Greenpeace New Zealand Weblog

Whalebreak the game.

Two Greenpeace activists expose an embezzlement scandal involving whale meat which is costing Japanese taxpayers millions of yen. Forty cops swoop down on the Greenpeace offices to arrest the Greenpeace activists instead of the criminals.

A global storm follows: hundreds of thousand of supporters write to the Japanese government. Diplomatic protests are lodged by whale-friendly governments. Vigils and demonstrations are held outside Japanese embassies worldwide.

You can free them in whale break!

The last post from Dave at the IWC meeting…

At last… IWC60, also known as the 60th International Whaling Commission meeting, is now over.

I started writing blog in the press room yesterday, while listening to the incredible (and often entertaining) rhetoric emanating from the pro-whaling nations, especially those whose votes have been “purchased” by Japan. The matter at stake today was a proposed expansion of Greenland’s quota, to add 10 humpback whales to the quota of 200 minke, 19 fin and 2 bowhead whales already hunted annually. Alas, while Greenland’s hunt supposedly falls under the definition of aboriginal subsistence whaling, it’s becoming clear to Greenpeace - as well as other organisations like WSPA - that it’s anything but; Greenland clearly doesn’t need the whale meat it demands for local, subsistence use - much of it ends up in Greenland’s supermarkets, for commercial sale, which means it’s not fulfilling the IWC definition of “subsistence”.

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I get really annoyed with the rants from departing industry heads as they try to ‘leave us wanting more’ before they exit stage left.

And so it was with Charlie Pedersen, soon to be ex-federated farmers president. Read more »

IWC Chairman William Hogarth opens the Whale Kingdom for the Greenpeace Ocean Defenders
© Greenpeace/Christian Varas Kallens.

This is from our man Dave Walsh at the IWC meeting in Chile …

 This is my first blog from the International Whaling Commission - as I write, we’re into the third day of the five-day meeting, at the Sheraton Hotel, in Santiago, Chile. Without trying to justify why it’s taken me so long to write something, I would like to explain - despite the fact that not much has happened here so far, it’s still been a pretty busy few days.

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This is a rough translation of the final blog that Junichi Sato wrote before he was arrested in Tokyo for allegedly stealing a box of whale meat, itself stolen from the Japanese taxpayers, that he presented to police as evidence of widescale fraud in the whaling industry:

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Junichi Sato is not only a whale activist in Japan (and there ain’t many people who can put THAT on their business card), he’s also a blogger. And he’s been arrested for the crime of exposing the truth

We’re asking bloggers around the world to blog this story in solidarity with Junichi and blog him out of jail! Read more »

No it’s not a Split Enz song it’s a new international fish red list. In a new report, Greenpeace has shown that in the U.S., most supermarkets purchase seafood with little consideration of where it came from, how it was caught, or how fish stocks are fairing.

The world’s oceans are often seen as containing a limitless source of food. However, as vast as they are they are they are not an inexhaustible resource, and after years of overfishing, fish stocks are crashing one after the other. Our fishing fleets have gone further and further afield and trawled to deeper and deeper depths and the fish are literally running out. Read more »

Hello from Santiago, Chile, where the Greenpeace Whales team is gathering for this years International Whaling Commission meeting. There’ll be more news in the coming days like an update on today’s “Future of the IWC” discussion - but I I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to pass up this little nugget appeared in various media. According to ABC’s Shane McLeod, based in Tokyo, the Japanese Foreign Ministry has asked any Japanese people in Chile to avoid talking about whaling.
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How many politicians does it take to change a lightbulb?

Hard to say for sure but it looks like they’ve almost done it! The NZ Government announced yesterday that NZ will phase out incandescent light bulbs in 2009.

According to David Parker the move will cut lighting energy consumption by 20 percent by 2015 and save up to NZ$500 million ($376 million) by 2020. This is good news - especially in light of today’s announcement that our co2 emissions continue to rise. Read more »

Our protest pod of over 25,000 origami whales is heading to Japan with a message for Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, asking him to end the government’s support for the whaling industry.

Help us triple that figure by the time the International Whaling Commission meets in Chile towards the end of June.

Send your whale on its way here: http://www.send-a-whale.com