This is a great recent video from the Friends of the Merri Marine Sanctuary, a small and dedicated group helping – as one goal – to remind local people about the amazing natural features and marine life on their doorstep.
At a lecture and networking day on the weekend hosted by Deakin University and the Victorian National Parks Association, a member of the Friends group mentioned how hard it can be to get the support and interest of people outside the conservation community. I could see similar parallels with another spectacular occurrence that Warrnambool people often ignore.
Living near one of the calving grounds for southern right and humpback whales, people in this area can tend to be ambivalent about the excitement generated in the tourism industry each time the whale watching season approaches.
A recent humorous list of 30 things only a local would understand had this gem at number 23:
Courtesy: standard.net.au
Funny (maybe just as a Warrnambool local) but it highlights that disinterest I spoke of – we’re happy the whales are here but we’re just as happy to ignore them because it doesn’t suit us to stand around for hours (and it can be hours between ‘showings’). Same goes for conservation – local people are generally happy that someone is doing it but not bothered to get involved themselves.
What can you do with apathy like that? It was an open question to the weekend’s session and though there were some good suggestions, as usual it was hard to come up with the perfect answer. My idea was to keep the good work these people do at the forefront, tell the media, tell politicians, help to get relevant policy change at the state and federal level and let your own passion inspire other people. Al Gore was one who helped ‘cure’ apathy over climate change on a global level but it’s even more important to make small communities like ours care about the natural wonders they take for granted.
A very small section of Japanese society would like to eat this guy. Photo: http://www.capelodge.com.au
Like many who care about the fate of some of the world’s biggest marine creatures, I’ve been watching in disbelief at the farcical arguments being thrown around at the International Court of Justice over the past two weeks.
Australia is aiming, through the ICJ, to prove that Japan’s Southern Ocean JARPA program is actually a commercial operation.
But, just as Japan has done at CITES and various other major environmental meetings, they couldn’t let commonsense and good legal arguments cloud their representations.
Just look at Japan’s greatest hits from one day of the ‘trial’, (story appeared in Wednesday’s Guardian)
“Japan insists lethal research is both lawful and necessary”
Tokyo was seeking “scientific information on the basis of which Japan might be able to ask for the moratorium [on commercial whaling] to be lifted”
Japan itself had reason to be offended by Australia’s “factual misrepresentations and … misleading use of selective references and quotes”, Tsuruoka said.
The Japanese government told the UN’s top judicial body it was a court of law, not a “medieval inquisition”
I think Japan may have been feeling like this:
I think this is a ‘medieval inquisition’, which looks very unlike the ICJ courtroom
Photo: morriscourse.com
But after all the nonsense arguments from Japan, they still missed the point: ‘After the hearing, government spokesman Noriyuki Shikata told AAP that Japan was content with its “powerful case”.’
I’m no lawyer but a “powerful case” in this arena would seem to be one based on watertight arguments and sound scientific backing and hopefully support from other countries who have proven strong environmental consciousness. Not from those with commercial whaling programs and vested interests in keeping the dream alive for their kids who one day will get to harpoon whales, just like their parents.
Carl Safina, in the Huffington Post, wrote about a similar situation at the CITES meeting in March, where Japan and China were fighting to keep endangered sharks… well, off the endangered list:
… Because Japanese and Chinese delegates are applying intense pressure (read: $) on certain poor countries in Africa and elsewhere to reverse their votes. Japan always does this, bribing countries with aid packages or even individual delegates with cash. And so, a week that has started with a monumental decision for sharks may conclude with another black eye for shark conservation and for CITES.
At least these countries weren’t successful, this time:
Delegates at the triennial meeting in Bangkok of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna adopted the proposals to put the oceanic whitetip, hammerhead and porbeagle sharks on a list of species whose trade is closely controlled.
More than two dozen species of shark are officially endangered, and more than 100 others considered either vulnerable or near threatened. Like manta rays, sharks are seen as valuable to nations with dive tourism industries, with island territories such as the Bahamas, Fiji and the Maldives deriving major benefits. Eleven nations, including Brazil, the U.S. and Egypt, proposed regulating trade in the species.
The oceanic whitetip proposal passed in a secret ballot with 92 votes in favor, 42 against and 8 abstentions, while the hammerhead proposal passed with 91 votes in favor and 39 against. The porbeagle proposal was adopted with 93 votes in favor, 39 against and 8 abstentions.
It seems that international trade and foreign relations plays a big part in whether a country feels safe to denounce the whaling or shark and dolphin hunting activities of another.
Australia is a key market for Japanese cars and gadgets and they provide vast tourism dollars and a market for our grain, beef and raw materials so there is some financial risk here (but you could safely say, not as big a risk as the Sea Shepherd crews have been taking each summer during Antarctic whaling season).
Economic sanctions by Japan could potentially hurt our economy but if other countries step up and support Australia’s position at the ICJ, it could help Japan to change its position on whales, sharks and dolphins and become active in seeking their protection.
