southern ocean

The New Zealand Defence Force early in Janurary surprised a third unlicensed fishing boat, far south-east of Tasmania, illegally poaching toothfish - the ocean's "white gold".   The New Zealand government so far has intercepted three ships with their offshore patrol ship, HMNZS Wellington, in cooperation with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.  
(image: head of Patagonian Toothfish)
This summer is Sea Shepherd’s 11th Southern Ocean Defence Campaign and the first to target toothfish fishing operators in the waters of Antarctica. Patagonian toothfish, a species of cod icefish, can grow up to 10 kilograms in weight and are a highly prized eating fish.

Three ships using illegal gillnets to catch prized toothfish were operating in a protected fishery research area about 2500 kilometres from Hobart, according to details released by Interpol.

(image: gillnets)

The illegal fishing boats, believed to be carrying a catch worth $8 million on the black market in South-East Asia, are all flying flags of convenience to avoid prosecution. Fishing in the Southern Ocean is regulated by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).

Thanks to the New Zealand Navy operating in waters south of Australia, they were able to disclose the presence of three criminal ships using illegal gillnets to catch prized toothfish, operating in a protected fishery research area about 2500 kilometres from Hobart.   

In contrast,  the ship tasked with Southern Ocean patrols for Australia, Ocean Shield, was at found to be at anchor off Christmas Island.   Our government promised that the vessel would be employed on two 40-day patrols of the Southern Ocean. We have criminals in our marine "backyard", but the Australian ocean patrol vessel, Ocean Shield, is on AWOL!

The duty of patrolling the Southern Ocean has been silently abrogated to our neighbouring New Zealand, and a not-for-profit organisation.

Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, said the government remained committed to the protection of Australia's sovereign territories and interests in the Southern Ocean, but their priorities were elsewhere!

This broken promise by an Australian government in neglecting the security of our oceans is alarming, disappointing but not surprising. 

Our Australian government has for years ignored Japan's thinly disguised "research whaling", and by procrastination and hollow protests, have allowed the killing to go on relentlessly, without redress. Similar to years of failure of our Australian governments to monitor and halt illegal whaling, this government is failing to control the illegal poaching of prized toothfish! 

If poacher are fishing from a boat that is not signed up to the CCAMLR agreement then the illegal fishing boat is simply fishing on the high seas and prosecution is almost impossible. The only way to prosecute a boat for illegal fishing is to prove that its owner is from a country signed up to CCAMLR.

Gillnets pose many threats, and they are more effective and deadly than longlines. The level of incidental bycatch is greater, and lost or abandoned gillnets have the potential to continue killing marine life through ‘ghost fishing’.

At least the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society will continue to hunt down the illegal vessels.

(image: Sea Shepherd vessel Sam Simon berthed in Wellington)

Successful poachers are making mockery of Australian law, and our so-called national security.  It appears that Minister for Customs and Border Protection, Peter Dutton, has gone to sleep at the wheel, or has abrogated his duties to a successful, vigilant and a service at no cost to the taxpayers from a not-for-profit organisation?

Environment Minister Greg Hunt justified the downgrade of a customs vessel to a plane to monitor Japan's illegal whaling, saying that "we want them to be aware that there will be monitoring – independent monitoring which from an aerial position can take independent vision of what occurs.''

There's no scientific or economic justification for Japan's whale slaughter in the Southern Ocean, where they are internationally protected. We already know what Japan plans to do in the Antarctic.

What's the point of the 2008 federal court decision that Japan's whaling was a breach of Australian law, and not wanting to police it? It's as effective as counting horses as they bolt through the open gate. In the most peaceful place on Earth, the cold and white wonderland of the Antarctic, powerful harpoons will rip the flesh off magnificent whales - in what is their sanctuary!

Japan will be in the Antarctic to deliberately employ explosive harpoons to slaughter protected whales in a whale sanctuary. Sea Shepherd vessels are there to intervene and stop their illegal activities. Japan's intent has already been clearly stated for years, through a bogus "research" legal loophole. If they were to "behave properly", according to Environment Minister Greg Hunt, they would have scientists, biologists, zoologists and technicians on board, to gather data and observe marine wildlife in their habitats. They would not have harpoons, lethal weapons, and all the paraphernalia of a factory ship to process whale meat.

Repetition of whaling in the Antarctic, and Australia's lack of direct action, has strengthen Japan's resolve and purpose and given them confidence in a de facto legality. Simply "recording" illegal activities, in hindsight, from a plane, is a feeble response considering there is clearly no compelling economic or scientific reason for the decades of flouting international standards.

The crew of Sea Shepherd are an embarrassment, a perpetual reminder, a thorn in the flesh to the professional hypocrites in our government who have rendered themselves useless by lots of posturing and words about being "anti whaling", but take no action.

Australia's customs patrol vessel, the Ocean Protector was built specifically to handle the icy conditions of the Southern Ocean, but instead it was patrolling the waters around Christmas Island for asylum seeker boats.

It's an easy and soft option to fend off unarmed asylum seekers, in primitive fishing boats in tropic waters, than to face the more challenging economic power and military hardware of Japan's whaling fleet and explosive harpoons in the more threatening Antarctic wilderness!

SMH: Customs Ship should be sent to disrupt Japanese whaling- Bob Brown

Japanese whaling pirates raiding Australia's southern whale sanctuary every year poach all the whales they want, spin their exposed lie of scientific research to a complicit whaling commission bureaucracy that must exist only for the club sandwiches at meetings.

And what has Rudd-the-Dudd done to protect Australia's southern ocean and indeed its sovereignty from raiding Japanese poachers arriving from some 10,000km to the north? Squat, except publicly froth and bubble yet with no action like all his other core and non-core populist empty promises.

