Green Party lawmakers in Australia and New Zealand are considering urging consumers to boycott Japanese products to protest Tokyo's plan to expand its annual whale hunt, the party's co-leader said Monday.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Green Party lawmakers in Australia and New Zealand are considering urging consumers to boycott Japanese products to protest Tokyo's plan to expand its annual whale hunt, the party's co-leader said Monday.
Jeanette Fitzsimons told New Zealand's National Radio she had discussed with Australian Green Party leader Bob Brown the idea of "some trans-Tasman consumer action against Japan if they succeed" in getting approval from the International Whaling Commission for an expanded whale hunt.
"I think the time has come to look at diplomatic measures, trade measures, to look at things consumers can do," she said. "We've actually got to show some muscle here," she added.
The Tasman Sea separates Australia and New Zealand, two nations strongly opposed to Japan's continuing hunting of whales under a research program.
Japan announced in early April it intends to seek permission to conduct a "broader and more comprehensive" research whaling program in the Antarctic at the commission's annual meeting in South Korea in mid-June.
Tokyo has declined to release details of the expanded hunt ahead of the IWC Scientific Committee's consideration of the proposal in the three weeks prior to the IWC's full meeting.
Opponents of the plan have claimed that Japan is seeking to double to 800 the number of minke whales it will slaughter each year, and to add 50 humpback whales and 50 fin whales.
Japan has not previously killed humpbacks or fin whales as part of its research program, which began in 1987.
Tokyo has repeatedly failed to muster the three-fourths majority of IWC member nations needed to overturn the commercial whaling ban which took effect in 1986. It has recently threatened to quit the commission.
Fitzsimons dismissed Japan's scientific whaling as a cover for continuing "to put whale meat on the table in Japan."
New Zealand Conservation Minister Chris Carter said he was prepared "to explore any avenue ... if we can stop Japan slaughtering these whales."
Taking legal action against Japan in the Hague-based World Court was one option being explored, he said.
He said the mammals migrate through New Zealand waters and provide the basis for a major whale-watching industry.
Source: Associated Press
