Canon Can

Canon Rejects Greenpeace Request to Condemn Japan's Whale Hunt

By Stuart Biggs

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Canon Inc., the world's largest maker of digital cameras, declined a request from environmental activists Greenpeace International that it condemn the Japanese government's expedition to hunt whales in the Southern Ocean.

Responding to the Greenpeace request to Canon President Fujio Mitarai, who also heads Japan's largest business lobby the Keidanren, Canon said in a letter it would not sign a statement condemning the annual hunt to kill minke and fin whales in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.

``Scientific opinion about research whaling is different among the Japanese, various governments and NGOs,'' the letter said. ``For us as a single company to declare an opinion on this topic is beyond our scope.'' Both Canon and Greenpeace supplied copies of the letter to Bloomberg News.

Greenpeace's strategy of targeting a Japanese company with significant overseas sales mirrors similar efforts by other conservation groups in recent years. Three of Japan's largest fish companies, Kyokuyo Co., Maruha Group Inc. and Nippon Suisan Kaisha Ltd. stopped sales of whale meat in Japan after groups led by the Humane Society International called on U.S. consumers to boycott their products.

Greenpeace began a campaign yesterday urging Canon to reverse its stance, calling on Canon customers to ``urge the company to condemn'' the whaling expeditions. The campaign doesn't include a boycott of Canon products or other Japanese brands, because a boycott ``would harm the wrong people.''

``We believe that when a corporation draws income and brand value from association with environmental causes, they have a responsibility to speak out on those issues,'' Greenpeace said on its Web Site.

Leverage

Greenpeace Japan spokesman Junichi Sato said the non- government organization had no plans to name other Japanese companies in the campaign because the point was to use Miterai's leverage with Japanese industry.

``We are trying to put pressure on Japanese industry as a whole and Miterai's position makes him responsible for Japanese business interests outside Japan,'' Sato said in a telephone interview today.

Canon said in its letter to Greenpeace that it is committed to the protection of endangered wildlife and that the company has published advertisements that feature ``endangered species'' in the National Geographic magazine since 1981.

Japan is under increasing pressure from governments and environmental groups to stop hunting whales. The government earlier this year abandoned a plan to resume hunting humpback whales under pressure from Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. and the European Union.

Spotlight

In recent weeks the issue has been taken up by Prime Minster Yasuo Fukuda as well as Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura and Foreign Minister Masahiko Kamura, all of whom have stated Japan's research whaling is legal.

Fukuda yesterday called for calm over whaling after a standoff between the Japanese fleet and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in the Southern Ocean. Two activists protesting Japan's whale hunt were detained for three days after boarding a harpoon ship Jan. 15.

``I don't think it is right for the discussions to turn emotional, especially with the recent violent act against the Japanese research vessel,'' Fukuda told the BBC yesterday, according to its Web site. ``So we should try to continue with our efforts to try to explain that we are engaged in this research whaling activity from a scientific viewpoint.''

Research whaling is allowed under the terms of a global moratorium on commercial whaling imposed by the International Whaling Commission in 1986. Japan had planned to kill as many as 1,035 whales in the current expedition, the most since it began what it calls scientific hunts in 1987. The whaling fleet set sail from Japan on Nov. 18.

To contact the reporter on this story: Stuart Biggs in Tokyo at sbiggs3@bloomberg.net

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