LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600 

Tel: (02) 6277 4022
Fax: (02) 6277 8495

To send your e-mail, use the contact link here:
URL: http://www.pm.gov.au

Dear Mr. Rudd

We citizens of Australia strongly request:

o All whaling activity is stopped from occurring in Australian
  territorial waters by the Commonwealth Government.

o Immediate steps are taken to prosecute boats detected slaughtering
  whales within Australian territorial waters, whether for scientific or
  commercial purposes and irrespective of whether that country recognises
  our territorial waters.

o The Australian government maintains a strong stance on the moratorium
  on commercial whaling.

o The government will not grant Japan or any other whaling nation the
  right to hunt whales in Australian territorial waters.

o The Federal government take Japan to the International Court of
  Justice for abuse of rights to IRWC for whales already killed in our
  waters. Diplomatic protests are not enough - Japan needs to know we are
  dead serious about this. 

o That cetacean products are removed from the tariff schedule in the
  Free Trade Agreement. Australians do not want cetaceans traded in this
  country!

o That the Federal government reaffirm its commitment to the Southern
  Ocean Whale Sanctuary in the Antarctic.

We are particularly concerned about not only minke whales but also
endangered humpback whales that tourists have been watching for the last
20 years. These whales come right up to the boats and will be easy
targets for Japanese "scientific" whaling ships. Whale watching has
become a $273 million industry annually in Australia and Japanese
whaling in Antarctic waters will destroy this thriving industry.

Japan's estimate of whale numbers is vastly incorrect since original
population numbers were exaggerated by a force of 6-20 according to
Professor Stephen Palumbi whose groundbreaking genetic studies show that
whale populations are down to 1% of former numbers. Obviously, all
whaling worldwide should stop immediately. No whale populations have
come even close to recovering from 200 years of commercial whaling.
Additionally, whales face serious environmental challenges (noise and
chemical pollution, seismic and naval sonar, entanglement in nets,
global warming seriously affecting plankton availability, ship strikes,
and habitat loss etc) in addition to being slow breeders with a high
infant mortality rate.

Another important consideration is the inherent cruelty involved in
killing whales. There is no humane way to kill an animal so large.
Because of this, whales suffer excruciating deaths, and for what reason?
It is not necessary for humans to eat whales for survival. Whales are
more than just "big fish" to be served up in fancy restaurants and
school lunch programs. They are highly intelligent, sentient beings.

Finally, the oceans are in a state of collapse. Whales are beneficial to
the ocean as their excrement feeds plankton which feeds all fish in the
sea and oxygenates the water. Without plankton all fish starve from lack
of food and suffocate from lack of oxygen in the water. Already plankton
is in serious decline all over the world. If whales are removed,
plankton levels will decline even further. If the ocean further degrades
to the point where it is dead (as are 160 areas known as dead zones
around the world), the availability of atmospheric oxygen will be
severely diminished since we rely on oceans for 70-80% of our oxygen.
Furthermore, the ocean will offgas CO2 in amounts far greater than all
global fossil fuel burning combined. This poses a life-threatening
impact for all earth dwellers. 

Mr Rudd, please do not confuse the issue of illegal whaling in our
territorial waters with concern for maintaining cordial trade relations
with Japan. These are separate issues.

Japan must be made to understand:

a) the precarious state of the oceans' ecosystems today brought on
   mainly by overfishing and whaling;
b) the invaluable part whales play in keeping the oceans healthy;
c) why humans depend for survival on a healthy ocean; and
d) a healthy ocean overrides short-term profits from killing whales.

The IWC has repeatedly criticised and censured Japan over their
so-called "scientific" whaling program because it is totally unnecessary
for whale conservation to know the ages of whales in order to set catch
quotas. The IWC urges all members to use non-lethal methods but Japan
has consistently and flagrantly violated IWC rulings. Instead, Japan is
fixated on feeding millions of their people from an ever-dwindling ocean
supply to the detriment of the entire ocean. Are they even thinking of a
future for planet Earth or just immediate economic advantages?

Mr. Rudd, if you are really serious about protecting our whales and
opposing Japan's efforts to sabotage the IWC, the only path to pursue is
international legal action. You have the ability to completely destroy
the goodwill of Australia built up over many years from the Liberal
party's protection of whales.

If you fail to act now, whales may never recover - in fact they may
become extinct in the world. What a tragic loss that would be and a
testament to human stupidity and greed.

Sincerely,