Reykjavik has decided to defy the international moratorium on commercial whaling. What's that going to do to their Tourism / EcoTourism trad?
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Iceland has decided to
resume commercial whale hunts for the first time in two decades, ignoring the
International Whaling Commission (IWC) ban.
Iceland will allow killing a
small commercial quota of 39 whales - 30 minke whales and nine fin whales - in
the year to the end of August 2007. Fin whales are on a Red List of endangered
species.
"We are ready to start
hunts immediately," said Kristjan Loftsson, head of the Icelandic whaling
company that received the permit.
Greenpeace denounced the
decision and said the Icelandic commercial quotas were small, apparently to
test international reaction. Greenpeace's Martin Norman said that Iceland had
been unable to sell all the meat from scientific research hunts in recent years.
Its research permits include 200 minke whales from 2003-07 - a total of 161
have been caught, leaving another 39 for 2007.
Norway already allows
commercial whaling. Japan, the other main whaling nation, says its hunts are
for scientific research. Norway broke the IWC ban on commercial whaling in 1993
and allowed a quota of 1,052 minke whales in 2006. Japan caught 850 minke
whales and 10 fin whales in Antarctic waters last season.
Greenpeace says whaling will
damage the Icelandic economy by discouraging tourism. It has collected 87,000
signatures who say they might visit the country if it abandoned whale
hunts, but wouldn't otherwise.
Whaling nations accuse the
IWC of being interested only in conserving stocks, not managing them.
