Coming into the fourth week of my
internship, I am delighted to have had the opportunity to participate in an
event as globalised and pivotal as such!
Held across the world in as many as 88
countries, the Japan Dolphins Day protests aimed to commemorate and spread the
word about the annual monstrous mass slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan,
that was first put into the international spotlight by the Oscar-winning
documentary The Cove. The sad fact is
that the killings have yet again recommenced, and only just a few days ago.
Thus on 31 August/1 September, dolphin activists from all around the globe (including
major cities such as Hong Kong, Brisbane, Frankfurt, Los Angeles, London etc.) made
their way to their local Japanese embassies, in the hope of drawing the
attention of Japanese consuls, the media and passers-by to the plight of our defenseless
dolphins.
Judging from the many befuddled expressions
of the white-collar workers of Central, it dawned upon me that the lack of
public participation and awareness of the heinous happenings in the quiet town
of Taiji has been and still is a major contributor to the legal loophole in the
regulation of Japanese fisheries. Oriented towards financial considerations and
economic development (through the marketing of dolphin meat and the export of
dolphins to aquariums), Japan’s development policies remains locked in for an
amoral path that has little regard for the dolphins’ hardships. Indeed whilst
we cannot know exactly whether and how the Japanese government will respond to
the cause of the Taiji dolphins, the knowledge that we have further informed
Hong Kong people and hopefully imprinted in their minds of the dolphins’
sufferings was what made 31 August a most memorable conclusion to my first
month at HKDCS!
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