觀豚旅遊能否拯救豚類物種 專家建議受到重視

觀鯨業是澳洲旅遊業的重要部分, 而且發展速度極快. 日本隔著半個地球來到澳洲的地盤打擊澳洲的旅遊業, 澳洲業內人仕不發火才怪.

鯨魚和海豚都有極高智慧而且非常可愛, 經常也有海豚救人的新聞。保護鯨魚的政策得到澳洲國民支持是顯而易見的，霍華德為討好日本而不肯對日本捕鯨船採取強硬政策, 只能惹來國民反感。

回頭看我國, 白鰭豚看來已經絕種, 不知道政府的政策能否阻止生態災難進一步擴大?

觀豚旅遊能否拯救豚類物種 專家建議受到重視

“如果能開展觀豚旅遊並終止漁業活動，或許可以讓極度瀕危的豚類物種棲息地得以重建。”中科院水生所王克雄博士說。日前，他所在的研究所遞交的有關保護白鰭豚和江豚的建議報告，受到國務院領導的高度重視。

    王克雄曾參加去年年末6國科學家在長江中下遊聯合進行的白鰭豚考察。白鰭豚和長江 江豚是我國特有的鯨類動物，僅生活于長江中、下遊幹流及大型通江湖泊中。白鰭豚、白海豚、中華鱘等被劃入國家一級保護水生野生動物，江豚和海龜等為國家二 級保護水生野生動物，受到法律保護，然而許多二級動物的瀕危速度大大超過法律修訂的速度。

    去年的白鰭豚考察隊隊長、中科院水生所副所長王丁博士指出，亞洲淡水豚的分布 區恰好是世界上人口最密集、經濟快速發展的地區，人類對長江的開發和利用毫無節制，長江環境的改變已經超出了長江豚類所能耐受的范圍，長江幹流已不再能夠 支撐長江豚類的生存和繁衍。長江船只密集、繁忙，考察期間僅在白天時段從宜昌到上海單程就記錄到19829艘交通船和1059只捕魚船，平均每公裏約有 12艘船只。而對此威脅所採取的應對措施顯然非常欠缺。

    專家認為，觀鯨業不僅能極大地促進公眾保護好海洋環境和江河湖泊的意識，使鯨 豚的種群數量得以持續穩定地發展，更是一種行之有效的經濟發展替代方式。據介紹，觀鯨旅遊業于1955年興起于美國的加利福尼亞，目前已在近百個國家開 展，全球觀賞鯨豚的人數超過了百萬人，近10年來其收入每年平均增長12%，大大超過其他旅遊業務的增長。

    “雖然白鰭豚難覓蹤影，但長江幹流中江豚大概還有700~900頭，加上鄱陽 湖、洞庭湖等湖泊中的江豚，總共還可能有1200~1400頭。”王丁說，對江豚的最大威脅是長江生態環境越來越差，“僅湖口一帶的大型挖沙船每天就有 1300多條”。這些大船不僅奪去了白鰭豚、江豚的生存空間，而且其噪聲完全覆蓋了豚類的聲納傳遞係統，幼豚無法找到母親，又瞎又聾的江豚找不到食物，隨 時會被螺旋槳和漁網傷害，最後只能在小河溝裏棲身。考察隊一位世界著名鯨豚類科學家對王丁說，這是他一輩子見到的最大的生態災難。

    面對江豚的種群數量每年以7.3%的速度下降的緊急情況，王丁等專家在給國務 院領導的報告中緊急呼吁：利用現有保護區和漁政管理係統的條件，建立長江豚類監測、救護和保護網絡；對重點江段進行長期監測，為建立半自然繁殖群體做更充 分的前期準備；將國家和地方的白鰭豚保護區全部更名為長江豚類保護區；立即將長江江豚升為國家一級保護動物，盡快完成相關法律程序；將鄱陽湖和洞庭湖作為 長江豚類的庇護所進行更嚴格的監控和保護；制訂長江保護法，限制並逐步終止長江漁業活動，規范航運業的發展，取締或嚴格控制長江和湖區的採砂活動。（張可 佳）

