The slow food movement is aimed at promoting understanding on dietary cultures having roots in a country's history and climate and preserving its diverse tastes against the current world’s trend toward the uniform taste of food.

  Regrettably, the members of the Slow Food, headquartered in Italy, tend to agree with the views of anti-whaling nations such as the United States and Britain. However, members from Japan and Norway are resisting the move to halt whaling handed down from time memorial, saying that denying whaling tradition without really trying to understand it is against the philosophy of the slow food movement. I recall that, at a Slow Fish Conference to deliberate on conservation-oriented fisheries and aquaculture, Mr. Masashi Nishimura of the Japan Fisheries Association was trying to persuade the audience in fluent English that "Japan should be proud of its whale culture in which whales are used in their entirety, bones and teeth included."

  Japan is a country of whales. Dating back to the Jomon period more than 10,000 years ago, we can see numbers of paintings of whaling left to us. Like the former Soviet Union, Japan overcame the food shortage after World War II using whales as a valuable protein source. Japan, which cherished its whale diet for many years, became the largest whaling country, helped by the progress of whaling technology.

  But conservation groups in the U.S. and Britain divulged the image of an "uncivilized" Japan eating whales, and accused this practice in harsh tones. They maintained that whales are sacred animals while pigs and cattle were created as livestock for human food. Looking at young Japanese who listen to conservationists and agree with them, my DNA as a Japanese makes a protest.

  On the shelves on environment issues at bookstores, we can see countless books on whales. But few of them advocate consumption of whales and protection of biodiversity. The same thing can be said about television programs. Young people are affected by the environmental movement originating in anti-whaling countries, and learn that the whale is something to be watched and not to be eaten. However, if we trace back history, we find that bowhead whales and blue whales would not have been depleted to the present state if the United States and Britain--two countries now accusing Japan of its whaling--had not continued their excessive hunting of whales simply to obtain whale oil since the 17th century. They extracted only the oil out of the caught whale and discarded the remaining 90% of the carcass into the sea. When petroleum came to be used as the main source of energy, thereby decreasing the interest in whale oil, those countries started to argue that whales are on the brink of extinction, placing blame only on Japan and Norway. This approach, it seems to me, is too ego-centric.

  Professor Takeo Koizumi deplores that "whales have been used politically too much." He sees the U.S. posture as contradictory: allowing its minority aboriginal people to catch whales but blaming Japan for its whaling. Behind this move is a strong intention of the U.S. to press Japan to use American-raised cattle as a protein source for the Japanese people.

  Japan that continues research whaling asserts that the truly endangered species among the 83 cetacean species are blue whales that decreased from 200,000 to 1,000-2,000, bowhead whales and Yangtze River dolphins. On the other hand, Japan insists that at least a million minke whales live in the world's oceans and that Bryde’s and fin whale stocks are in robust condition. Japan also reported that sei whales in the near shore of Japan, which once saw a decline to around 9,000, have recovered to around 69,000. Even the U.S. Department of Commerce admitted publicly in 2000 that 2 million sperm whales exist.

  On the other hand, it is reported that the amount of fish consumed by whales in a year reaches five times as much as that harvested by humans. It is to be noted under these circumstances that, in his “Embracing the Earth's Wild Resources -- A Global Conservation Vision�E-- published in 2003, Mr. Eugene Lapointe, who served as Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) from 1982 to 1990, condemns the conservation groups who do not recognize the diverse cultures of mankind. Mr. Lapointe also supports the position of whaling countries when species of whales whose populations are scientifically established as abundant are used in a sustainable manner in the respect of their cultures, traditions and beliefs.

  How many whales is Japan currently catching? In the 2005 research catch program, Japan caught 660 minke whales, 100 sei whales and 50 Bryde’s whales and so on. Further, a certain number of whales are taken in the coastal small-type whaling. In addition, dolphins are caught in drive fisheries using 5-ton fishing boats in such prefectures as Wakayama and Shizuoka. The dart fishery, as depicted in the well-known painting titled "Riches of the Sea" by Shigeru Aoki, still remains in the Hokkaido, Sanriku and Okinawa regions. In recent year, more whales are trapped in set nets, causing substantial damage to the nets. This led the government to allow the use of trapped whale by local people since 2001.

  Looking at only Kyushu, where I was brought up, Saga has a local delicacy called "Matsuura-zuke" which is pickle of whale cartilage, and a whaling museum on Ikitsuki Island in Nagasaki displays Japan's whale culture visually. In Nagasaki, the traditional whale baleen artisan is now an “endangered species.�E

  I would like to visit some time the whale tombs at Koganji Temple in Nagato, Yamaguchi Prefecture, and the Isana Matsuri (Whale Festival) in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture. In Tokyo, there are familiar restaurants specializing in whale cuisines, such as "Taruichi" in Shinjuku and "Yushin" in Asakusa. This year, I heard from young managers (who at first did not know the true taste of whale) that they were challenging to make whale meat cuisines such as whale sausage, whale hamburger, and whale curry.

  I am trying as much as possible to treat foreign friends who come to Japan to whale dishes. I do not force those who are reluctant, but in doing so, I came to realize that I was too ignorant about whaling and whale dietary culture which have become an international issue. It is my hope that whale dietary culture, which has been transmitted in various parts of Japan, although on a small scale, will be reevaluated and handed down to the younger generations.

  I also believe we need to know the actual situation of whales more fully so that, when the tastiness of whale meat is rediscovered, excessive harvests may not occur again prompted by non-transparent distribution practices.