'We will fight for them on the beaches' - Greens

New Zealanders are being urged to pick up arms – buckets and spades and head for the beaches this summer in the fight against Japanese whaling.

“The Green Party is today launching a sand whale sculpture challenge and we hope to see whales popping up on beaches all over New Zealand this summer,” Conservation Spokesperson Metiria Turei says.

Green Party volunteers and members of the public are meeting at Freyberg Beach in Oriental Bay at 12.30pm today to build a 15-metre-long sand whale, the first in what is expected to be many such sculptures to be seen around the coastline over the holiday season.

This summer the Japanese aim to slaughter more than 1000 whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in the name of scientific whaling. Included among them, for the first time since commercial whaling ended, will be 50 humpbacks and 50 rare fin whales.

“Despite official protests and diplomatic measures at venues such as the International Whaling Commission, little has changed. Scenes of slaughtered whales being hauled onto the Japanese ships leave many people feeling powerless and distressed.

“So this year we are hoping to send a message to the Japanese government – ‘we want to see whales in the sea – not on the menu’.

“We are urging New Zealanders during the holiday season to build their own sand whale sculpture on a beach, take a picture of it with their friends and family, and email it to us at whales@greens.org.nz and at the end of summer we will compile all the pictures into a book and send it to the Japanese Fisheries Minister and to Japanese media.

“In the meantime we will put the photos on our website for the rest of the world to see.

“Many Japanese people are opposed to the so-called scientific whaling programme and we want to support their efforts to have it stopped.”