Who said YouTube is only for activists and video enthusiasts to share their content?
The above appeal is by Australia’s Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who’s using the popular new media platform to reach out to children and young adults in Japan in a campaign aimed at stopping Japan’s stubborn insistence on whaling.
The Australian Department of Environment has taken out a YouTube channel where this and several other videos are on offer.
This is very encouraging – to see a government putting aside diplomatic niceties and taking a campaign right to the heart of a society that is still culturally attached to whale meat. For sure, Australia is also active in inter-governmental negotiations to sustain the global ban on whaling, but addressing the issue from the demand side and future generation angle can make the anti-whaling positions stronger.
Here’s how Reuters reported the story this week:
CANBERRA, Oct 9 (Reuters) – Australia has taken its battle against Japanese whaling in the Antarctic to the Internet, with a new YouTube campaign unveiled on Tuesday that targets Japanese children.
“Can you imagine what life on Earth would be like without these magnificent creatures? Hundreds of years of whaling have nearly wiped them out,” Australia’s Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull says in the video, subtitled in Japanese.
Japan plans for the first time to hunt 50 humpback whales in the Antarctic over the coming summer, with the endangered animals currently migrating south along the Australian coast. Japan also plans to hunt 935 minke whales for scientific research.
The Japanese whaling fleet, hampered by a fire on the factory processing ship Nisshin Maru last February which killed one crewman, was recently bolstered by the addition of a new chaser vessel.
Australia’s government, facing re-election in weeks, has dismissed as futile the opposition’s calls for legal action over Japanese whaling in Australia’s Antarctic Whale Sanctuary, which is not recognised by other nations.
Japan’s fisheries agency, confident its whaling rights will be confirmed, has challenged any country to take it to the International Court of Justice in The Hague
Turnbull said Canberra would fight in the court of public opinion.
Read the full story on Reuters AlertNet
Greenpeace anti-whaling website
Here’s an animated anti-whaling TV commercial I came across on YouTube that takes a different look at the same issue. It was produced by Saachi & Saachi Poland:
Open Minds! 