of scientific literature on climate change in the past six years. Findings, perhaps unsurprisingly, were bleak: the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has increased by forty percent since pre-industrial times, sea levels have risen nineteen centimeters from 1900 to 2010 worldwide, and will only continue to rise. Human influence on the climate system, the report further emphasizes, is evident.

Scientists have long vouched for the direct effect humans have had on global warming. Some even propose that we have entered a new geological time period, dubbing it the Anthropocene, a name that refers to the fact that humans have affected nearly “every aspect of Earth on a scale akin to the forces of nature,” according to the Anthropocene website. The term gained popularity in 2012 among scientists but remains little more than a scientific buzzword, as several geologists maintain that there is not enough evidence to suggest that we are in an entirely new geological epoch.

The Anthropocene, buzzword or not, and the IPCC report together underscore one thing—the potency of human activity on our planet: we have managed to accelerate our effect on the world around us since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. This means the outcome for the natural world in the coming centuries will largely reflect the environmental decisions that people make today. It turns out that the side-effects of human activity aren’t limited to the apocalyptic indications of rising sea levels and global temperatures either. Human beings have the capacity to shape not only the climate, but have a huge say, for better or for worse, in which species of plants and animals will survive into the future as well.

The panda, for example, has been the cuddly mascot of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) since its inception in 1961 and has played a large role in eliciting emotional and monetary support for the environmental movement. BBC wildlife expert Chris Packham, however, made ripples in 2009 when he declared that giant pandas should be allowed to die out. Although human reduction of its habitat has spurred the panda’s endangerment, the argument goes, pandas are naturally slow to reproduce and rely heavily on one food source (bamboo). From an evolutionary perspective, this puts the panda at a severe disadvantage. The panda’s habitat has further been so depleted that pandas will likely never be able to survive by themselves in the wild again. Despite this, millions of dollars are spent every year to save the panda from extinction—something Packham calls “one of the grossest wastes of conservation money in the last half-century.”

It’s not just the panda, of course; other animals have received a significant amount of funding and media attention as well, becoming mascots of sorts for the environmental campaign. Leonardo DiCaprio co-funds a tiger conservation project with the WWF, and France is set to spend three million Euros on an effort to save an endangered hamster species. But why the panda, the tiger, the hamster, the polar bear, the whale and the friendly dolphin? Why not the American burying beetle, the Chinese alligator, or the little known pangolin, all of which are critically endangered species as well? People seem to favor the survival of animals that play powerful parts in our imagination; being cute or at least humanized in the media, in effect, helps your specie’s chance of survival. Humans further have the formidable capacity to pick and choose which endangered species are worthy of our attention and will survive into the future—the Anthropocene indeed.

This goes for national parks as well. The national park system grew out of the American preservation movement beginning in 1872 with the creation of Yellowstone National Park, and has undoubtedly saved vast swaths of land from development. It is, however, far from being politically neutral. Would Yosemite have been preserved, for example, if Theodore Roosevelt did not equate it to being the most beautiful place on Earth? If Yosemite, in effect, was not aesthetically pleasing, would it still exist today? The national park, a concept grounded in the American nostalgia for the last frontier of the “wilderness,” also reinforces the idea that humans and nature simply cannot coexist without the former destroying or tainting the latter. The creation of Yosemite National Park, for example, ironically required the removal of the Yosemite Indians who had been living in the valley for thousands of years.

This is not an ideology that died out in the nineteenth century; it continues to shape conservation movements both in the US and abroad to this day, sometimes problematically. A similar story unfolded recently in Botswana in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, where San people, commonly known as Bushmen, who had been living on the land for generations were forcibly removed by the Botswanan government beginning in 1997. Although the national park was opened in 1961, the San were not seen to be problematic until the early 80s, when diamonds were discovered on the reserve. Since then, the government has tried to force the San people off of their ancestral homeland, prohibiting hunting and use of water boreholes on the premise that the San were damaging the environment. Although the San won the drawn-out legal battle for the right to live in the reserve in 2006, hunting in certain areas of the reserve was outlawed again in January of 2014, citing the declining population of certain animal species. Conservation, it seems, is not as simple as removing humans from nature.

