The Black Fish cuts nets to free dolphins in Taiji, Japan

September 28, 2010, 10:43, by The Black Fish Media

Divers from the European conservation organisation The Black Fish have last night cut the nets of six holding pens in Taiji, Japan, that were holding dolphins caught during a dolphin drive hunt a few days earlier. During this hunt a number of dolphins were selected for the international dolphinarium trade and transferred to these holding pens. In rough weather conditions the divers swam out and cut the nets of six of these holding pens, allowing a number of dolphins to swim back out to sea. No arrests were made.

Fishermen transfer selected dolphins caught at the drive hunt to sea pen for the dolfinarium trade by The Black Fish

Every year, between September and April, the sea around the fishing village of Taiji on the east coast of Japan turns red as it becomes the scene of one of the biggest mass slaughters of marine wildlife in the world. The dolphin drive hunt, which recently made global headlines through the Oscar winning documentary 'The Cove', is responsible for capturing and killing over 2,000 dolphins of Japan's annual quota of 20,000. Fishermen drive the dolphins from sea into a cove, where some animals are selected for dolphinariums while the others are killed for their meat.

The Black Fish and other marine conservation and animal welfare organisations run ongoing campaigns to push for the closure of the remaining dolphinariums in Europe, where some of the dolphins caught at Taiji inevitably end up. Dolphinariums are already banned in United Kingdom. The Black Fish believes that it is unacceptable to keep dolphins, orca's and other marine wildlife in captivity, given the vast areas which these animals normally inhabit, the miserable and squalid conditions under which they are often kept and the stress that public performances put on them.

Co-founder of The Black Fish, Wietse van der Werf, explains about their decision to intervene: "The connection between the dolphin entertainment industry and this annual drive hunt can no longer be denied. To be successful in our campaigns in Europe we need to get to the root of this illegal trade, which is right at Taiji."

The Black Fish is aware of the sensitivity surrounding the hunt at Taiji this year. With an international media spotlight on the Japanese dolphin hunts, tensions within the country have heated up and Japanese nationalists have seized the opportunity to defend this 'traditional' activity. While we acknowledge that change also needs to come from within Japanese society, we vow to continue to work for the protection of these defenceless dolphins and push to make dolphinariums and the drive hunts which supply them history.

What does a day of peace achieve?

Founder of Peace One Day Jeremy Gilley has spent the last 13 years trying to ensure there is an annual global ceasefire on the 21 September.

Jeremy Paxman speaks to Mr Gilley and Daily Mail journalist Dame Anne Lesley about what the project achieves.

Check out the video 

Broadcast Tuesday 21 September 2010.

Whale of a Time at Peace Awards 2010!

We are so excited that Whale of a Time has been shortlisted for a Peace Award in recognition of our outstanding contribution to making London a better City.

Irene Schleining, founder of Whale of a Time has been nominated and duly recognised for her valuable contribution to peace and justice in London.

 

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The prestigious awards are a celebration and recognition of individuals and organisations who, through various initiatives and projects, have positively contributed to the peace and safety of London and are taking place as part of the London Week of Peace.
The Annual Week of Peace Awards Ceremony was hosted by Reverend Nims Obunge MBE DL with the Mayor Boris Johnson as the guest of honour at City Hall on 22 September 2010.

On behalf of the whales we'd like to thank everyone who has, is and will be supportingWhale of a Time creating sustainable and environmental change for the London community.

We would like to wish everyone a whale of a time and may all of you live in peace and harmony with our planet!

Stay tuned with the Whale Mail 

Whale of a Time Workshops - August / September 2010

Whale of a Time Workshops - August / September 2010

Plastic Garbage in the Ocean

Hear Jeremy Irons narrate this spoof video of the journey of a plastic bag from supermarket checkout and being thrown away on a city street to the North Pacific Gyre, an area of the Pacific Ocean with more plastic than plankton. Watch “Plastic Bag: a Mockumentary” produced by Heal the Bay:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h2ePYw  and www.healthebay.org

The Pacific Gyre is twice the size of the USA. It is a vortex that collects debris including plastic waste, which breaks down into smaller and smaller particles, until it is ingested by fish and sea mammals. A trawl sample found 6 times more plastic by weight than plankton. Watch “Synthetic Sea: Plastic in the Ocean”. Find out more about the world’s biggest garbage dump:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxNqzAHGXvs

In 2010, David de Rothschild (founder of Adventure Ecology) sailed the Pacific from San Francisco to Sydney on a raft  built 12,000 plastic bottles from called Plastiki (an obvious reference to Thor Heyerdahl’s 1947 Kon Tiki expedition on a balsa raft to prove migration form South America to Polynesia) journeying for 129 days and 8,300 nautical miles to see and report on the evidence or marine pollution. www.theplastiki.com See the videos at: www.flickr.com/photos/plastiki/sets/72157623691316656

Do this:

1.    Try to give up plastic bags when shopping. Ask them not to put individual items in bags. Take your own reusable bags to put your shopping in.

