Greenpeace shifting focus to dialogue in anti-whaling campaign

TOKYO, Nov. 13 Kyodo -
Greenpeace Japan said Thursday the focus of its anti-whaling campaign is
shifting from active protesting to dialogue, stating that it will not be
sending a ship to the Antarctic Sea this season.

The move not only marks a departure for the conservation group as it has sent
such a ship for the past three years but also comes on the heels of the
prosecution of two Greenpeace activists over a whale meat-related scandal.
''The main reason we've decided not to send a ship is that we are seeing
positive changes in Japan, with more people opposing whaling in the Southern
Ocean,'' Greenpeace campaigner Frode Pleym told a press conference in Tokyo.
The group also said it has documented enough evidence of Japan's whaling
activities over the years as it sent ships to the ocean a total of nine times.
''We've thus decided to focus our activities in Tokyo,'' where Japan's whaling
policies are made, said Wakao Hanaoka of Greenpeace Japan.
The group will seek to reach the Japanese public through dialogue and lobbying
in the Diet and elsewhere in order to achieve an end to whaling by the Japanese
government, it said.
Pleym was careful to note that the group is also eager to cultivate a different
image among the Japanese public -- not just as an anti-whaling campaigner but
also as a crusader on such issues as food safety, genetically modified food and
climate change.
''We would like to show the true face of Greenpeace. We are so much more
also,'' he said.
Two Greenpeace activists were indicted in Japan in July for trespassing and
stealing whale meat, which the group had presented to authorities as evidence
of the embezzlement of whale meat by whaling ship crew members.
Greenpeace has condemned the prosecutorial move as politically motivated.
Whaling ships usually leave Japanese ports around November every year to hunt
whales in the icy water of Antarctica under the Japanese government-sponsored
''research whaling'' program.
The hunt often meets disruption by anti-whaling groups that send ships to the
ocean as part of their whale protection campaign.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which has squared off against Japanese
whalers in the past, said this week that it will continue its campaign in the
ocean this season to oppose Japanese whaling activities.
==Kyodo