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History | Mid-East terrorism and Japan

No wonder there was relationship between Mid-East terrorism and Japan

Japan's Global Claim to Asia and the World of Islam: Transnational Nationalism and World Power, 1900–1945

Selçuk Esenbel | Japan's Global Claim to Asia and the World of Islam: Transnational Nationalism and World Power, 1900–1945 | The American Historical Review, 109.4 | The History Cooperative

Most people at the turn of the twenty-first century have forgotten that there was a time in Japan before World War II when Japanese nationalists showed an Asianist face to the world's Muslims, whom they wanted to befriend as allies in the construction of a new Asia under Japanese domination. The rise of Japan was a destabilizing factor that attracted Muslim activists who wanted to cooperate with the "Rising Star of the East" against the Western empires, accelerating contacts between Japan and the world of Islam from vast regions of Eurasia and North Africa. When Muslim newspapers celebrated Japan's defeat of Russia in the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War as the victory of the downtrodden Eastern peoples over the invincible West, a Turkish nationalist feminist, Halide Edip, like many other women, named her son Togo. Egyptian, Turkish, and Persian poets wrote odes to the Japanese nation and the emperor.1 In the Islamic movement of Aceh, the staunch Muslim area of Sumatra that was forcibly brought under control through a Dutch pacification campaign in 1903, the Japanese example of "the Awakening of the East" in 1905 engendered the topic of eager conversation to be the "speedy expulsion of the Dutch."2	1
During the years 1900–1945, the question that motivated Muslims and some Japanese was whether Japan could be the "Savior of Islam" against Western imperialism and colonialism if this meant collaboration with Japanese imperialism. Even during the 1930s, when there was little hope left for prospects of democracy and liberalism in Japan (for that matter in Europe as well), the vision of a "Muslim Japan" was so compelling to many Muslims in Asia and beyond, even among black Muslims of Harlem, as a means for emancipation from Western hegemony/colonial reality that it justified cooperation with Japanese intelligence overseas. kawa Shmei, the major intellectual figure of Pan-Asianism, the "mastermind of Japanese fascism" in the Tokyo trials, who justified Japan's mission to liberate Asia from Western colonialism by war if necessary, saw Islam as the means. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the relationship transformed into a major Japanese military strategy as the Japanese government began to implement its Islamic policy by mobilizing Muslim forces against the United Kingdom, Holland, China and Russia in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. 3	2
In this essay, therefore, I am particularly interested in exploring the role of Islam in Japan's global claim to Asia in order to shed light on a number of themes, personalities, and events that connect Japanese history to that of the world of Islam. Despite the major role Islam came to play in Japan's Pan-Asianist international policy, especially during World War II, Japanese-Muslim relations have not been studied extensively because of the boundaries in the intellectual concerns of each field. Studies of Japan that remain focused on Japan's relations with the West and China have eluded the subject.4 Japanese scholars of the Middle East are also ambivalent.5 With some exceptions, most choose to concentrate on the study of the "Orient in Western regions" and ignore Japan's historic connections to the world of Islam. Although I must admit there is a certain "cloak and dagger" character to the narrative, the subject invites our attention, for it opens a window onto an alternative, ambivalent arena of international relations between these so-called "Non-Western regions" in modern history, parallel to the interstate relations forged by the formal treaties and diplomacy dominated by the Western Powers. Yet these connections were significant in the formulation of ideas and policies throughout the twentieth century, especially as the colonized sought to emancipate themselves from Western imperialist domination with Japan's help as a world power. Japan's relations with Muslims unfold as an enigmatic history of mostly informal contacts, transnational alliances between Japanese Pan-Asianist agents, intellectuals, diplomats and military officers, and their Muslim counterparts on a global platform: a transnational history of nationalisms that connected Japanese Pan-Asianism with Pan-Islamic currents and Muslim nationalisms.6

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