Published 6 February 20096 February 2009 · Main Posts Whaling in the Southern Seas Rjurik Davidson At the Age there’s a report on the ongoing (and it seems yearly) stoush between Japanese whalers and Sea Shephard anti-whalers: Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson said the 8000-tonne factory ship Nisshin Maru repeatedly tried to ram his vessel Steve Irwin, and three harpoon boats trailed ropes to entangle its propeller. In the five-hour conflict, Captain Watson said sonic devices were used against a Sea Shepherd helicopter, forcing it to retreat, and resulting in the injury of another activist. The fleet’s response came as the Japanese entered a fifth day under an increasingly tense pursuit by the Steve Irwin that was still under way last night. For those who are interested in knowing more about Watson and the Sea Sheperd, there was an interesting recent article in the New Yorker. It claims that: Watson believes in coercive conservation, and for several decades he has been using his private navy to ram whaling and fishing vessels on the high seas. Ramming is his signature tactic, and it is what he and his crew intended to do to the Japanese fleet, if they could find it. I wouldn’t claim to know much about Watson, the Sea Shepherd, or the accuracy of the New Yorker piece, but it seems to raise an interesting question about what are useful tactics in order to get an issue into the public sphere. Rjurik Davidson Rjurik Davidson is a writer, editor and speaker. Rjurik’s novel, The Stars Askew was released in 2016. Rjurik is a former associate editor of Overland magazine. He can be found at rjurik.com and tweets as @rjurikdavidson. More by Rjurik Davidson › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 28 March 202428 March 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body. First published in Overland Issue 228 5 March 2024 · Main Posts Andrew Charlton’s school assignment Alex McKinnon Australia's Pivot to India exists for three reasons: so that when Andrew Charlton is interviewed on the radio or introduced on Q+A, his bio includes the phrase "he has written a book about Indian-Australian relations"; to fend off accusations that he is another Kristina Keneally engaging in electoral colonialism in western Sydney; and to help the Albanese government strengthen economic and military ties with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.