It is perhaps an understatement to say that a lot of work needs to be done in the environmental movement today. Denying the existence of climate change simply isn’t a viable option anymore—perhaps John Oliver demonstrated this best when he staged a “statistically representative” debate on the existence of climate change on his comedy show Last Week Tonight. The discussion we need to be having, he emphasized, is not whether climate change is real, but what we are going to do about it.

Maybe, though, we need to take it a step further. As we move forward and continue to make as much an impact on the Earth as we have in the past 200 years, it seems necessary to re-examine the pitfalls of the environmental movement as well, because the political ideologies that underlie the movement will inevitably continue to change the natural world. What sort of world do we want to live in come another 200 years? That decision, terrifyingly enough, is something that we, as governments, businesses, and individuals, must be making today.

So: pandas or no pandas? The choice is ours, it seems, more than ever. Welcome to the Anthropocene.

June 2, 2014 20 comments

Asia Featured Security

Winds of Change in Japan’s Constitution

written by Amber Murakami-Fester

by Amber Murakami-Fester

“The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. To accomplish this aim…land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.”

So reads Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, which has prohibited the nation from partaking in war since its installment in 1945. Japan today only maintains a self-defense force composed of about 225,000 personnel that cannot be deployed except for small peacekeeping operations. The pacifist constitution, however, has been brought to the table for revision since Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, and the Liberal Democratic Party pushed for its amendment beginning in 2011. The potential constitutional revision is the biggest question in Japanese politics today.

An amendment to the nation’s constitution has been discussed on and off for decades. No changes have been made to the Japanese constitution since its inception, when it was written largely under American direction after World War II ended the nation’s imperialist ambitions. The LDP has proposed a draft for a new constitution that includes several amendments, but changes to Article 9 are the most controversial. Specific changes include: the alteration of the title of Provision 2 from “Renunciation of War” to “Security,” an added clarification for the government’s responsibility to protect Japanese territory, and establishing the right to have a “National Defense Force,” which would expand the capabilities of the self-defense army to fight if an ally was attacked by a third party aggressor. The amended constitution would still prohibit Japan from attacking another country of its own accord.

Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party have pointed to potential threats from North Korea and China as reasons for the proposed amendment; North Korea has gained notoriety in recent years for developing a nuclear program, and China has dramatically increased its military spending and regional ambitions.

Stronger military capabilities would also mean lesser reliance on American military protection, which has been a sore spot for Japan-U.S. relations for several decades. Japan has relied on U.S. protection since the end of World War II—in fact, many believe that America’s military involvement in Japan has been the strongest agent for peace in the region. American bases in Japan, however, have proven to be consistent sources of tension since Americans invaded the island during World War II. This is especially the case in Okinawa, where U.S. military presence has been the strongest in the nation since Americans invaded the island during World War II. Reports of sexual assaults on women by American soldiers have been numerous and consistent, and have drawn cries of outrage from residents—around 100,000 Okinawans rallied in an anti-base demonstration in September of 2012, the largest since a protest in 1995 following the rape of a schoolgirl by three American soldiers.

Yet Article 9 of the constitution proves to be much more than a simple self-imposed ban on warfare. Article 9 is a source of pride for many Japanese, who contend that the pacifist constitution has helped to shape Japan into one of the safest countries in the world. Japan, for example, has been famous for having some of the strictest gun laws in the world and subsequently one of the lowest gun-related death rates among developed nations; Japan had 11 firearm-related homicides in 2008, while the U.S. reported over 12,000 for the same year. Although Article 9 does not address gun laws, the sentiment of the pacifist statement has had a profound effect on the national identity as a country. Many believe Japan, whose older residents suffered first hand and remember vividly the devastation of the war, cannot morally partake in warfare and are strongly against the proposed amendment.