Over the Christmas/New Years break, crowds of Melbourne, interstate and overseas visitors have been flocking to the small towns along the Great Ocean Road to get some (hopefully) sun, sand and surf and relaxation time. While the sun hasn’t been playing fair that much and surfers will have been disappointed, snorkeling and scuba dive conditions have been very good.
The beauty of this south-western stretch of coast is that, for every beach teeming with day-trippers, there’s always another hidden, empty spot nearby. Sometimes they are less accessible, such as this perfect dive spot close to Warrnambool (and less than 200m away from the remains of the dead whale stranded on the rocks in July), but often they are just further away from the usual tourist traps such as the 12 Apostles, Bay of Martyrs and London Bridge.
If you’re after blacklip (or less commonly, the tastier greenlip) abalone or southern rock lobster, these out-of-the-way spots are well worth checking out. A dive spot just over 400m from a tourist campervan-filled carpark near Port Campbell yielded a feast of abalone on Thursday and scuba divers reported that some of the deeper ledges held some sizeable crays.
Victoria is one of the biggest wild abalone breeding grounds in the Southern Hemisphere and the strict regulations (and heavy fines for breaking the rules) on recreational collecting have helped to maintain healthy stocks in many less-populated areas.
I won’t give away any of the better local spots but if you’re after a fresh local feed, checking out some of the dirt tracks near the coast can bring great rewards.
Rockpool near Shelly Beach, Warrnambool
Rockpool with lots of potential
This is a sobering graphic on overfishing, trawler seafloor damage and the effect climate change is having on the oceans. Even where I sit writing this in Phuket, the volume of local seafood I’ve seen laid out on ice beds at the front of fancy restaurants makes me wonder what effect the tourist trade has on fish stocks in the Andaman Sea and beyond.
I’m excited for whale watching season: this doesn’t mention that they’ve also been spotted at Port Fairy on Victoria’s southwest coast and we’re hoping for lots more sightings in the next few months!
In honour of IFAW’s National Whale Day today, I decided to celebrate the fact that the annual Humpback Whale migration has returned to Australia. They’ve been spotted from Sydney to the Sunshine Coast in the East, and Augusta on the West Coast. And the season is just beginning.
Humpback whales migrate annually from their winter feeding grounds in the krill-rich Antarctic to warmer waters where they breed and give birth. In Australia we are fortunate that the whale migration comes closer to shore than most places in the Southern Hemisphere. The best place to see the migration on the East Coast is either on a dedicated whale-watching tour or (from personal experience) North Stradbroke Island in Queensland, where the whales are forced closer to land by the current they follow North. I haven’t been out Humpback whale watching on the West Coast yet, but…
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the Brigitte Bardot docked at Williamstown
I’ve mentioned previously my love for the Sea Shepherd organisation and had the chance to check out another of their ships when the fast catamaran Brigitte Bardot docked in Williamstown (close to Melbourne city, seen in background) last week.
One of the new crew members from Barcelona gave me a tour of the supercat, which usually squeezes in 8 crew members in a very cosy but well-decked out area below deck. The ship was joining the Steve Irwin in Williamstown for a week of resupply and repairs before a quick visit to Sydney on the way to a new season of Sea Shepherd’s anti shark-finning campaign in the South Pacific.
The Steve Irwin crew were also showing off their new helicopter, which is invaluable for hunting down the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean and also for spotting passages through the Antarctic sea ice.
The new chopper above deck on the Steve Irwin
With two major assignments due next week and exams coming up in just over three weeks, I’ve had little time for posting. So this is a nice pic of a recent sunrise over the hill from Logan’s Beach (the premier whale-watching spot in Victoria).
Sunrise, paddocks and ocean
*Taken on my Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo, ISO 100, f/2.4, 1/50.
What Is Missing? is one of those environmental websites you need to set aside at least an hour to go through – the range of stats, videos and text is mind-boggling. The screen grab above shows a world map with each coloured dot representing an extinct or endangered species or whole ecosystem in the area shown.
The WIM foundation, supported by corporate giants such as Bloomberg and Google, has created an amazing resource for normal people with limited knowledge of environmental issues and lists ways they can help reduce their impact on the earth (and obviously, on the other animals trying to share an increasingly-crowded space). Their artistic mission (part of which is shown below) is very US-based at present but no doubt with global support, we can see more of their artworks showing up in city squares around the world.
The question always is: will flicking through pages of the website make the unconvinced change their ways? Does an average person have the presence of mind to realise their polluting efforts in New York can contribute to killing a northern right whale in the Atlantic? Or even that they were called ‘right whales’ because whalers and scientists of the day agreed they were the ‘right’ ones to hunt??
The Steve Irwin will be docked for up to three months at Williamstown Pier (few kilometres south of Melbourne’s CBD). I had a quick tour last weekend and as always was impressed with the crew’s passion for their tough job of taking direct action against Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean.
Oceanic Explorer 