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Imagine you run a small food shop in your local neighbourhood. Suddenly, a giant supermarket opens for business opposite your shop. What happens to you and your business?

In the natural world, things are often the same. The red squirrel was living happily in England when, in the 1880s, many people brought grey squirrels from North America as pets. Since then, these pets have escaped into the wild. They now eat the same food as the red squirrels, and they eat it more quickly. Consequently, now there aren't many native squirrels in England and they are in danger of extinction.

There are many invaders that don't cause extinctions, but they do destroy plants and harm the economy. For example, European red deer are destroying the forests in South America because they eat the young trees. Rabbits have spread from Europe and now eat farmers' crops all over the world. These kinds of invaders are causing problems for humans, unlike the grey squirrels,

which cause little damage to plants and don't damage the economy.

Few invaders are large land animals; most of them are fish or small animals like insects. There are thousands of these invaders and these smaller animals often mean farmers lose a lot of money. The apple snail from South America doesn't cause much damage in Europe, but it causes a lot of damage in southeast Asia because it loves to eat rice plants.

There are very few positive sides to these animal invasions. However, in Britain today, one invasion story offers some hope. Chinese mitten crabs first came on ships from China. These crabs destroy local environments and attack fish in fish farms. However, in China these crabs are an expensive food, so, now, Britain is selling them back to China. The crabs are travelling on ships again, but this time they are food, not invaders; and this time they are helping the British economy, not harming it.

industry, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was formed in 1946.

However, in 1986, the IWC voted for a temporary ban on whaling. The biggest concern was the huge decline in whale population across the planet. Indeed many people say that the global moratorium came too late and that commercial whaling has already driven many species to the brink of extinction. According to Greenpeace, blue whales (the largest animal on the planet) are at less than 1% of their original abundance in the Antarctic. Sei Whales and Fin Whales are also listed as “endangered species” while Sperm Whales are classified as “vulnerable”.

But there are many other good reasons to oppose whaling. Whales are extremely intelligent mammals. They have social networks very

By Sam Gordon

What is the most controversial issue in your country? Whaling is one topic that’s been dividing nations for many years now. Oil from whales lit the lamps of major cities in the US and Europe, and whale oil was used to manufacture soaps, varnish, cosmetics, paint and even the glaze on photographs. In order to oversee the development of the global whaling

similar to those of humans, and scientists have recently discovered that whales have brain cells only previously found in humans and great apes. On top of that, whaling is also a notoriously cruel industry. Whales are often caught using explosive harpoons that puncture their skin and then explode inside their bodies. In some cases, when the harpoon doesn’t hit its target properly, whales can take minutes or sometimes hours to die.

Despite this, some countries continue to hunt whales. In 1992, Norway declared itself exempt from the ban. And currently Japan hunts more than 1,000 whales a year – all of them part of a supposed “scientific research” programme run by the Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research. Many people argue that this “research” is nothing more than a front for commercial whaling (the meat that is left over after samples are taken is sold as a

delicacy). The situation was not helped in 2001, when Maseyuku Komatsu from the Japanese Fisheries Agency described Minke Whales as the “cockroaches of the sea” in an interview on Australian television.

Many ecological groups have tried to sabotage the hunts. In 2005 and 2006, Greenpeace sent boats to interfere with the whaling fleet in the Antarctic. In some cases, protests have turned violent. Just recently, the Ady Gil (a ship

belonging to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) was rammed by a whaling ship. The Ady Gil later sank. At present, the world is fairly divided on the issue with Iceland, Japan and Norway on the pro-whaling side, and the US, Australia, New Zealand and the EU on the anti-whaling side. Asked recently how difficult his job was on a scale of one-to-ten, Cristian Maquieira, the chairman of the IWC, said “about a twelve”!