Hayao Miyazaki, an internationally celebrated animator who created numerous award-winning films such as Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, has emerged as one of the biggest public opponents of the amendment. He was recently criticized by a number of extreme right-wing conservatives after the release of his newest film, The Wind Rises, for its antiwar undertones. Miyazaki, who is 73 and grew up in the last years of the war, has published an essay on his opinion against changing the constitution, claiming that the newer generation of politicians have not been exposed to the devastating effects war has on human society.

The debate over the constitutional amendment also comes at a time of high political tension in East Asia. Political embroilment over islands such as the Liancourt Rocks, and the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands have been straining relations between the governments of Japan, China, and North and South Korea. The dispute over the islands have resulted in a number of extreme political reactions in each country—a South Korean subway controversially displayed anti-Japanese children’s artwork, and the mayor of Osaka remarked last year that Korean “comfort women,” who were forced into sexual slavery during the war, were a wartime necessity. Relations between North Korea, South Korea and China are each steadily cooling as well. These intensely nationalistic acts have received extensive media coverage in both Asian and Western news, which has exacerbated the tension between the countries. A constitutional change that would expand Japan’s military capabilities is sure to be taken as an aggressive stance by foreign media.

Although Japanese public opinion remains heavily divided on the issue, polls indicate that less and less people are opposed to the idea of a constitutional amendment, and the amendment passing seems to be a question of when, not if. A constitution that has not had so much as a single amendment passed in seventy years is indeed rare, and the desire to have a stronger means of self-defense is certainly tempting in a climate of such intense political unease. The new constitution would also still be in keeping with Japan’s identity as a peaceful nation, supporters say, because the country would still technically be prohibited from declaring war on another country.

But an expansion of military capabilities opens up its own can of worms. Critics of the amendment point to the possibility of having to fight in a war an ally is involved in, depending on how the new constitution is interpreted by those in power. The American military presence in Japan is most likely not going to be affected by the change, and the amendment can only add fuel to tensions in East Asia.

In the current political climate within Japan, a constitutional amendment seems plausible, but Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party must be mindful of the ripples it will cause across the political sphere. If an amendment is to pass, it must be approached with caution and precision, outlining specifically what the “responsibility to protect territory” entails, and what the exact capabilities and limits of the new National Defense Force will be in the constitution itself, not just in a Q&A Pamphlet.

It seems natural to want stronger defenses in a time when foreign governments are doing scary things. But it is a mistake to believe that war is imminent. Joseph Nye, a political scientist at Harvard, points out that “war is never inevitable, though the belief that it is can become one of its causes.” It would behoove Japan to proceed carefully, so as not to find itself in war the Japanese people swore to give up nearly seventy years ago.

March 3, 2014 0 comment

Europe Security

Lampedusa: the Much-Needed Heart of Illegal Immigration in the Mediterranean

written by Amber Murakami-Fester

by Amber Murakami-Fester
Editor

A shipwreck on Oct. 3 off the coast of Lampedusa, a small Italian island in the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunisia, has reinvigorated an increasingly urgent discussion on illegal immigration into Italy and other European countries. Almost 340 of the more than 500 passengers aboard the ship drowned in the accident that occurred a half mile from the shore of the island. Most of the migrants were refugees from Eritrea and Somalia, where many face political persecution or economic hardships under unstable governments. Many of the migrants were also raped and tortured by traffickers before they even boarded the ship, according to the testimonies of numerous survivors. The incident, needless to say, has imbued the immigration debate with a humanitarian perspective that was largely lacking before.

Lampedusa has been a destination for asylum seekers from North Africa due to its proximity to Libya for over a decade despite the dangers of crossing the Mediterranean. The U.N. estimates that 6,000 people have drowned in the waters around Lampedusa from 1994 to 2012, and an estimated 500 people drowned in Mediterranean waters crossing from North Africa to Europe in 2012 alone. An incident as large as the Oct. 3 shipwreck, however, was unprecedented, and quickly catapulted Lampedusa into European headlines as a symbol of the immigration issues that have been swept under the rug in Italy and the rest of the European Union.

