Visit Cape Muroto in Kochi and learn more about living with whales at the museum, then sample delicious local whale cuisine at friendly local restaurants.
Japanese students learn about the ocean in a project helping university researchers to recover the bones of an endangered gray whale in Chiba that died in...
"It is important not to lose our food culture" says Professor Takashi Matsuishi, adding that whale should be used "sustainably based on scientific evidence."
After IWC68, the institution must adapt to include member countries deeply divided in their views toward living marine resources and values of sustainable use.
Overall, in IWC68 the process intended to produce fairness under Western standards was incapable of meeting the needs of developing countries.
The IWC68 financial crisis highlights the IWC's reduced priority for scientific decision making and raises concerns among pro-sustainable use nations.
The resumption of commercial whaling was not Japan's only policy goal at IWC68. Another policy goal was to uphold and promote the principle of sustainable use.
Nicknamed "Yodo-chan" on social media in Japan, what was thought to be a sperm whale wandered into the bay in weakened condition.
In practice the IWC has already abandoned the management of whale resources and whaling, and the Western worldview caused this situation.
Not the whaling moratorium, but the defense and promotion of the general principle of sustainable use is the important policy issue for many countries.
In 2018 the IWC officially shifted the organization’s purpose from whaling management to whale conservation over dozens of objections – and Japan withdrew.
Dr Kato naturally hoped that the IWC would act based on the scientific results of the research. But whales had become a totem of the environmental...
