13/01/2006 - Argentina — Our Argentine Ocean Defenders have
hit Nissui in their pockets. Nissui own about one third
of Kyodo Senpaku -- the people who run the Japanese whaling
fleet. Our cyberactivists have convinced a major Nissui
client in Argentina not to buy from a corporation involved
in the killing of whales.
As well as directly confronting the whaling fleet in the
Southern Ocean we have been exposing how many well-known
companies are linked to corporations involved in whaling.
Internationally we have been focussing on Gorton's, but
in Argentina the focus is on companies that do business
with one of the corporations most closely linked to whaling
in Japan, Nissui. Nissui has Argentine subsidiaries that
operate freezer trawlers, one of which is a surimi (type
of minced fish) processor, which is sold in Argentina, Uruguay
and Japan.
Santa Elena fish sticks labelled with a sticker in Spanish
that reads 'accomplice in the slaughter of whales'.
A popular seafood company in Argentina, Pesquera Santa Elena
was using Nissui fish in its products. So we targeted Santa
Elena to ask them to stop buying from Nissui and make it
clear that whaling is bad for business.
In just 2 days over 21,000 cyberactivists contacted the
company and downloaded stickers to place on Santa Elena
products in super markets, to highlight that the company
was implicated in the killing of whales.
Remarkably quickly the president of Santa Elena was sitting
at the table with us to negotiate. Faced with the possible
damage to the companies public image from being linked to
whaling it was an apparently easy decision to make.
Last week, Greenpeace Argentina got a signed commitment
from the president of Santa Elena not to buy any more surimi
from Nissui. The company even committed to donate about
US$60,000 to an organisation working on whale conservation
if they ever violate the agreement.
So one big client less for Nissui, and we are pressing
other companies to follow suit. Maybe Gorton's can learn
from Santa Elena's good example? In Argentina we are now
focussing on other companies that buy from Nissui.
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