Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.07.2004, Blaðsíða 6

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Here comes
Esperanza
by Robert Jackson
GREENPEACE AND ICELAND: PARTNERS?
The thought of an explosive charge in a whale’s brain unsettles
me as it does most others. There are few more emotive sights than a
harpooned whale; it’s up there along with the clubbed seal and the
tusk-less elephant in the top ten images of inhuman cruelty. They
are powerful tools and should be used sagely. In the wrong hands
their pornographic effect can be used to manipulate and deceive. The
prospect of a few whales being culled is good news for Greenpeace
and the IWF for they provide an opportunity to raise awareness and
fundraise, hence the arrival of Esperanza.
by Paul Fontaine-Nikolov
To many in Iceland, the name “Greenpeace” is synonymous with
the term “bleeding heart whale-huggers”, a group of angry young
people shouting slogans who sailed into port last summer and have
now returned. To many, they fail to understand the cultural signifi-
cance of whale hunting to the average Icelander and make moun-
tains out of molehills by protesting the killing of a mere 25 minke
whales (down from 36 last summer). Some have even gone so far
as to say that they’ve fabricated some of their evidence. A couple of
whaling ships were sunk in Reykjavík harbour in 1986, for which
some have blamed Greenpeace.
Good and evil, Walt Disney
style
Greenpeace are no strangers to spe-
cious science and emotive argument;
the sort that lumps all whales into
one category and all whalers the
other. Good and evil as Walt Disney
would tell it. Whales are not all the
same; there are many different spe-
cies. Some eat fish, some don’t, some
are big, some are small, some live
in the Northern hemisphere, some
the Southern, some are endangered,
some are not. For the avoidance of
doubt the minke whale is not endan-
gered. There has been a worldwide
ban on whale hunting of all species
since 1989, however, scientific culling
is permitted.

Iceland has one of the world’s last
productive fishing grounds. Its ter-
ritorial waters that stretch 200 miles
around its coastline provide Europe
and particularly the UK with its cod.
What the environmentalists seem to
overlook is that the Icelanders have
managed their fisheries and seen
them increase over the last decade,
while others have presided over the
virtual annihilation of their territorial
fish-stocks.
It is just not realistic to assume that
this scientific cull is the Icelandic
way of finding a backdoor into
commercial whaling. In years to
come, if on the balance of scientific
evidence they see their fishery is
being affected by the presence of
minke whales, then it is probable
that they’ll wish a more extensive
cull. But, so it is with elephant herds
in Zimbabwe, where protection has
been such a success that they are now
destroying food stocks for other less
voracious species.
They come here to eat
It is estimated, and estimates will
vary up to 50 per cent plus or minus
when it comes to counting whales,
that there are in the order of 43,000
minke whales in Icelandic territo-
rial waters. Minke whales are an
odd mixture, for although they are
filter-feeding, baleen, they will eat
fish and squid, and, although they
are migratory, they will also establish
home ranges. So, they not only eat
fish, but also the food that fish eat.
They dine off the entire length of the
food chain if you like, and monitor-
ing the food chain is an essential
part of fishery management, and you
can’t find out with certainty what
a minke is eating without looking
into its stomach. A cull of 27 minkes
represents less than 0.01 per cent of
the total Icelandic minke popula-
tion. The cull falls into insignificance
when measured against the global
population of minke whales.
The Icelandic economy relies on its
fish exports. Their fisheries cover an
area of over 500,000 square miles
and, as far as it is possible to manage
an area of open sea that size, are
meticulously monitored and man-
aged. Whales come to Iceland to
feed, some consuming over three-
quarters of their annual food intake
while they are here. Iceland has a
legitimate right to run its fisheries as
it thinks best, and if that involves the
cull of minke whales, then so be it.
What about the tourists
Where Iceland has got it wrong is
how they are going about it. Their
second most important source of
revenue is tourism. Not only does
Iceland export most of its fish to the
UK but it also imports the bulk of
its tourists from here, too. The cull
started at the beginning of the tour-
ist season when whale watching is at
its peak and as minke whales over-
winter in territorial waters, there is
no reason for the cull to coincide
with the tourist migration.
Yes, there will be 27 less whales to
watch in Iceland at the end of the
summer but that is hardly the point.
There will also be Icelandic cod well
into the foreseeable future, there
will be minke whales in abundance
and, hopefully next year, Greenpeace
will find a more worthwhile venue
for its fundraising and promotional
activities.
Why then does Frode Pleym,
campaign director for Greenpeace in
Iceland, say: “This year our response
has been so positive and receptive,
it’s been almost boring.”
