It’s decision time today for the future of the giant mammal as a U.N. top court rules whether Japan has the right to hunt whales in the Antarctic. Australia has asked the International Court of Justice to stop Japan’s whale hunt claiming their program is not scientific but commercial, because of its large scale.
We have been campaigning against whaling since the seventies and this court case reminds me of all the dramatic images in our archive that our photographers took over the decades from the beginnings in the Pacific Ocean to our direct actions in the Southern Ocean.
Greenpeace crew member Michael Baily blockades a Russian harpoon ship in a Zodiac during the first anti-whaling campaign 1976 in the Pacific Ocean.© Greenpeace / Rex WeylerGreenpeace protest against factory ship Nisshin Maru in the Southern Ocean in 1992.© Greenpeace / Robin CulleyGreenpeace activist on ropes of Japanese whaling ship "Nisshin Maru". Greenpeace occupies the whaler in protest of the Japanese whaling policy in 1998.© Greenpeace / Martial DosdaneGreenpeace action trying to prevent the transfer of caught whale from catcher ship to factory ship in the Southern Ocean in 1999.© Greenpeace / John CunninghamGreenpeace inflatable hooks on to a Japanese whaling boat while it is pulling a caught whale on board 2000.© Greenpeace / John CunninghamGreenpeace ship MY Esperanza and the MY Arctic Sunrise (in background) and their inflatables try to hinder the transfer of a dead minke whale from the Japanese whaling fleet catcher ship Kyo Maru No.1 to the Nisshin Maru factory ship in 2005.© Greenpeace / Jeremy Sutton-HibbertGreenpeace witnesses the killing of whales in the Southern Ocean by the Yushin Maru and the Kyo Maru No.1 ships of the Japanese whaling fleet, and the transfer of the whales to the Nisshin Maru factory ship in 2005.© Greenpeace / Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert Greenpeace ship MY Esperanza and her inflatables , try to hinder the shooting and eventual transfer of a minke whale by the Yushin Maru No.2 catcher ship in 2005.© Greenpeace / Kate DavisonWhale secured alongside the Yushin Maru No.2 catcher ship from the Japanese whaling fleet in 2005.© Greenpeace / Kate DavisonGreenpeace documents and disrupts the continued whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in 2006.© Greenpeace / Kate DavisonA Greenpeace inflatable boat tries to prevent the Japanese whaling fleet's factory ship, the Nisshin Maru from refueling from the supply vessel Oriental Bluebird in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in 2008.© Greenpeace / Jiri Rezac Humpback Whale.© Scott Portelli / Greenpeace