Illegal immigration is a relatively new phenomenon to European countries such as Italy and Greece, where immigration only became a significant issue in the late 1970s. Not much has been done politically to mirror shifting demographic changes since then, and what few political adjustments that have been implemented only seem to be exacerbating the current situation and avoiding a more stable resolution.

Anti-immigration sentiment is strong in Italy, and the legislation shows it. Illegal immigrants can be punished with incarceration per a law passed in 2009. The Italian government also struck a deal in 2009 with then-Libyan ruler Moammar Kadafi to repatriate all migrants caught at sea, without hearing claims for asylum. The heart of the legal controversy surrounding undocumented immigration in Italy, however, is the Bossi-Fini law passed in 2002, which outlaws any assistance of undocumented immigrants. Many Italians claim Bossi-Fini is liable for the number of lives lost in Lampedusa, saying that local fishermen were hesitant to help the drowning victims for fear of legal repercussions.

As anti-immigration laws remain stringent, voices of people enraged at the indifference of Italian politicians have grown louder since the October shipwreck. Angelino Alfani, a politician of the conservative People of Freedom party, was battered with shouts of “assassins” and “shame” at a ceremony held for the victims of the shipwreck. One local fisherman in Lampedusa lambasted the Italian coastguard, who he says refused to take rescued people off of his boat so that he could save other people because it was not their protocol to do so.

“I don’t know if you know what’s it’s like to see the sight I saw: a sea filled with people, all calling for help. It wouldn’t have been hard to save these people,” he said, according to the Guardian.

Even Pope Francis took a stance on immigration, criticizing the hostility of Europeans towards immigrants who come to the continent seeking a better life.

“We are a society which has forgotten how to weep, how to experience compassion,” he said in a July visit to Lampedusa after a previous shipwreck that killed dozens of victims. He addressed the migrants: “The church is with you in the search for a more dignified life for you and your families.”

The divide between supporters and opponents of immigration is not limited to Italy, and immigration proves to be a complex and sticky issue for politics across the Mediterranean.

Greece, which has the most immigrants of any Southern-European country and is seen as an entry point to Europe for many North African and Middle Eastern migrants, has witnessed growing xenophobic attitudes within its political structure. Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi nationalist party, secured 21 seats in the Athens parliament in elections in 2012, a significant gain for what had previously been considered a fringe group. Its 6.97% representation makes Golden Dawn the third largest party in the Greek parliament, and is a clear indication of rising antagonistic sentiment towards immigrants. Greece, however, also opened its first fully functioning asylum center in June 2013. This significant step towards addressing the immigration problem reflects an acknowledgement of the pressing need to address migration to Greek shores despite increasing xenophobia.

France stands in a similar position. Hundreds of high school students in France took to the streets on Oct. 17, protesting the deportation of two immigrant minors. Although France’s new socialist government under Francois Hollande was expected to have a less confrontational approach in dealing with undocumented immigrants compared to the previous conservative government under Nicolas Sarkozy, little has changed. The protestors called for the resignation of interior minister Manuel Valls, an advocate for the deportation of Roma people. Although this may seem like the government is at odds with the wishes of the French people, polls say otherwise, as most French citizens agree that the Roma should be deported to their original countries, according to the New York Times. Speaking out for immigrant rights still seems limited to a minority in France.

The shipwreck off the coast of Lampedusa has brought a much-needed humanitarian eye to the immigration crisis in Europe. Although xenophobia and anti-immigration sentiment are still stronger than ever, Europe finds itself poised for an overhaul of immigration policies that may prevent future disasters as voices of dissent demand change. And as attitudes change, so legislation has as well—the European Parliament has since called for a revision of the Bossi-Fini law, and the Judiciary Commission of the Italian senate approved an amendment that would eliminate arrest as a punishment for undocumented immigrants.

