Page 32 - The Economist USA
P. 32
UPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws
32 Asia The Economist April 25th 2020
2 country. The panoply of prophylactics rec- March. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbek- ment is draconian by Western standards:
ommended by Mr Berdymukhamedov, a istan have closed public places, restricted Kazakhstan has detained more than 5,000
former health minister who has written a internal travel and ordered citizens to leave people and jailed more than 1,600 for viola-
book on folk remedies, includes fumiga- home only to buy essential provisions tions of the new rules.
tion with yuzarlik, a local herb which he from nearby shops. (Residents of the Uzbek Turkmenistan, meanwhile, is gearing
touts as impregnable armour against infec- city of Namangan are supposed to stray no up for another sporting event: Horse Day
tious disease. It is for insights like these farther than 100 metres from their homes). on April 26th, which celebrates the Akhal-
that Turkmenistan “loves you with all its Kazakhstan, which is using drones to en- Teke, a local breed. The Protector has been
heart”, as a poet called Gozel Shagulyyeva force its lockdown, has banned family known to join in the fun by competing in
put it in a new ode to the president recently gatherings and told those over 65 or under horse races. He will presumably think
published by local media. 18 to remain indoors at all times. In some twice about rubbing shoulders with the
Elsewhere in Central Asia normal life Kazakh cities residents are allowed outside other jockeys this year. Then again, he is
has come to a standstill since the first only once every two days, a measure po- such a gifted rider that he always wins by a
coronavirus cases were detected in mid- liced with colour-coded cards. Enforce- big margin—a form of social distancing. 7
Banyan Fin pickings
Japan promotes the hunting of whales. But few Japanese want to eat them
rom behind the counter of their tiny This grim irony was borne out earlier never enough to keep it afloat. For now,
Frestaurant in Shimonoseki, Kojima this year. From Shimonoseki in western the subsidies continue, supposedly to
Junko and her octogenarian mother Japan, the state-owned whaling company, help ease the switch to nakedly commer-
place before Banyan some of the very last Kyodo Senpaku, sent out its two ships in cial whaling. But, Mr Moronuki predicts,
bits of the very last fin whale mankind is search of their quota of Bryde’s whales. they will be gone in two or three years.
ever likely to catch. In the background, After fossicking for weeks, the vessels Other fleets complain that whaling gets
Billie Holiday is singing “No Regrets”. finally stumbled on some whales on the far more than its fair share of subsidies
The four thin slices look and taste like hunt’s last day. Regrettably, says the gov- for fisheries.
well-done beef—wolfed down with ernment’s pointman on whaling, Moro- Once the whalemen get to know
microgreens and a baguette in the name nuki Hideki, the three animals killed were Japanese waters better, hunting close to
of objective inquiry. very thin. Was Mr Moronuki disappointed home will cut costs. Southern Ocean
Scientific “research” was also the or embarrassed? “Both,” he replies. whaling was expensive. The fleet had to
reason Japan’s government gave for One obvious lesson is not to kill Bryde’s guard against saboteurs. And to maintain
continuing to kill whales in the vast whales when, hungry after breeding, they an air of research, vessels followed pre-
Southern Ocean after a global morato- are on their way north to their summer determined zigzag courses, taking nearly
rium on commercial whaling came into feeding grounds around the Sea of everything in their path. In future they
force in 1985. But international criticism Okhotsk. Far better to get them, fit and fat, can just steam out and make their kill.
along with environmental groups’ at- on their way back in the autumn. Yet whal- Yet the challenges are immense.
tempts to sabotage the annual hunt ing, like much else in Japan, follows the Whalemeat consumption has fallen from
proved too costly to Japan’s reputation logic of the fiscal year, which ends in 230,000 tonnes a year in the early 1960s
and purse (the government bankrolled March. Whalers had to spend their allocat- to 3,000 tonnes today, and whale is no
the hunt). In late 2018 Japan declared it ed ¥5bn ($46.5m) before then. longer cheap. Local whales have higher
was giving up killing in the Southern The whaling lobby is powerful—Shi- accumulations of toxins than those in
Ocean, where the fin whale on which monoseki sits within the parliamentary the Southern Ocean. One packager of
Banyan snacked had been caught. district of the prime minister, Abe Shinzo. sashimi admits he sources his whale
For environmentalists, it is a great In the Southern Ocean the fleet counted on meat from Norway.
victory. The Southern Ocean is now a subsidies: commercial sales of meat were Morishita Joji, a former whaling
sanctuary. But it comes at a cost. Japan diplomat at Tokyo University of Marine
walked out of the International Whaling Science and Technology, says Kyodo
Commission (iwc), accusing the anti- Senpaku is hampered by government
whaling members of failing to appreciate requirements to distribute whalemeat to
the cultural significance of whaling in all regions, even though demand is
Japan and of imposing their values on concentrated near a few ports with long
others. Freed from the iwc’s strictures, traditions of hunting and eating whales.
the government said commercial whal- In such places, tiny operators never
ing would resume in Japan’s own exten- stopped catching small species of whale
sive waters. that did not fall under the iwc’s remit.
The government rightly calculated These local enterprises are more likely to
that this would attract far less attention survive, Mr Morishita predicts.
(Japan has a tiny anti-whaling lobby). But As for the national fleet, perhaps it
from a conservation standpoint, whaling was just a piece of kabuki theatre to bring
in home waters is troubling. Most whale it back with such fanfare from the South-
populations in the Southern Ocean are ern Ocean. In reality, the prospects of the
healthy. In Japanese waters, stocks are whales look slightly better than those of
less bountiful—and far less researched. their predators.
