Change Agents

Navin75/Flickr, Australian Marine Conservation Society, ANUThe anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd has called a halt to its famous missions tracking the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean. For the past 12 years the group’s boats have engaged in annual high-seas battles with vessels carrying out Japan’s self-described scientific whaling program. But Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson has admitted that Japan’s use of military-grade technology such as real-time satellite tracking has left the activists unable to keep up. Watson also criticised the Australian government over its response to Japan’s whaling program, despite a global ban on most whaling. Read more: Murky waters: why is Japan still whaling in the Southern Ocean? Scientific whaling is technically allowed under the International Whaling Commission’s treaty, and countries such as Japan have the right to decide for themselves what constitutes “scientific” in this context. Australia i