It took a disaster that claimed the lives of several hundred people for Europe to confront the crisis at its doorstep. If Lampedusa has put the continent at a moral crossroads for immigration policies for years to come, we should hope that the human compassion Europe is starting to feel now is here to stay.

Facts and figures taken from The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, BBC, The Telegraph and Il Corriere della Sera.

Amber is a fourth year student at UCLA, where she studies Japanese and Italian for her major in Comparative Literature.

December 3, 2013 0 comment

Asia Featured Society and Culture Technology Uncategorized

A Snowden Summer

written by Amber Murakami-Fester

by Amber Murakami-Fester
Editor

Edward Snowden’s exposure of the National Security Agency’s PRISM surveillance program in early June made sure that the media had an eventful summer. Shortly after Snowden revealed his identity as the source behind the leaks, every major newspaper published a legion of online opinion pieces that analyzed anything from the dualistic “Hero or Traitor?” question, to deeper commentaries about the appropriate balance between state security, right to privacy, and the freedom of speech. The Internet became a platform for debate for both journalists and readers around the globe alike; over 90,000 comments have been written on the over 40 articles Snowden interviewer Glenn Greenwald has published on the NSA and Snowden since June.

In some cases however, the ripples Snowden sent across the globe sparked up much more than just online debate. In Hong Kong, where Snowden was initially interviewed, hundreds of enraged protesters took to the streets to voice their disapproval of the U.S. surveillance program and oppose the charges against Snowden for espionage and theft of government property in mid-June. “Obama is reading your email,” placards read, along with “Free Speech” and “Respect Human Rights Support Snowden.” The protesters marched to the offices of C.Y. Leung, Hong Kong’s chief executive, where they asked that he extend all legal protections to Snowden due under the territory’s law. Although Leung failed to do so and Snowden eventually left the territory when it became evident that he would be detained if he remained, the Hong Kong residents’ fierce advocacy for the freedom of speech is undeniable.

The liberties allowed in Hong Kong, surprisingly or not, juxtapose greatly with the policies of the nation to which it belongs. Hong Kong’s status as one of the two Special Administrative Regions of China allows its citizens freedoms to protest, publish, and speak what they want. This would be unthinkable in Mainland China, where Internet usage is notoriously censored. The Communist government has set up a system called the Great Firewall that blocks foreign social media websites such as Facebook, Wikipedia and YouTube, and created its own versions of Facebook and microblogging networks, Renren and Weibo, respectively. Government-funded censors can maneuver these websites and delete posts that are deemed inappropriate; the most popular Weibo sites are said to have censorship teams made up of up to 1,000 people. Google searches for key phrases such as “Tibetan independence,” “Tiananmen Square protests of 1989” and “democracy”—all of which are controversial topics to the Communist government—yield few or no results. A Snowden-inspired debate on acceptable government limits to the freedom of speech would certainly not be allowed.

Consequences for criticizing the government online are severe, and seem to be getting worse. Arrests are frequent; widely followed blogger Charles Xue was most recently imprisoned in late August under prostitution solicitation charges. Xue had 12 million followers on Sina Weibo and blogged about topics such as child beggars and his own experiences with cancer. The arrest was widely covered by state newspapers, which led some to speculate that officials were cracking down and trying to send a message. This did not seem to be too far off the mark—on September 9^th, China’s Supreme People’s Court and Procuratorate issued a judicial interpretation stating that spreading rumors on the Internet could result in three years in prison, with increasingly heavy consequences if the “rumors” are reposted over 500 times or viewed by more than 5,000 people. This is the first time existing laws against defamation in China have been officially extended to the Internet.

While online restrictions tighten, protests in China continue to increase. The number of reported “mass incidents” in China grew from 8,700 in 1993 to more than 90,000 in 2006, and up to 180,000 in 2010, according to the Chinese Police Academy. People protested anything from official corruption and government land grabs to Tibetan autonomy and environmental problems. Arrests were common at these protests, as might be expected. Jiangmen city in Guangdong province, however, made news in July when officials scrapped plans to build a nuclear facility in response to hundreds of protestors that took to the streets against its construction. The success of the public rally was unprecedented, and doubly significant in light of the tightening controls placed over the summer. The people of China seem to know that the government can’t possibly manage to keep them all quiet forever.