I was taken on board the Esper-
anza, the Greenpeace ship sitting in
Reykjavík harbour, by Irene Berg,
the web editor for Greenpeace. I was
introduced to Marcee Benson, one of
Greenpeace’s “cyber-activists”.
Marcee’s approach to encouraging
the end of whaling is more diplo-
matic than confrontational. She has
collected the testimonies of over
57,000 people who said they would
seriously consider vacationing in
Iceland rather than somewhere else
if Iceland halts whaling. Greenpeace
intends to hand over the e-mails of
all of these people to various tour-
ist industries in Iceland when the
whaling stops. According to their
website, what this could mean for
Iceland in terms of real money would
be over $10 million dollars per year
in tourist revenue, even if only 15%
of these pledges actually visited
Iceland - a percentage which most
travel agencies confirm is a realistic
expectation. As most Greenpeace
members are consumate travellers
by nature, this percentage would
probably be much higher. Iceland’s
annual commercial whaling, at its
peak, brought in only $4 million.
A cook happily chopped the
legs off of a whole lamb
We went below deck, to the galley,
where a cook happily chopped the
legs off of a whole lamb, in prepa-
ration for the evening meal. Soon
Frode Pleym joined us and when
questioned about some of the accusa-
tions made against Greenpeace in the
past, his response was, “Greenpeace
has a long history. Any organisation
which has been around as long as
we have is bound to make mistakes
and do stupid things. But two things
need clarifying. Firstly, a documen-
tary claiming that the clubbing
of baby seals was a hoax by a Mr.
Guðmundsson was rejected by the
Oslo City Court as being unsubstan-
tiated. Second, it was not Green-
peace that sunk a whaling ship but
Sea Shepherd. That group was run
by a former member of Greenpeace
who was thrown out for having ideas
which run counter to our agenda of
peaceful action.”
Pleym discussed the “scientific pur-
poses” given by the Icelandic govern-
ment for whaling: “The main reason
given has been to find out what
whales eat. This can be done without
killing them, first of all. Second, if
they see the minke whales as a threat
to the fish stocks, they would need
to kill at least 25% of them before
it would have any effect on the fish
population, which most Icelanders
agree is an unsustainable number of
whales to kill. In addition, it doesn’t
address the real threats to the fish
stock, such as climate change and sea
pollution - two things which both
Iceland and Greenpeace are acting in
cooperation with each other to end.”
Why are some Icelanders trying
so hard to continue whaling?
If all this is true, why are some
Icelanders trying so hard to con-
tinue whaling? “Apart from Kristján
Loftsson, head of a whaling company
Hvalur hf. having a lot of politi-
cal power, there is also a conflict of
interest,” says Pleym, “Hafró
[Hafrannsóknarstofnun, a marine
research group] also happens to be
a part of the Ministry of Fisheries.
Hardly an independent source of
information on the whale’s effect on
fish stocks.”
Greenpeace is doing a lot to live
down their “angry protestor” image.
Pleym says: “We don’t want our mes-
sage to be, ‘You must stop whaling
now!’ but rather, ‘It would be wise for
you to stop’. To this end, the tourist
industry in Iceland has actually been
the strongest voice of protest against
whaling. By the Ministry of Fisheries
own figures, the average Icelander
eats only about 0.05 kilos of whale
meat each year. By contrast, whale
watching in Húsavík is booming.
Hundreds of people all over Iceland
enjoy whale watching every day. We
want to act more as a partner with
Iceland, rather than an opponent.”
The Greenpeace office in Iceland
will be open until mid-July. Those
wishing to learn more can visit their
website at www.greenpeace.org
H
.S
.
Referendum in doubt
Parliament
was called to a
special summer
session and
have proposed
a revised media bill. There are
no clear rules for a referendum
and the rules are even less clear
about what happens when a bill is
revised after one has been called.
Teenagers think it “uncool” to
call parents
Research
among Reyk-
javík teenag-
ers has now
conclusively
proven that
they think it “uncool” to call their
parents. Among other findings are
that it is considered “cool” to be
able to write text messages quickly
and talk a lot on the phone. The
science world is still waiting to see
how this will affect previously held
opinions of the species.
No fatalities at Metallica con-
cert
Four people
were trans-
ported to
emergency
care at the
hospital and roughly a hundred
were given aid by emergency
workers on the spot at a presenta-
tion by American corporation
Metallica at Egilshöll. The arena
was opened to let more air in as it
got stifling hot, which may have
contributed to the absence of
fatalities.
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