Whaling
So, the Japanese are now at least saying that they're not going to go after humpbacks as well as their usual crop of whales as this year, as they originally intended. This in response, they insist, is purely in response to diplomatic pressure.
Is it bad of me to suspect that the presence of not only Greenpeace but another ship of more extreme (bomb-throwing) conservationists ('cause y'know, drowning in fuel oil is better than being harpooned, right?), and Australia's deployment of an armed revenue cutter, Oceanic Viking, (effectively a sloop of war) to "investigate what action can legally be taken" may have carried more weight? After all, a few decades ago Icelandic "investigations" of British trawlers invading their newly expanded territorial waters (an Oceanic Viking was on similar duties recently) involved line cutting, the forced internment of British fishing vessels and the RN having to escort cod-boats for their protection.
If this is so, then (a) it's depressing, and (b) maybe Greenpeace should sell the Esperanza and buy a submersible? Diesel attack boats from the old Eastern Bloc are supposed to be fairly affordable, and failing that you can always get the Tamul Tigers to put one together for you: the threat of unrestricted submarine warfare ought to be pretty effective. You wouldn't even need to follow the fleet: just offer to sink ships anywhere within Japanese waters at random.
Another thought - let the Japanese catch all the whales they want, but only allow them one whaling ship, and limit them to 19th century technology. Fewer whales would be killed, and it would be useful act of experimental archaeology to fill in the gaps in our knowledge. And when in their inexperience they lost almost as many hands as they took whales, they might have second thoughts about actively promoting extinction.
In other news, I'm back in Lincolnshire for Christmas now :-)
Is it bad of me to suspect that the presence of not only Greenpeace but another ship of more extreme (bomb-throwing) conservationists ('cause y'know, drowning in fuel oil is better than being harpooned, right?), and Australia's deployment of an armed revenue cutter, Oceanic Viking, (effectively a sloop of war) to "investigate what action can legally be taken" may have carried more weight? After all, a few decades ago Icelandic "investigations" of British trawlers invading their newly expanded territorial waters (an Oceanic Viking was on similar duties recently) involved line cutting, the forced internment of British fishing vessels and the RN having to escort cod-boats for their protection.
If this is so, then (a) it's depressing, and (b) maybe Greenpeace should sell the Esperanza and buy a submersible? Diesel attack boats from the old Eastern Bloc are supposed to be fairly affordable, and failing that you can always get the Tamul Tigers to put one together for you: the threat of unrestricted submarine warfare ought to be pretty effective. You wouldn't even need to follow the fleet: just offer to sink ships anywhere within Japanese waters at random.
Another thought - let the Japanese catch all the whales they want, but only allow them one whaling ship, and limit them to 19th century technology. Fewer whales would be killed, and it would be useful act of experimental archaeology to fill in the gaps in our knowledge. And when in their inexperience they lost almost as many hands as they took whales, they might have second thoughts about actively promoting extinction.
In other news, I'm back in Lincolnshire for Christmas now :-)