2.    Pick up plastic litter you find in the street. Bin it.

3.    Join the Litter Movement and pledge to do this daily: www.roskapaivassa.net/littermovement.htm

4.    Pinpoint litter on a map and report it to your local council: www.fixmystreet.com

Recommended by Michael Norton www.365act.com

Michael Norton in Prison for Linda Carty

This was me at 6.00 pm locked up, but still smiling. By 7.00 pm it felt a bit claustrophobic, and I was glad to get out. Linda Carty has spent 8 years in a cell like this on death row awaiting execution after an unfair trial for a crime she almost certainly did not commit.

Michael Norton is a Whale of a Time Artist. Read more about Michael at www.whaleofatime.org/michaelnorton.php

How Sinar Mas is expanding its empires of rainforest destruction

UNDER FIRE RAINFOREST DESTROYER CAUGHT BREAKING PROMISES

      (Greg McNevin)

New investigation shows Indonesia's largest palm and pulp group still destroying critical habitats

29 July 2010, Jakarta, Indonesia -- A new Greenpeace investigation into the operations of Sinar Mas, one the most notorious destroyers of Indonesia‚s rainforests, reveals how it is continuing to break its own environmental commitments on protecting forests and peatland.

Publishing new photographic evidence, aerial monitoring and field analysis [1], Greenpeace International today details how the Sinar Mas group continues to clear rainforest containing priceless biodiversity such as orang-utan habitat - and carbon-rich peatlands, despite public promises it has made to clean up its act.

The revelations also highlight Sinar Mas‚ ambitions to expand its pulp and palm oil empire into millions more hectares across Indonesia, including large tracts of rainforest and peatland in the province of Papua. These ambitions are outlined in confidential Sinar Mas documents obtained by Greenpeace. Last week, the head of Sinar Mas‚ palm oil division confirmed the company‚s intentions to expand its empire by an additional 1 million hectares. [2]

Sinar Mas claims not to develop on peatland and to protect forests of Œhigh conservation value‚. Earlier Greenpeace investigations repeatedly documented cases where Sinar Mas operations actively cleared rainforest and peatland areas, including tiger and orang-utan habitats. Now today‚s report exposes current rainforest destruction by Sinar Mas in two of its concessions on the island of Borneo.

In the first case, a confidential Sinar Mas document shows that nearly one-third of the concession area is peatland, almost all of which is deep peat that would be illegal to develop under Indonesian law.

Greenpeace photographs show plant operators engaged in active rainforest clearance in the peatland area. In the second case, Greenpeace photographs document recent clearance of rainforest areas of orang-utan habitat, identified by a United Nations Environment

Programme study. [3]

In both cases the photographs were taken by a Greenpeace photographer accompanied by journalists from respected news operations Reuters, AFP and Kompas.

Following the latest revelations Greenpeace is calling on Sinar Mas to come clean and make public its maps detailing all its landholdings, to enable analysis of which areas are critically important for biodiversity and climate protection, and what it is doing in those areas.

„We've caught Sinar Mas red-handed destroying valuable rainforests, and breaching the limited promises it has made to clean up its act.

This is typical of a group that has an appalling record of

environmental destruction. Sinar Mas has to be reigned in if there isto be a future for what‚s left of Indonesia‚s rainforests. Until this group changes course, other businesses should have nothing to do with Sinar Mas,‰ said Bustar Maitar, Greenpeace forest campaigner.

The disclosures come on the day Sinar Mas had planned to publish an audit it commissioned into its own activities in a small number of its palm oil operations, in response to revelations made in earlier Greenpeace reports. The company‚s audit was not designed to assess its practices across all of its operations, but instead to examine allegations made by Greenpeace in recent years.  The evidence released by Greenpeace today includes photographs of peat and forest clearance in a concession due to feature in the Sinar Mas audit. PR company Bell Pottinger (which Sinar Mas has hired to run the publicity around the audit) was this week forced to announce it was postponing its publication.

Bell Pottinger also represents disgraced oil trading company Trafigura, which was convicted last week of illegally exporting toxic waste to Africa. [4]

In recent months several leading multinationals ˆ including Unilever, Kraft and Nestle - have responded to Greenpeace‚s evidence by ending their contracts with Sinar Mas.  However, Greenpeace is calling on others, including trading giant Cargill, to take immediate action to remove rainforest destruction from their supply chain.

