Australia Versus Japan at the International Court of Justice REV2

As many readers will know, Australia has taken Japan to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its 'scientific whaling' activities in Antarctica. This is undoubtedly an historic case with very significant implications for future whaling and I am not going to comment beyond this here, but I will provide some links below where you can find out more.

You can find some official background to the case here.

Andrew Darby is one of the leading journalists who follows the whaling issue and you can see his opening article on the case here.

The case is now entering its second (of three) weeks of the hearing. The first three days, last week, consisted of Australia presenting its case, the presentations by its expert scientific witnesses and some cross questioning of the same. Japan starts to make its reply from Tuesday afternoon.

You can watch the case live on the ICJ website or you can watch video recordings - the link to both of these is here.

I will update this page with other links as I spot them.

Newer Links

Interesting commentary from Philippa Brakes of WDC here

Latest from Andrew Darby (including pictures of the court) here

Attorney General of Australia commenting on the case (9th July) here

And again here on ABC.

The case closes (16th of July) - comments on Japan's closing statements here and here

Australia concludes its case - Darby again (11th July) here

Andrew Darby's final thoughts, including a little more on what happens next here

Back in the UK - the birds and the bees

More summer visitors to the garden:

The European Magpie (last seen in Jeju) here in the UK

Greater  spotted woodpecker and adult starling share a bird-feeder

Bathtime

A youngster

'Stumpy' the tail-less young starling

Stumpy again

Parent robin looking for its two youngsters

One young robin begs for food

And here is the other

Even in my relatively protected garden it is obviously a tough life for young birds. They lack the experience of older birds and no matter how watchful their parents are, there are many hazards for the youngsters. The small pile of brown feathers that I found a couple of days ago can be explained by Stumpy's condition. I suspect that he was grabbed by a cat and whilst he has survived, his tail is gone and he seems to spend most of his time running about on the ground. When startled the other flock members fly swiftly up and and away into the hedgerow but stumpy runs for cover in the long grass. 

OBE Gratitude

Outside Buckingham Palace with OBE - December 19 2013

I have just got off the plane from Jeju Island after a long journey and am now trying to assimilate the fact that my name is among those listed in the Queen's 2013 Birthday Honours, details of which were released yesterday. I have been awarded an OBE for services to environmental sciences and marine mammal conservation. It is deeply gratifying that the value of marine conservation has been recognised in this unexpected way.

For the greater part of my career it has been my privilege to have focused on marine wildlife and particularly whales, dolphins and porpoises. These are animals that the British public undoubtedly love but trying to improve the situation of these splendid and inspiring animals in the increasingly busy seas of our planet remains very much an uphill struggle. The good news is that chemical and noise pollution, which are important threats to marine wildlife, are now widely recognised as such (it was not always this way). Equally positively, the global moratorium on commercial whaling remains in place, despite many attempts to displace it. If it was not there, whale-killing would certainly expand.

I continue to feel passionate about improving the protection of marine wildlife. However, just as it ‘takes a village to raise a child’, it also takes a village to have an impact in the conservation field; and an award like this recognises a whole network of people. Without the necessary funds, the strategic advice and the support of friends and colleagues, nothing would be achieved. I am delighted that WDCS is recognised in the citation for the award, I have spent the better part of the last two decades working with them, and I continue to work closely with this very special and important charity. My ‘village’ also includes other ‘whale champions’. It was the Environmental Investigation Agency that sent me to my first meeting of the IWC in 1994 (I have not missed an annual meeting since). Before this, Greenpeace International started to involve me in the work of the Convention for Migratory Species (CMS) in the early 1990s. In the intervening years CMS has generated a series of regional agreements for whales and dolphins.

Also at the heart of my ‘village’ is the Humane Society International which champions the ongoing battles against the mistreatment of animals around the world. Other core ‘village people’ can be found at the Animal Welfare Institute, WSPA, Campaign Whale, OceanCare,the Wildlife and Countryside Link Whale Working Group, the UK’s ‘Whale Team’ and strandings rescue and investigation networks and my friends within the IGOs. (You know who you are!).

I know that the awarding of an OBE requires a lot of solid support, so thank you for placing me in a position to attract this honour. I accept it for the work of the ‘village’. Finally, I am grateful that my mum and the rest of my family who must have wondered about my unconventional career from time to time and who have had to tolerate many often long absences, will know that other people thought it was worthwhile too.  

Mark

Comment from WDC here.

