Wildlife as Canon sees it.

The Japanese company Canon make some of the finest and most popular digital cameras around and their marketing campaign is based around spectacular shots of the natural world. Flick through a photography magazine or a copy of National Geographic and you will probably see one of their adverts containing a rare animal in a stunning backdrop taken in crystal clear detail.

Unfortunately Japan's relationship with the natural world is tarnished by the ongoing issue of Whaling. In December last year the Japanese whaling factory ship Nisshin Maru accompanied by three whale hunting ships entered the Australian Whale sanctuary in the Southern Ocean with the intention of killing of 935 minke and 50 fin whales. The Greenpeace ship Esperanza followed with the intention of documenting, campaigning, reasoning with and disrupting their efforts for as long as the had the fuel to do so. Japan claims that the purpose of it's whaling missions is scientific research. Despite the fact that almost all scientists researching whales state that all useful data can be gathered by non-lethal means. According to an expert pane on Catalyst the science program on ABC Japan had produced 4 scientific papers on whales in the last 18 years that actually had relevance (transcript) meaning that the average number of whales killed for each of those papers was 1700! The real reason for Japan's continued use of lethal research methods is obvious, the hunts are commercial in nature and any minor science is included simply to legally justify the hunt with the IWC (scientific whaling is allowed commercial is not). Even this makes little sense as Japan does not have a large market for whale meat. The amount of unsold whale meat stockpiled by Japan has been climbing since 2003 and now stands at almost 4000 tons.

So what has this got to do with Canon? The head of Canon Fujio Mitarai is also the head of the Keidanren (The Japanese Business Association) making him the most senior businessman in Japan and a trusted advisor to the Japanese Prime Minister. Greenpeace are attempting to convince Mr Mitarai to issue a statement saying that Canon does not support the whaling industry (more).

I own a Canon EOS 400D, it is one of my most treasured possessions and I look forward to buying many Canon accessories to go with it. However Canon have sold a lot of cameras by trading on the image of a company that loves nature. Isn't about time they stood up for what they claim to believe in?

Contact Mr Mitarai here.