New Greenpeace investigation, published today, can be found here:

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/sinar-mas-empires-of-destruction

Download full report at Download Full Report here 

Bless The Bee Pollen!

I feel that our culture has lost its ability to connect with nature on a spiritual level. When hunters and gatherers of indigenous tribes kill an animal, you can observe that they have dignity towards the spirit of the animal. They bless and thank the animal for giving it’s body to them and therefore the spirit of the animal can find peace. They do the same with trees and plants. This is how deep our connection is with the food that we eat. 

Now most people of the west have completely lost that part in their culture. I remember my grandmother was through and through living in great respect and honour of life. This disconnection from the living beings around us that sustain us, leads us away from our source. 

I have recently heard that 100g bee pollen is equivalent to 500g beef. One human could live on the protein intake from pollen supplied by 3 bee hives per year. Additionally the bee pollen is a super food containing essential amino acids and being plant based it’s completely karma free food as long as it’s being produced sustainably as with all food. I’ve written two articles about honey and bees which I’ve posted below.

Irene Schleining, Director, Whale of a Time

www.whaleofatime.org

Sign the declaration for the whales! :)

http://cetaceanconservation.com.au/cetaceanrights/

Pictures of Gulf of Mexico Disaster

Some of those pics are just too scary.... 

The End of The Line

Nature loss 'to damage economies'

"Twenty-one percent of all known mammals, 30% of all known amphibians, 12% of all known birds (and)... 27% of reef-building corals assessed... are threatened with extinction," said Bill Jackson, deputy director general of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which maintains the Red List.

"If the world made equivalent losses in share prices, there would be a rapid response and widespread panic."

Read more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10103179.stm

Did this really appear in a Hawaii newspaper in 1850?

A first person narrative spoken by a Bowhead Whale; written in 1850 by the Captain of a whaling vessel. A plea on behalf of the Whale Nation to put an end to the killing.  Published in The Honolulu Friend Oct 15, 1850.

A Polar Whale's Appeal

October 15, 1850

Anadir Sea, North Pacific

The second Year of Trouble.

Mr. Editor, - In behalf of my species, allow an inhabitant of this sea, to make an appeal through your columns to the friends of the whale in general. 

A few of the knowing old inhabitants of this sea have recently held a meeting to consult respecting our safety, and in some way or other, if possible, to avert the doom that seems to await all of the whale Genus throughout the world, including the Sperm, Right and Polar whales. 

Although our situation and that of our neighbors in the Arctic, is remote from our enemy's country, yet we have been knowing to the progress of affairs in the Japan and Ochotsk seas, the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and all the other "whaling grounds." 

We have imagined that we were safe in these cold regions; but no; within these last two years a furious attack has been made upon us, an attack more deadly and bloody, than any of our race ever experienced in any part of the world. 

I scorn to speak of the cruelty that has been practised by our blood-thirsty enemies, armed with harpoon and lance; no age or sex has been spared. Multitudes of our species (the Polar), have been murdered in "cold" blood. 

Our enemies have wondered at our mild and inoffensive conduct; we have heard them cry, "there she blows," and our hearts have quailed as we saw their glittering steel reflecting the sun beams, and realized that in a few moments our life-blood oozing out, would discolor the briny deep in which we have gambolled for scores of years. 

We have never been trained to contend with a race of warriors, who sail in large three-masted vessels, on the sterns of which we have read "New Bedford," "Sag Harbor," "New London." Our battles have hitherto been with simple Indians in their skin canoes. We have heard of the desperate encounters between these whale-killing monsters and our brethren the Right whales on the North-west coast. 

Some from that quarter have taken shelter in the quiet bays of our sea, others of the spermaceti species from Japan, have also visited us and reported their battles and disasters; they have told us it is no use to contend with the Nortons, the Tabers, the Coffins, the Coxs, the Smiths, the Halseys, and the other families of whale-killers. 

We polar whales are a quiet inoffensive race, desirous of life and peace, but, alas, we fear our doom is sealed; we have heard the threat that in one season more we shall all be "cut up," and "tried out." Is there no redress? 

I write in behalf of my butchered and dying species. I appeal to the friends of the whole race of whales. Must we all be murdered in cold blood? Must our race become extinct? Will no friends and allies arise and revenge our wrongs? Will our foes be allowed to prey upon us yet another year? 

We have heard of the power of the "Press;" pray give these few lines a place in your columns, and let them go forth to the world. I am known among our enemies as the "Bowhead," but I belong to the Old Greenland family. 

