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Whaling Japan

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Unit 6 Written Assignment
Japan and Norway: A cultural case for the exemption from an international ban on whaling.
Introduction and the Japanese and Norwegian position
Japan
Japan is certainly one of the two countries, and the only country in Asia to make the claim that Whaling should be permitted for certain Whale stocks. The practice of hunting Whales can be traced back to over 1,000 years. And, in turn there are records that show Jimmu, the first Emperor, who rein circa 660BC himself ate Whale meat.

However, it wasn’t until the 17th century, which saw a major development in the techniques associated with hunting Whales. In the Meiji era (1868-1912) saw the controversial introduction of powered gun vessels, actually inspired by Norwegian …show more content…
Whale consumption peaked in 1962, at 226,000 tons annually. The following decades showed that the consumption of Whale was in decline, by 1985, that figure had fallen to just 15,000 tons.

So what we can conclude from this is that Whale consumption in Japan was declining, so therefore the cultural impact of a ban on Whaling, in the long term would have a minimal impact on Japan. Globalization, rather has provided Japan with access to other resources and had been growing far less depend on materials derived from Whales (Facts about Japan , n.d.).
Norway
Norway remains one of the few countries, along with Japan and Iceland to still hunt and consume Whales in various forms including meat and its use as a source of oil. Although Whales have been hunted for centuries, it was in 1863 when Norway created the Harpoon Cannon, which as used on powered ships.

Pioneer Svend Foyn, used the first steam powered ship. This along with the Harpoon and explosives showed the modern methods that are more familiar with the contemporary image of Whaling we see today (HowStuffWorks, …show more content…
One can conclude from this that the Whaling industry is smaller, and in fact is supported by trade, as 51% of the products produced from Whaling were in fact exported to Japan (Whale and Dolphin Conservation , n.d.).
The situation on a cultural impact with Japan, it could be argued that a ban on Whaling activities would have a minimal cultural impact, certainly looking at the gradual decline in the Whaling industry. Like the situation with Japan as an Asian nation, Norway remains to be one of only two countries in Europe which still practices Whaling.

Whaling has both fallen out of favor, and those customers of the Whaling industry have since diversified into the use of different fuels and increasingly diversified sources of food.
Sovereignty
One of the many issues which occurs in this debate is one of sovereignty. This has certainly been used as a means of rejecting a Whaling ban. And certainly Japan has been used the issue of sovereignty as an argument against a moratorium of Whale hunting in the

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