Sea Shepherd ready to clash with Japanese whalers
Sea Shepherd ready to clash with Japanese whalers
The Australian Government is calling for restraint as Japanese whalers and protesters prepare for a confrontation in the Southern Ocean.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-whaling group that call themselves the pirates of the sea, are not afraid of meeting the Japanese coast guard in Antarctica.
Environmental groups are expecting the Japanese will send a coast guard ship to protect the whaling fleet from protesters this summer.
But Greenpeace has decided not to send its protest ships down to Antarctica this time.
Sea Shepherd activists have rammed Japanese whaling ships, thrown butyric acid onto their decks and even jumped on board.
Then last summer, Sea Shepherd founder Captain Paul Watson, says someone aboard a Japanese whaling ship shot him.
Mr Watson has a video of a bullet lodged in his bullet-proof vest, but the Japanese whalers say no-one took a shot at the activist.
Last summer, Japan sent coast guard officers down on its whaling ships. This year Greenpeace believes the Japanese will be sending a coast guard ship to protect its whaling fleet.
Steve Shallhorn is the chief executive of Greenpeace Australia-Pacific.
"It was reported in a Japan fisheries magazine some weeks ago that the equivalent of $8 million has been allocated to the Japanese coast guard to protect the fleet," he said.
"So, we made the assumption that that amount of money will be used to send a vessel down there."
Japan will not say if it is sending the coast guard down to Antarctica, but Sea Shepherd will sail out of Brisbane next month for what it calls an aggressive but non-violent confrontation with the Japanese whaling fleet.
Mr Watson says he is also ready to confront the Japanese coast guard.
"We're concerned of course. But I don't care if they send the whole Japanese Navy down there; we're not going to be intimidated from going down there. We have no intention of retreating from them," he said.
"We've cost them their profits for last three years and we're going to continue to do that. We've had over the last 30 years a lot of confrontations, including confrontations with the Soviet and Norwegian Navies, who've fired on us. So, I'm not too concerned about them."
Greenpeace backs out
As the Sea Shepherd society prepares for an escalation with the Japanese, Mr Shallhorn has announced Greenpeace will not be going back down to Antarctica this summer.
"Greenpeace has been down in the Southern Ocean for the past three years, so we've taken the decision over the last couple of weeks that really what we need to do is focus on the campaign inside Japan," he said.
"It's only because there's not enough opposition inside Japan that the fleet goes down to the Southern Ocean every year. And that's where we believe the decisive battle is going to be fought."
Mr Watson says Greenpeace have scared off the Japanese coast guard.
"Shame on them. I mean, they've been collecting money for the last 10 months to go down there and that's millions of dollars they've collected," he said.
"You know, we're not even able to come to close to fundraising at that scale, and they're not going down. Of course, the announcement coincided with the announcement by Japan they're going to send a gun boat. So, maybe they're frightened; I don't know."
But Mr Shallhorn disagrees. He thinks the Sea Shepherd society is taking a risk.
"I think any time you do a direct action at sea is a certain amount of risk, that's obvious," he said.
With all this talk of risky behaviour, the Government wants both the Japanese and the activists to act with restraint.
A spokesman from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says Japan will not be breaking the law if it sends the coast guard down to Antarctica.
But the Australian Government still has not found out if the coast guard is going to be protecting the Japanese whaling fleet.