Yours till death,

POLAR WHALE

Honey Honey Honey ... my sweet honey is the sweetest thing in the world

Honey should be sold in the pharmacy! Honey is a medicinal food. Honey is not merely  sugar. This product of bee-life  contains fructose, glucose, maltose, raw sugar and oligosaccharides, water, nitrogen compounds including enzymes, amino acids, minerals, vitamins, natural acids, inhibins, hormones, aromatics.

It’s also a tonic, a true health promoter in it’s most natural state, it prevents illnesses, cleanses the blood, can be used against over acidification of the stomach, digestive problems, fight a cold, cure a cough, even for diabetes it is said to work favourable but it should only be taken moderate. 

 

It has healing properties and can be taken to improve general strength for fatigue and low energy, strengthening of resistance, strengthening of nervous system, strengthening of the heart muscle, anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, improved circulation, improved digestion, detoxification of liver and kidneys and many more. Honey can also be applied externally for burns, abscesses, for healing skin infections, furuncle, on a bruise or haematoma.

Each honey has different healing properties depending on which flowers or trees have been visited. For example linden tree is calming and relaxing, effective for nervousness and insomnia. It’s good for illnesses with high temperature and it also increases the mental productivity.

Forest honey is made of honeydew and contains a high dose of minerals. The forest is the lung of our ecosystem that we live in and also forest honey is good for bronchitis and respiratory illnesses. Fruit blossom honey has a positive effect for allergic people, it strengthens and has a pain-relieving effect. 

Dandelion honey is mainly blood cleansing and is also used for liver, kidneys and bilious complaints. Rapeseed honey has a calming and relaxing effect. Acacia has a positive effect to heal coughs and colds and it’s blood cleansing. Sweet chestnut is blood cleansing, is a thromboses inhibitor and supports in case of exhaustion and lack of appetite.

We distinguish between two different types of honey: When bees collect honey from nectar of flowers and from honey from the forest produced by plant-sucking insects in form of honeydew. Flower honey usually contains more pollen and forest honey has a high level of minerals.

Sustainable bee-keeping saves our bees and our environment and must be based upon understanding and empathy for the bee as a primary concern of their usefulness in commerce.

Bees are important pollinators for our fruits and vegetables. They do this for all of nature. They increase crop yields while making honey. By buying organic honey you safeguard the continued existence of cultivated and wild plants. 

For 1 kg honey the bees make up to 150.000 flights, visit up to 20.000.000 flowers and travel up to 150.000 km.

The work of the honeybee is the work of bio-feedback which supports a multitude of life within our ecosystem.

Unfortunately the honeybee is in trouble because of pesticides and foreign parasites, and due to treating the bee as yet another ‘tamed’ creature working for our benefit, a view that is too limiting for the natural complexity of habitat. The honeybee as we know it is dying out in Europe, unless the bee-keeper takes care of her and helps her to survive.

One of the reasons for this bee-crisis is the Varroa mite. The parasite has been imported in the early 80s to Europe. Since ever then this mite has spread all over Europe and there is virtually no hive left untouched. Bee-keepers in Europe have to treat their bees so they don’t die from the infestation of this mite. 

Naturally bees will swarm and manage to survive for a few years but it’ll get them in the end and they also will die without help by the bee-keeper, as this is not a natural parasite and our European bees have not learned how to fight it. The Indian bee has evolved with the Varroa mite and learned to deal with this invader, but in Europe bees have very little chance of survival without bee-keepers. 

It is very important to care for the environment and support it through sustainable ways of farming and living in harmony with nature. We should support nature through sustainable organic bee-keeping. So really you can't go wrong with supporting bee-keeping and buying sustainably organic harvested honey. 

Bee-keeping is one of the most ancient ways of working with nature in harmony. Cave paintings depict the honey harvest some 15,000 years ago in the Cave of the Spider (Cueve de la Arana) situated on the river Cazunta in Valencia in Spain.

Organic bee-keepers have to work within strict controlled regulations that ensure that the bees and their honey are treated and harvested in it’s most natural ways. A good bee-keeper will work by observation of nature and adapt his practices to the most natural ways that bees live in nature ensuring health and long life for the bee hive.

Additionally I’d like to recommend that you  buy organic honey that comes from your local bee-keeper as much as possible. In doing so you’ll always ensure that your local wildlife, and those who make the effort to work naturally with wildlife have also got your support through the pollination. Think about this, and you’ll start to appreciate honey again in a much more natural heart-felt and meaningful way.

Don't take my word for it and ask the honeybees as they know best ... if you find a posting by a honeybee on the internet please add the reference and comment here.