Save the Whale? Ecological Memory and the Human-Whale Bond in Japan’s Small Coastal Villages

Abstract

Whales are a common property and a potential natural resource for the taking. Of the many resources they can provide humans, their flesh, or “whale meat,” has become controversial in the past three decades. The controversy lies largely with the whale as a prominent charismatic mega fauna. Whales have become a symbol and source of environmental activism, floating in the middle of a highly contested political and ideological struggle. Japan stands at the center of the international whaling dispute, refusing to accept the global anti-whaling norm. Since the 1982 moratorium, Japan has put in an annual request to the IWC each year to create an exception of the moratorium for a number of small coastal whaling villages to carry out traditional practices. They are continually denied, despite the centrality of the whale in these cultures. As conservation efforts, dams, and other modern alterations relocate humans from their traditional lands or prevent humans from interacting with key species, we are increasingly discovering that affected communities lose more than access to natural resources, but that key parts of the culture itself is forced to be left behind, if not forgotten entirely over time. This chapter explores what is lost when whaling is removed from small coastal whaling villages of Japan—addressing how global anti-whaling discourse may save whales, but harm human-whale relations in Japan.