Jeju - more images

Just some more wildlife photos:

Cliff View

The Korean Flying Banana

Details of beach sign

European magpie

Crab - found in freshwater river at top of cliff

Brown-earded bulbul contemplates eating another cigarette butt

Jeju - images from a day off

I am just going to hang a few images here from around the island gained today and will provide further explanation later.

The museum of tea's collection of tea cups

One of Jeju's offshore islands

Marine debris on an un-cleaned shore

A larva surge

This is a tunnel dug by the Japanese in the unique geological feature during  WWII and from which they used to launch kamikaei attacks on the allied forces.

Jeju squid boat

Pacific reef heron

The 'Jeju sea slater Ligia spp. - about one inch long

Hanging out the squid to dry

Swinhoe's or Chinese egret - note bright yellow feet.

another island

Photoshoot on the beach

Tricolor Flycatcher (him and her): Photo kindly provided by Fabian Ritter

Pierre and Frank enjoy some birdwatching

The Jeju roe deer

A river valley - the magnificent tree on the left is an acer/Maple

A grandfather stone (on the right)

Recommended natural history trip on Jeju: the '1100 Altitude Wetland' which is a Ramsar site on the side of the mountain - more here. 

This is the higest part of the island that you can drive to and a number of walks are accessible from here. 

Mr Simmonds Speaks - Welfare versus Conservation

I did a little interview for the Sentience Mosaic Initiaive recently and it has just gone live. 

It is only a few minutes long and in it we are discussing sentience, welfare and conservation. 

To hear: click HERE.

And if you agree click the heart symbol - and then send the link to a friend!

Jeju - Battle of the islands

In a previous blog I compared Jeju Island (where I happen to be sitting at the moment) with the Isle of Wight (where I happen to come from) and I have been requested to make this comparison a little clearer. My point was that they are both holiday islands. Here are some data:

Feature	Jeju Island, South Korea	Isle of Wight, United Kingdom
Age and composition	Formation: created from volcanic eruptions about 2 million years ago	Sedimentary
Size (area km2)	1,848	380 (21% of Jeju).
Annual Average Temperature	16℃	13℃
Population:	577,187	132,731 (23% of Jeju)
Number of associated islands	90 (8 occupied and 82 unoccupied islands)	The British Mainland (5 miles away)
Annual number of tourists	(2010) : 7,570,000 (6.8 Korean and 770,000 non-Korean tourists)	2,700,000 (35% Jeju figure)
Designations	nine geological sites have  received recognition as UNESCO Global Geoparks from the UNESCO Global Geoparks Network (GGN)	Slightly more than half of the island, mainly in the west, is designated as the Isle of Wight Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

So in conclusion: Jeju is some 5 times bigger than the IoW (and a little warmer on average, although I understand there are often deep snows here in the winter) but proportionately the tourist aspect is quite comparable.

Happy Scientists look forward to day off

Jeju - a little more about the island.

So here is a little more about Jeju – it is an island; it belongs to South Korea and can be accessed by boat or plane... walking does not work.

For the Koreans it is a major holiday resort (US colleagues suggest that it is the Korean’s equivalent of their Florida but I find it more like a supped-up version of the Isle of Wight) and pretty much the whole landscape of the island – which is dramatic with a volcano at the centre and beaches and cliffs at the edges – is devoted to tourism. There are many theme parks and other large scale tourist attractions. There are also some tangerine groves – although these are also to some extent grown to allow the tourists to take them home as souvenirs, the other major take-home gift being fish.

Local specialties in restaurants include seafood and some of this tends to arrive at the table alive and customers kill and cook it themselves.

Korean pickles

The Scientific Committee meeting is being held in a luxurious hotel surrounded by well manicured gardens that reach to the cliff’s edge. This luxurious hotel is surrounded by other luxurious hotels together covering several square miles (of luxury). Here there are things that one might expect in western hotels like swimming pools, bars and coffee shops, but also less expected structures, like a series of full-sized Dutch-style artificial and electrically-driven windmills and small areas of tents. Now the tented areas in the gardens of the hotels seem to either be a place for the children to play (and perhaps pretend that they are out in the wild) or somewhere for families to go and have barbecues. The tented areas come complete with not only barbequing equipment but also large electric insect killing devices and, of course, waiters and other highly attentive staff.

A coffee in the luxury hotel where we are meeting costs £11 (but does come with a very small cake).

Sperm whale in ice

The local and tourist Koreans are, as ever, very polite and welcoming; just very occasionally you see a small child staring at the odd western faces with their funny wide eyes and hairy faces.


Some night images of Jeju:

Inside one big hotel

outside another

Local eating option

Restaurant advert - black pigs are a local speciality

A monster coffee shop

A late-night tangerine and fish shop