Sea Shepherd, in its Antarctic Whale Defense Campaign, has been doing Australia's Naval border protection job for Australia's regional oceans. It's defence vessels, the Steve Irwin and Bob Barker have recently completed their sixth voyage to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to oppose the illegal whaling activities of the Japanese whaling fleet.

"For three straight weeks from February 5th until February 26th we prevented the entire Japanese whaling fleet from killing a single whale. The month before, we had shut the whalers down for twelve days giving us thirty-three solid whaling-free days, which is one-third of their whaling season. In addition, our actions forced the harpoon vessels Shonan Maru 2 and the Yushin Maru 3 to break off from whaling activities to serve as security vessels to oppose Sea Shepherd interventions, and this prevented these two vessels from killing whales for almost the entire season."

In late 2009, it was announced that New Zealand's record breaking Earthrace bio-fuel powerboat, repainted black and named Ady Gil, would be participating in anti-whaling operations under the lead of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

'On January 6, 2010, in blatant disregard for the safety of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society crew, the Japanese whaling vessel Shonan Maru No. 2 attempted to sink the Ady Gil off the coast of Antarctica.

Video taken from the Japanese vessel Shonan Maru 2 confirm that the skipper of the Shonan Maru 2 made a deliberate starboard turn toward the Ady Gil, thus intentionally causing a collision at sea. This Japanese video from the Japanese Shonan Maru 2 is prima facie evidence of Japanese malicious intent to collide:
You Tube video proof of Japanese intent to collide

Refer: Japanese whaler rams and sinks anti-whaling vessel in Antarctic on candobetter.org website by Sheila Newman, 7th January, 2010.

NZ skipper of the Ady Gil at the time of the collision, Pete Bethune, then boarded the Shonan Maru 2 to make a citizen's arrest of the Japanese captain and handed over a $US3 million (NZ$4.5 million) bill for the destruction of protest ship the Ady Gil that sank after a confrontation a month earlier.'

Instead, the Japanese crew arrested Bethune and imprisoned him on the vessel and took him to Japan. Japan charged Bethune with 'trespassing' of all things on the Shonan Maru II, (which was itself trespassing). Japan has charged Bethune as if Japan still considered itself a pre-WWII imperial dictatorship. Japan has charged Bethune with injuring a crewman, obstructing commercial activities, vandalism and carrying a weapon. Pirates enforcing a kangaroo court. If convicted, Bethune could face up to 15 years in jail. And what of the criminal actions of the Japanese skipper of the Shonan Maru 2?

On 25th February 2010, Rudd-the-Dudd apparently 'warned' Japan that "diplomacy comes to an end this year" on whaling, after presenting a bold plan to phase out the controversial killing of hundreds of minke whales in Australia's Southern Ocean.

Rudd-the Dudd then proclaimed for the cameras:

"We are saying loud and clear to our friends in Japan that Australia does not support the continuation of commercial or scientific whaling in the Southern Ocean, we have a very basic position...and that if Japan cannot come forward with a proposal which reduces its current catch to zero over a reasonable period of time, then we have no alternative but to initiate appropriate legal action."

Words Kev! Politics is more than words - re-read the PM governance manual!

Bethune's US lawyer Dan Harris said last night the activist would admit trespass, possession of a weapon, damage to property and obstructing commercial activity, but deny the most serious charge of assault, which was based on allegations that he was responsible for bottles of rancid butter - a stenching agent known as butyric acid - being thrown at Japanese sailors.

Greens Senator Bob Brown says it is horrendous that a New Zealand anti-whaling activist is facing the prospect of a lengthy jail term in Japan.

Senator Brown says it seems to have been forgotten that the Japanese whalers ran down Mr Bethune's ship, the Ady Gil, endangering the lives of the six people on board.

He says Mr Bethune and his crew were almost killed when the Shonan Maru II rammed their ship.

"It's time that Canberra and Wellington took up that matter with the Japanese government and with great vigour prosecute the Shonan Maru's captain and his crew, who took part in that illegal act in destroying the Ady Gil," he said.

Senator Brown is urging Australia take retaliatory legal action.

"The Australian Federal Police and the New Zealand police are investigating that sinking of the Ady Gil and the Australian and New Zealand governments should be pursuing with great vigour that investigation and charges against the whaling fleet," he said.

[Brown wants Australia to retaliate in whaling furore by ABC North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy,2nd April 2010]

And what is Rudd doing to represent the legal welfare of an Australian citizen defending Australia's ecological sovereignty, and illegally captured on the high seas by Japanese whaling pirates?

Rudd is the most anti-Australian prime minister we have the misfortune to have trusted. Rudd should retire and move to East Asia.

In defence of whales from poaching, in light of an Australian Government roaring mouse complicit in its idleness, bring on concerted propeller wrapping of all Japanese vessels till they are immobilised. Old fishing nets with cabling would be effective, especially at night.

I am not in favour of labelling any defence action as "unprovoked". Once the Japanese rocked up to poach whales in the Southern Ocean they themselves provoked justifiable defence - all gloves off!

Defence of whales and defence of Australia's territorial waters and declared whale sanctuary, justify not killing the poachers but immobilizing and disabling their 'capacity to poach'.

A few sunk Japanese ships would bring the issue to a head and get vacillating Chinilpa Rudd off his fence. He should show some leadership by working with NZ and Pacific Ocean nations to place a Oceania-wide moratorium on refuelling, servicing or supply of any Japanese vessel engaged in fishing, whaling research across Oceania. No fuel, no whaling! The whalers cost to run an alternative fuel ship would make their poaching adventure cost prohibitive. A similar ban should apply to Japanese seconding charter aircraft. These naval samurais would then skidaddle back to Japan with their swords between their legs.

Japanese have no place poaching in our Southern Ocean!