Bob Earll This article starts with the joke of Japan’s ‘scientific whaling’ and then picks up on the very current issue of electric pulse fisheries and UK’s rush to join the Dutch fleet. We are increasingly familiar with the debate about policy based evidence or evidence based policy. This takes it to the next level of a ‘no evidence’ based policy. It also brings into sharp relief the tortuous processes that developers and conservationists have to go through in the marine environment to meet environmental assessment and management regimes whilst the fishing sector can get away without any assessment at all. Indeed it highlights how fishing practices are once again degrading protected areas. Another triumph of marine governance.
George Monbiot ‘One of the of the biggest jokes in conservation is the Japanese government’s claim to be engaged in “scientific whaling”. All the killing by its harpoon fleet takes place under the guise of “research”, as this is the only justification available, under international rules.
According to Joji Morishita, a diplomat representing Japan at the whaling negotiations, this “research programme” has produced 666 scientific papers. While we must respect Mr Morishita’s right to invoke the number of the Beast, which may on this occasion be appropriate, during its investigation of Japanese whaling, the International Court of Justice discovered that the entire “research programme” had actually generated just two peer-reviewed papers, which used data from the carcasses of nine whales.
Over the same period, the Japanese fleet killed around 3,600. So what were the pressing scientific questions this killing sought to address? Here are the likely research areas:
- How much money can be made from selling each carcass?
- Does whale meat taste better fried or roasted?
- To what extent can we take the piss and get away with it?
We are rightly outraged by such deceptions. But while we focus our anger on a country on the other side of the world, the same trick – the mass slaughter of the creatures of the sea under the guise of “scientific research” – is now being deployed under our noses. Our own government, alongside the European commission and other member states, is perpetrating this duplicity.
Fishing in Europe with poisons, explosives and electricity is banned. But the commission has gradually been rescinding the ban on using electricity. It began with one or two boats, then in 2010, after ferocious lobbying by the government of the Netherlands, 5% of the Dutch trawler fleet was allowed to use this technique. In 2012 the proportion was raised to 10%. Eighty-five massive Dutch supertrawlers have now been equipped with electric pulse gear, at a cost of around £300,000 per ship. Too read more go to …
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