The freedom of speech ensures that governments respond to the needs and wants of its people, not the other way around. The continued defiance of the people of China, the protectiveness of Hong Kong residents of the freedom of speech, and impassioned comments left on the online articles of the Guardian each serve as a reminder that the freedom of speech is sometimes a struggle to hold on to.

Whatever our opinion is of Snowden, it is clear that the debate that ignited the media this summer is unfortunately still sorely relevant to the world today. The strong reactions that Snowden inspired in the U.S. and Hong Kong can only stand as testimony to the fact that the freedom of speech is a human right people in every corner of the world are willing to risk going to jail for. Governments should be careful not to overstep their limits. If people persist, perhaps the day we can see online debates about the government in China will come soon enough.

All facts and figures taken from The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, and the MIT Technology Review.

Amber is a fourth-year Comparative Literature major at UCLA with minors in Global Studies and East Asian Languages, and an editor for the Generation.

October 15, 2013 0 comment

Asia Environmental Change Security and Conflict Society and Culture

Whaling: A High Seas Culture Clash

written by Amber Murakami-Fester

by Amber Murakami-Fester
Editor

Whaling in Japan, which has charged the international community with high tensions for many a decade, is set to face legal contention on June 26^th, when the UN International Court of Justice is slated to begin public hearings on Australia’s challenge of Japanese whaling practices. Japan, Australia alleges, is breaking a temporary international ban, or moratorium, on whaling by hunting whales for commercial purposes under the guise of scientific research. Japan contends that it still operates within the legal boundaries of the moratorium, which allows for whaling with scientific permits.

The hearing will be a crucial event for the whaling issue, which has proven to be controversial since the implementation of the moratorium by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1986. The ban has since been wrapped in emotionally charged conflict and gotten sidetracked from its initial intent to conserve whale species that were in need of protection.

The moratorium was implemented by the IWC due to rising concerns in the 60s and 70s on shrinking whale populations, which had been vastly reduced by industrialized nations in the 18^th and 19^th centuries in a mad scramble for whale oil. Whales were in fact being killed at incredible numbers into the 1980s; the Soviet Union killed close to 340,000 whales from 1946 to 1986 according to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The total number of whales killed since 1986 was less than 32,000 in 2008, indicating the success of the ban in protecting the marine mammal.

The moratorium, however, came with its own baggage of controversy that continues to roil the international community to this day. The whaling ban, some nations claimed, ignored long-standing traditions and cultures of whale hunting that dated back to prehistoric times.

Japan is perhaps the most controversial of these nations for its alleged defiance of the ban. Evidence of whale hunting activity in Japan dates back to at least 10,000 B.C., and whale meat played an important role for the country in the 1940s, when it accounted for half the source of animal protein during World War II, according to DiscoveryUK.com. Although most people in Japan do not regularly eat whale today, several small communities like Ayukawahama, a whaling town in northern Japan, still do, and it is not rare to find whale meat in large supermarkets and specialty restaurants sold as a delicacy. Japan maintains that whaling is an essential part of its culture and tradition; this tension between culture and animal rights is an essential element at the heart of the whaling controversy today.

Japan is not alone in its defense of whaling traditions. The yearly summer whale hunt in the Faroe Islands of Denmark, where hundreds of pilot whales are driven into the shore and killed, has also received intense international criticism for what many consider unnecessarily cruel deaths and an unsustainable practice. The Faroe Islands, like Japan, have a long-standing history of hunting whales dating back to the first Norse settlements on the islands. The hunt is not regulated by international whaling laws because pilot whales are considered “small cetaceans” by the IWC and are therefore not included in the moratorium.

