the antarctic will instead be focusing on commercial whaling in its own waters how much of a step in the right direction is that in terms of not whaling in the antarctic. you know i think we can be pleased that the antarctica will be free from waggling the moment the japanese fleet is there but in the coming season the next season they won t be there not to be the first time pretty much since. the end of the second world war there hasn t been whaling in these very very important waters that we want to keep us pristine and korea for interference possible but that does leave us with a real problem about what they re going to do in the middle to separate what makes that area the end arctic so important. well of course the antarctic waters are pristine they have being studied we need to understand the nutrient flows between hopefully you know recovering populations of whales and other biota this is an area which is highly highly protected
zone but that s unlikely to stop activists from trying to end the practice altogether mark simmons is a senior marine scientist for the humane society international and he joins us now from the u.k. japan says here that the international whaling commission is dominated by conservationists so the commission can fulfill its other goals in terms of managing the whaling industry do you think japan has a point there. now i don t think they have much of a point the international whaling commission is a meeting of nations it has eighty seven no eighty nine member nations it will have eighty eight when japan leaves countries come together in that they make their views and they present their position that s not proven by conservationists already interest group this is a meeting of countries. japan has been doing the so-called scientific whaling that s what it calls it it says it will no longer now do that sort of whaling in
a very good reason. japan also says local whale stocks are recovering so can there be such a thing as a sustainable whaling practice. insurgent grossly oversimplifies a lot of what it says about a lot of things and it s true that the moratorium on commercial whaling which it was agreed in in one hundred eighty two and which japan has fought hard against have a sense has allowed some whale population to recover so that s great and that s good news not all of them are not back necessarily due to pristine levels so we have to it we have to be really careful about those simplifications. and there are lots of good and bad things and what they re saying but breaking outside of the international whaling commission rule is a problem for us and it s a particular problem with other countries were to follow suit and that could be the case what about this argument that hunting and eating whales in japan is part of the culture and that the i.w.c. had kind of failed to see that how do you view that
i think we can understand that there are some places it in japan where eating products from the seeing through doing whales and even including dolphins has been part of their culture it s part of the culture for many maritime countries including the u.k. for example and we don t do it anymore you can move on from this kind of thing but more importantly the big industrial whaling factories that they take out to sea are not part of any sort of traditional toll this is industrial whaling that we re talking about big overseas fleets with mother ships huge amounts of money behind them this is not a traditional pastime mark simmons from the humane society international thank you so much for joining us. the annual sydney to hobart yacht race has begun in australia it s the seventy fourth year of the competition which covers more than eleven hundred kilometers a total of eighty five boats began their journey from the sydney harbor in just