On February 18, 2011, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries announced that they are ending this year’s Antarctic whaling season early, and have called the fleet back to port.

This is fantastic news, and not a moment too soon. It’s another nail in the whaling program’s coffin, and hopefully the precursor to a future government announcement that will end Japan’s Antarctic whaling for once and for all.

For the past decade, my colleagues at Greenpeace Japan and I have been one of many people working to end Japan’s whaling by raising awareness of the issue inside Japan. One of the ways we’ve done this is to show the Japanese public the corruption that is rife inside the whaling industry. It’s Japanese taxpayer’s money that is continuing to bankroll ocean destruction, through the subsidies required to put the fleet to sea every year.

As Japanese people become more aware of the corruption that has been propping their government’s bogus “scientific” whaling, they are also becoming increasingly more vocal about ending it.

Nearly three years ago, we brought attention to one of the scandals that been instrumental in propping up the ailing whaling industry: the routine and endemic distribution of expensive whale meat cuts to Japanese officials, and theft by crew members. Whaling industry people were lining their pockets with cash, and the public were picking up the bill.

Toru Suzuki and I intercepted a box containing over 20kg of this meat, labeled as cardboard, and delivered it to the Tokyo Prosecutor’s office. This event changed my life forever – instead of investigating the corruption inside the whaling industry; the authorities arrested us, held us for over three weeks, charged us with theft of the box and convicted us.

Toru and I are currently appealing our convictions, but still face the possibility of a year in prison. On the up side, our case has meant that we’re still in touch with whistle-blowers inside the whaling industry, who are telling me that lack of demand is pushing the industry to the verge of bankruptcy.

And in December, several Fisheries Agency officials publicly apologized for taking whale meat as gifts; the second in command of the agency subsequently left his job. We are seeing many signs that Japan no longer wants to go whaling; its current economic climate is just the tip of the iceberg.

This year’s whaling season was always going to be a short one; the fleet didn’t leave port until December, and with one less catcher boat. Our whaling informants had said that the fleet was planning to return early, with less than half of its quota because of the ridiculously excessive stockpile of frozen whale meat that as of December 2010 totalled some 5,000 sitting in coldstores.

Athough we forecast back in December that the whaling fleet would be home early, just as we’ve known for years that Japan’s whaling would eventually  end,  it is really exciting to see it unfolding right now.

As we’ve said before, it is not a matter of if Japan’s Antarctic whaling would end, but rather when it will end. There is still a great deal to be done and considerable pressure that we here in Japan must keep on our officials to ensure that whaling finally ends, just  as our friends around the world must keep up pressure on their governments to continue making it clear to Japan that whaling must stop permanently.

But I will always remember today as a landmark moment in the demise of my country’s whaling program. When Toru and I appear again in court on May 24th to hear about our fate and get a better sense of how Japanese society will view civil dissent, I will be sure that my efforts – and the efforts of others – have not been in vain and that Antarctic whaling will not survive much longer.

Junichi Sato is the Executive Director of Greenpeace Japan

>> Read more about our campaign to end whaling.

Whale meat was shipped to Japanese officials as gifts

On December 22, 2010 – the Fisheries Agency of Japan (FAJ) acknowledged and publicly apologized for embezzlement within the whaling industry. An official from the powerful agency gave a 90 degree bow of apology on national television and explained that five officers were being punished for accepting around 272,000 Yen (approximately $3,000 USD) worth of whale meat ‘gifts.’

This is hard evidence that the whale meat embezzlement scandal exposed by Toru and I back in 2008, and supported in court with witness statements, did in fact exist, and that the corruption stretched from the factory ship floor right up into the government agencies overseeing the whaling programme. Straight from the horse’s mouth, and on national television no less.

The bow in the video may look like posturing, but I can assure you that this was very unusual for Japan – particularly considering this was about whaling! An FAJ official apologizing for something whaling-related would have been unthinkable only a few months ago, yet here we are.

The FAJ confirmed that the five officials who received whale meat faced disciplinary action. Toru and I intercepted a box of embezzled whale meat in 2008, and used it to expose the embezzlement scandal the FAJ has now admitted to. We were tried on allegations of ‘theft’ and ‘trespass’ and handed a one year sentence, suspended for three, in 2010. We don’t know what exact punishment the officials have been handed, but we know that they have not been put on trial or given jail time.

The meat they admitted accepting was worth roughly six times what Toru and I were accused of taking.

Since the apology in December, more information has come to light, and the agency has admitted that another two key officials (managers) have also been officially warned. One of these senior managers was Jun Yamashita, the number two civil servant at the FAJ and a prominent negotiator at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meetings. Yamashita has since left the agency altogether.

This is a major development and a wholly positive one for an end to Japanese whaling. Yamashita was involved in the various whaling negotiations, including a meeting of pro-whaling factions in Shimonoseki last November.  

The Tokyo Two trial, the FAJ apologies and demotions, and a surge in media coverage questioning the corrupt whaling program have all impacted Japanese public opinion (especially considering the utter lack of interest in eating whale meat). People are beginning to see that whaling serves no purpose and does not benefit Japan.

For my father’s generation, whale meat was everywhere: in schools, supermarkets, and izakayas (Japanese style pubs). These days, signs of the whaling industry are hard to find and the stockpile of frozen meat is at an all-time high, despite reduced catches and serious – but failed – marketing attempts to get rid of the stockpile.

Last week, Kazuo Yamamura, the CEO of whaling fleet operator Kyodo Senpaku and head of the Japan Whaling Association (JWA), also admitted that whale meat sales dropped 30% in the first half of the 2010 fiscal year, forcing the JWA – the largest promoter of whale meat in Japan – to downscale its activities.

The situation is clear: the industry is slipping faster and faster down the spiral. Our campaign to hit whale meat sales in Japan is surely working.

The fleet is ailing, each year they voluntarily catch less whales that they cannot sell or afford to keep storing. The stockpiled meat and the lack of revenue means the ships cannot be maintained or replaced without even more substantial injections of public money.

The government should not waste any more money on this program given that these recent admissions are clearly just the tip of the iceberg.

With all of these different threads of change coming together, I am confident that what we are seeing is the last chapter of Japan’s whaling program.

If our appeal is successful and Toru’s and my conviction is overturned by the High Court on May 24, then we will undoubtedly be even closer to closing the book.

Thank you for your continuing support!

Junichi Sato, is the Executive and Program Director for Greenpeace in Japan.