Whale war to move to supermarket shelves

Greenpeace International

Suva, Fiji Islands, January 24, 2006

Greenpeaces efforts to end whaling in the Southern Oceans will now move to supermarket shelves.

Greenpeace Australia Pacific Oceans Team Leader Nilesh Goundar said after a month-long chase of Japanese ships in the Southern Ocean, signing and delivery of petitions in the Pacific, consumer power will now be used against fishing companies that finance the whaling industry.

Mr Goundar said the Japanese who tried hiding behind the skirts of research in their bid to commercial whaling failed to slaughter 935 minke whales and 10 endangered fin whales and the organisation will continue to work for an end to support for whaling.

We have left the Southern Ocean last week after a month of anti-whaling protests targeting a Japanese whaler, the Yushin Maru Number Two and our two ships, Arctic Sunrise and Esperanza, are preparing to leave for Cape Town in South Africa with our 57 crew members, he said.

However Mr Goundar said the fight for and end to commercial whaling was not over as the boats were leaving for logistical reasons.

As diplomatic pressure has failed to stop whaling so far, other avenues need to be explored we have discovered that the whaling programme is financed by major fishing companies one which produces tinned and frozen fish and is owned by one of these Japanese fishing companies, he said.

The Arctic Sunrise was rammed earlier this month by the 129m Japanese factory ship, the Nisshin Maru and activists close to being harpooned to death but this has not dampened spirits infact it has motivated Greenpeace to soldier on .

Mr Goundar called on all Pacific Governments, the United Nations, Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, all diplomats based in the Pacific and the people of the Pacific to send a strong message to these companies that being associated with whaling is bad for their business.

We cannot just be a drop in the ocean anymore, he said.