Interesting
Dear friends,
This is an interesting article. I find some people are so passionate about what they believe in. They can go through so much problems, hardships and pain to ‘fight’ for what they believe and for the betterment of others. It is interesting how selfless some people can be. They are concerned on social welfare, animals, health of the earth, environmental issues, etc. I pray for most of them.
Tsem Rinpoche
Activists board Japanese whaling ship
Activists board Japanese whaling ship
The Sea Shepherd anti-whaling group said three Australian activists were being held as “prisoners” by the Japanese harpoon fleet Sunday after sneaking aboard one of their vessels overnight to protest.
Sea Shepherd said it had helped the three men from the Forest Rescue Australia environmental group to board the Shonan Maru No.2 16 miles (26 kilometres) off Australia’s west coast.
“The boats approached the Shonan Maru under the cover of darkness and the three negotiated their way past the razor wire and spikes and over the rails to successfully board the Japanese whaling vessel,” Sea Shepherd said of the Forest Rescue trio.
They were now “being held as prisoners on board the Japanese vessel the Shonan Maru No. 2” which had been tailing the Sea Shepherd ship the Steve Irwin and had “armed Japanese military personnel,” Sea Shepherd claimed.
Japan’s Fisheries Agency confirmed that three men who said they were Australian had boarded the Shonan Maru No.2 — a surveillance craft — and that there were coastguard officers on board the ship.
“Three men on a rubber boat quickly approached the Fisheries Agency’s monitoring vessel and climbed to the ship,” a fisheries official told AFP.
“Currently the Fisheries Agency is interviewing the men.
“This incident did not cause any injury to the (Japanese) crew (or) damage to the ship,” he added.
The Australian government confirmed that it was aware of the incident and was expected to comment later Sunday.
It is not the first time an activist has boarded the Shonan Maru No.2 — New Zealander Pete Bethune was arrested and taken back to Japan to be tried after sneaking onto the ship during the heated 2009-2010 campaign.
He was handed a two-year suspended sentence and spent five months in prison.
In a statement Forest Rescue said it wanted to prevent the Shonan Maru from following the Steve Irwin back to the Southern Ocean.
The Steve Irwin had to return to Australia last week because another Sea Shepherd ship, the Brigitte Bardot, was damaged in high seas and had to be escorted home for repairs, setting back the group’s annual harassment of the whalers.
Forest Rescue said it was “making a stand to assist Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in their campaign to end illegal whale poaching in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.”
“We are taking this action to remind the Australian government of their obligation to enforce existing laws pertaining to the prohibition of whaling ships in our waters,” the group added.
“Forest Rescue are insulted and disappointed in our government for allowing the transit of whale poaching vessels in Australian waters.”
The group has demanded that the Japanese return their protesters — Simon Peterffy, 44, Geoffrey Tuxworth, 47 and Glen Pendlebury, 27 — to shore and leave Australian waters.
Commercial whaling is banned under an international treaty but Japan has since 1987 used a loophole to carry out “lethal research” in the name of science — a practice condemned by environmentalists and anti-whaling nations.
Australia has taken Japan to the International Court of Justice seeking an end to its annual hunts but one of the men who boarded the Shonan Maru, Peterffy, said enough had not been done.
“We are on board this ship because our government has failed to uphold its pre-election promise to end whaling in the Southern Ocean,” he said, according to the Forest Rescue statement.
Source: http://news.malaysia.msn.com/top-stories/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5737471
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The single biggest threat to our planet is the destruction of habitat and along the way loss of precious wildlife and marine life. Environmental activists will try whatever way they could to stop it from happening. Some of them even risk their life in doing so. A Japanese whaling ship Shonan Maru 2, on annual whale cull in the Antarctic was distracted by anti-whaling group Sea Shepard. Three Australian environmental activists were detained after boarding in protest . Japan has been hunting hundreds of whales annually for scientific research. They even plan to kill some 900 whales. The activist detained incident has somehow threatened to cause tension between Australia and Japan. Glad that after some negotiation the environmental activists were released.
I think the best way to stop whaling once and for all is through international court action.
Thank you Rinpoche for this sharing.
To me, all animals are the same. I’m not saying that we should hunt and kill all the animals, what I meant was that we should STOP killing any animals. We must treat all of them like how you treat your favourite animals. Every sentient being have feelings, if you dislike people mistreating you or your family then start by respecting others first.
I believe that nobody likes to feel pain except for some people who mental issues (I think). If everyone thinks in this way then the world would be a much better place to live in. No bullying other people, no killing animals, cooperate with each other. Don’t you think this is a good thing?
Dear Rinpoche, it’s good that he was sentenced to prison for 5 months. Maybe that will teach him a lesson so in the future he won’t try to hunt whales anymore. I have just tried convincing one of my girl friends to try to become a vegetarian just for a week. I’m still not sure if her mother allows her to. I really hope that her mother will support too.
There has been a ban on commercial whaling for 25 years, but each fall, Japan’s whaling fleet sails south to the Antarctic and returns the following spring with whales killed on what it says is a scientific research program that catches and kills about 1,000 whales each year. Sea Shepherd is best known for its annual pursuit
of the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctica, using increasingly militant ways to halt the hunt, including boarding the Japanese vessels and even the founder of conservation group Sea Shepherd, which annually disrupts Japan’s whale hunt, has been arrested.
Due to their effort, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s yearly protest campaigns have drawn high-profile donors and volunteers, created awareness on whaling and spawned the popular Animal Planet series “Whale Wars”. For them, they put their lives at risk for the sake of conservation and prevent the whales from being killed. I do hope more people will come forth to support their work.
This is amazing what these people would do to save the whales. Especially when the whales cannot say or do anything in return. I think this is a very good story to tell people, and hopefully people will show this amount of compassion towards all animals. Thank you for sharing Rinpoche.
I watched a program on Discovery about a group of anti whaling group on a ship that follows a Japanese whaling ship around and tried to chase the whales away from the whaling ship. They are so kind as they did that not for themselves but for the whales that are killed and every time the whalers succeed in capturing 1…the anti whalers feel so sad and gloomy, some even cried. Kudos to them for being selfless for the whales!
arThe illegal entry by the 3 compassionate Australian Activists was meant as a protest to show their government of their failure to uphold its pre-election promise to end whaling in the southern ocean. Commercialised whaling is banned under an International Treaty, but Japan used a “loophole” way under lethal Research excuse, a practice condemned by environmental and anti-whaling nations to carry out. It was reported that at the International Whaling Commission disscussion meeting 2010, 88 member whaling nations disscussed whether or not to lift the 24 year old ban. It seems all except Japan, Norway, and Iceland disagreed but compromised on a smaller scale under closed supervision. More than 200 scientists and experts were said to have also apposed the lifting of the ban and wanted tosee an end to all commercialised whaling, except on an subsistence level by indigenous people.
This is an example of one of Rinpoche’s thought provoking quotes “How much you can endure is up to your compassion” being played out. I have seen footages of film where people in small boats have positioned themselves in between the whale and the harpoon gun. To them the value of their cause (which often is the preservation of others’ lives) is far greater than the value of their own lives.
Passion manifests when we believe in something hole heartedly, commit to it and then take action. And Passion is contagious. A lot of people get “involved” in various causes which is fine, but then there are those who are totally immersed in passionate “commitment”. Often we want to commit but we are scared to let go of life as we know it.
There is so much more we all can do but haven’t gone all the way because we have yet to let go our self interest. I now have no doubts in my mind that committing our life for the advancement of something good is the only nobility worth pursuing.
[typo] “Whole-heartedly: was what i meant…