A Minke Whale

May 8, 2003 — Icelanders, itching to return to hunt whales in their territorial waters, are still held back by fear of world opinion but hope to find ways to avoid any fallout on the island's booming tourism industry if whaling resumes.

"We believe that as a nation we should have the right to use this resource, like any other resource," Finance Minister Geir H. Haarde told AFP.

Iceland could return to whaling within two or three years, if not sooner, he said.

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Iceland agreed to a whaling moratorium within the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1983, but many now believe that that was an error.

Iceland subsequently left the IWC but was readmitted last year. Prime Minister David Oddsson said earlier this year that he hoped to follow Japan in launching "scientific" or "research" whaling, but government officials are quite open about their wish to re-enter commercial whaling, too.

They are backed up by Icelandic scientists, who claim that the small minke whales are doing very well around Iceland. They see no reason why the hunt cannot resume.

"In fact the whale stock around Iceland needs to be culled like the kangaroo stock in Australia needs to be culled," said Haarde, who believes there is no justification to oppose whaling "unless you're a vegetarian."

"Whales compete with humans for fish stocks, the protein of the sea. And whom would you rather feed, humans or whales?" he said.

But Iceland's booming tourism industry is not happy with the prospect of an international outcry, and sector professionals are haunted by fears that tourists from countries like the United States, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands could decide to boycott Iceland.

The government is hoping to persuade its foreign critics that whaling is not as monstrous as they claim to avoid such a backlash, but fundamentally finds it hard to understand why they are being taken to task over whaling.

"It seems that the government doesn't really understand the extent of opposition to whaling in the world. They always seem surprised at the reaction they get," said Lowana Veal, a biologist based in Iceland.

One idea being floated is that drugging whales and then killing them might make whaling more palatable to those who believe that the animals suffer needlessly before dying.

Apart from the political fallout, there are also doubts about how viable commercial whaling would be, and there are uncertainties about demand for whale products and prices, government officials acknowledge, saying that these issues need to be sorted out before Iceland takes the big step.