The fundamental threat
to every fishery in the commons is always two fold. The first is simply overfishing. In fact we have pretty well stood by and
watched nearly every great fishery be totally destroyed. Their recovery will take most of the century
after all wild fishing is brought to an end.
The second threat is a
simple collapse of the market and this has happened to the Japanese whale meat
market. They have already hung in there
for a couple extra years and it is likely they are essentially upside
down. The school lunch program will
likely absorb the remaining inventory over the next several years. The take home is that demand has dropped to a
fraction of what it was, just like the end of buying interest ended the baby
seal skin market.
Now of course the
oceans themselves must be brought back to robust good health and that holds
true for what we do on land as well. In
human terms, the road back will be slow and demand good decisions and human
lifetimes to achieve. We are actually at
the bottom looking up. We have pretty
well inflicted the worst that we can do already and really cannot go beyond
that simply because it barely pays.
In the meantime, farmed
fish is both expanding the market but also driving the wild fishery out. This will continue until the wild fishery
will simply be let alone and be generally banned or at the least managed to
provide an optimum population and a sustainable catch.
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Big threat to
Japan whaling: Declining appetites
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Mar 27, 7:29 AM EDT
TOKYO (AP) -- The greatest threat to Japan's
whaling industry may not be the environmentalists harassing its ships or the
countries demanding its abolishment, but Japanese consumers. They've lost
their appetite.
The amount of whale meat stockpiled for lack of
buyers has nearly doubled over 10 years, even as anti-whaling protests helped
drive catches to record lows. More than 2,300 minke whales worth of meat is
sitting in freezers while whalers still plan to catch another 1,300 whales
per year.
Low demand adds to the uncertainty that looms
ahead of an International Court of Justice ruling expected Monday on Japan's
whaling in the Antarctic Ocean. The whaling is ostensibly for research, but
Australia argued in a lawsuit that it's a cover for commercial hunts.
The stated goal of the research, which began in
1987, is to show that commercial whaling is environmentally sustainable, but
a growing question is whether it is economically sustainable. Japan's
government-subsidized whaling program is sinking deeper into debt and faces
an imminent, costly renovation of its 27-year-old mother ship, Nisshin Maru.
"A resumption of commercial whaling is not a
realistic option anymore, and the goal has become a mere excuse to continue
research hunts," said Ayako Okubo, marine science researcher at Tokai
University. "The program is used for the vested interests."
The research program began a year after an
international ban on commercial hunting took effect. Japan is one of a few
countries, including Norway and Iceland, which continue to hunt whales
despite the moratorium. Activists from the group Sea Shepherd try to block
the whalers by dragging ropes in the water to damage their propellers, and by
lobbing smoke bombs at the ships, and through other methods.
Whale meat not used for study is sold as food in
Japan. But according to Fisheries Agency statistics, the amount of whale meat
stockpiled in freezers at major Japanese ports totaled about 4,600 tons at
the end of 2012, from less than 2,500 tons in 2002.
A Fisheries Agency official conceded that Sea
Shepherd's efforts to harass whaling ships have kept the stockpile from
growing even bigger. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not
authorized to speak to the media.
Whale meat supplied half of Japan's protein needs
50 years ago, but today it's limited to specialty restaurants and school
lunches in most of the country. It is a bigger part of the local diet in
several coastal whaling towns that are allowed to conduct small-scale coastal
whaling outside of International Whaling Commission oversight.
The number of whale meat distributors and
processors declined by half between 1999 and 2012, according to industry
statistics. Distributors have said whale meat is unpopular largely because of
the high price, lack of recipe varieties and negative image.
Once a cheaper substitute for beef, it's now about
the same price. Whale bacon is sold as a delicacy, priced about 2,000 yen per
100 grams ($90 per pound), several times the cost of regular bacon.
The Institute of Cetacean Research, a nonprofit
entity overseen by the government that runs the program, made 2 billion yen
($20 million) from the whale meat sales last year, down from more than 7
billion yen ($70 million) in 2004, according to a financial report viewed by
The Associated Press.
The institute rejected repeated requests by the AP
for comment on whaling and its future, citing concerns about possible
repercussions and violence by the Sea Shepherd on the Japanese whalers. The
five-ship fleet is expected to return home within weeks, though the institute
would not give any details. Its website is filled with press releases related
to Sea Shepherd instead of its research.
Initially, the government injected about 500
million yen ($5 million) a year into the program, or about 10 percent of its
costs. By 2007, the subsidy had grown to about 900 million yen ($9 million),
and is projected to exceed 5 billion yen ($50 million) for the current fiscal
year ending in September. That includes money for anti-Sea Shepherd measures,
such as repairs for damage and dispatch of a patrol ship.
In 2011, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and
Fisheries used an earthquake and tsunami disaster reconstruction fund to help
cover whaling debts. The ministry later acknowledged funneling 2.3 billion
yen ($23 million) of the fund into whaling, triggering public outcry. The
whaling subsidy, now part of a broader package of fisheries issues, will
expire next year.
Okubo, the marine researcher, says the research
has been a comfortable option for Japan to keep the embattled industry alive
without taking drastic restructuring needed if they are serious about going
commercial again. The research has justified subsidies, kept jobs for whalers
and allowed Japan to catch up to the ambitious catch quota. The industry at
its peak in the 1960 had more than 10,000 crewmembers and fishermen, but that
number has dropped to fewer than 200, plus a small number of coastal whalers.
The only commercial whaling operator still
operating in Japan is Kyodo Sempaku Kaisha, which is affiliated with the
Institute of Cetacean Research and manages whaling ships and meat sales.
Monday's ICJ ruling in the Hague could cost Japan
the roughly 1,000 whales it takes in the Antarctic each year, or its catch
quota could be reduced. Other Japanese whaling in the North Pacific and off
the Japanese coast will not be affected.
Masayuki Komatsu, a former Fisheries Agency
official who served as a Japanese negotiator at IWC annual meetings, says
Antarctic whaling is legal under international rules.
"What's at stake is not just whales. It's a
matter of territorial rights, in a way," said Komatsu, now a fisheries
professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. "The
Antarctic is an open sea that everyone is entitled to its rich resources.
There is no need to concede to nationalistic confrontation."
But a 2011 report by a Fisheries Agency panel of
outside experts recommended scaling back or terminating the Antarctic hunts, suggesting
that coastal whaling could be enough for Japan's tiny appetite for whale
meat. It was supposed to be an interim report, but no final report was ever
published.
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