These whaling practices have come under intense international pressure because many consider culture a flimsy excuse for illegality, irresponsible hunting and unnecessary cruelty. This tension has at times manifested in violent confrontations on the open ocean. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (a marine activist organization based in the U.S. and Australia) controversially carries out aggressive tactics on Japanese whaling ships at sea, ramming ships and hurling containers of acid and smoke bombs to prevent the whalers from catching their quarry. Sea Shepherd claims that they “operate outside the petty cultural chauvinism of the human species” in an Equality Statement on their website, and points to the alleged illegality of Japanese whaling as a basis for their attacks.

In February of this year, Sea Shepherd faced Japanese whalers in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled in favor of the Japanese, saying that Sea Shepherd has “engaged in…clear instances of violent acts for private ends,” and is “the very embodiment of piracy.” If Sea Shepherd is breaking international rules as well, their claim to be acting solely for the purpose of protecting international whaling laws becomes less credible. So if the upkeep of the law is not at the heart of Sea Shepherd’s actions, what really is the issue here?

Whaling has evidently become a highly emotional issue. Take, for example, the pilot whale hunt in the Faroe Islands. Any Google search on the subject yields a series of photographs that display large amounts of blood spilled into the ocean and onto the shores during the hunt. The images aim to point out the unnecessary violence of the practice, regardless of whether it is a part of a long-standing cultural tradition or a population-sustainable practice. Violence and cruelty against animals understandably draw strong emotional responses, and these elements contribute to the violent attacks carried out by Sea Shepherd.

This emotion, however, can dilute and distract from what originally lay at the core of international whaling laws—protection of endangered whales and their repopulation into sustainable numbers. Japan has in fact hunted a number of endangered species in the 2006-2007 season, including 101 sei whales and 3 fin whales. However, 82% of whales caught by Japan in that season were minke whales, which is a species listed with “least concern” of endangerment by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The Japanese additionally collected 508 Southern Hermisphere minke whales out of an estimated population of 720,000, which they uphold is sustainable. Figures for pilot whales are undetermined, but they are also not considered an endangered species according to the American Cetacean Society, although the ACS notes that there has been an “obvious decrease in whale numbers.” While sustainability is still an issue for some whales collected in Japan, it does not seem a pressing concern for most whales hunted in Japan and indeterminate at best for pilot whales.

The whaling issue has essentially grown into a violent and emotional international debate, and lost sight of the original purpose to protect endangered whale species. If pilot whale hunts are considered too cruel, new methods to make the hunt less painful should be investigated. Research should be conducted to determine the exact status of pilot whales, and in the case that results demonstrate the centuries-old practice to be unsustainable, quotas should be placed accordingly. If Japan’s whaling is in fact sustainable, international law should be revised to consider this, with appropriate quotas and restrictions on species that are still endangered. Pushing for a complete ban that does not reflect the realities of whale populations not only ignores and disrespects the old cultures of these communities, but creates unnecessary political tension, and buries the most pressing issue of conservation under a mire of political distractions.

International law should reflect fact and not charged emotion. Whaling will most likely continue to be a controversial issue, but if it is approached openly and logically, the international realm will be able to move forward towards a resolution.

All facts and figures taken from the International Whaling Commission, the American Cetacean Society, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Word Wildlife Fund, SeaShepherd.org, DiscoveryUK.com, BBC, and the New York Times.

Amber is a third-year Comparative Literature student with minors in Global Studies and Japanese. In addition to being an Editor for TheGeneration, she is an education director for Project Literacy and sits on the leadership board for iVolunteer China. In her spare time, she listens to Amy Winehouse and roots for the San Francisco Giants.

June 13, 2013 3 comments

UCLA's Foreign Affairs Magazine since 2010

Amber Murakami-Fester

The Problem with Pandas: Rethinking Climate Change and the Environmental Movement

Winds of Change in Japan’s Constitution

Lampedusa: the Much-Needed Heart of Illegal Immigration in the Mediterranean

A Snowden Summer

Whaling: A High Seas Culture Clash