Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.08.2013, Síða 6

By Paul Fontaine
Iceland | News
The Invisible Industry
What does whaling do for us?
The first misconception that must be put to rest is
the notion that Iceland has a cultural and historical
relationship with whaling that goes back centuries.
While isolated examples of Icelanders conducting
whale hunting can be found in the early history of
the country, it was actually foreigners who hunted
whales off Iceland’s shores for the first centuries of
the nation’s existence. Ironically, it was a nationalist
sentiment against foreigners whaling in Icelandic
waters that led to the country banning the practice
from 1913 to 1928. In 1935, however, Icelanders be-
gan their own commercial hunting of whales, un-
til they stopped again in 1989. Scientific whaling
started in 2003, though, and commercial hunting of
minke and fin whales resumed again in 2006—with
strong attitudes about national independence and
sovereignty again in play, only this time supporting
the practice rather than condemning it.
It seems there is a sort of nationalist contrarian-
ism in place here. Research conducted by the Uni-
versity of Iceland in 2010 shows that there might be
some truth to this. According to the research paper
“Attitudes Towards Whaling In Iceland,” most par-
ticipants were pro-whaling, considered anti-whal-
ing campaigning to be “sentimentality on par with
religion” and expressed a belief that Iceland must
stand up to foreign pressure.
The Ministry of Industries and Innovation—un-
der whose jurisdiction whale hunting belongs—is
quick to point out that, according to a Gallup poll
conducted in February 2009, 77.4% of Icelanders
said they supported whaling. However, the minis-
try omits the fact that this is down from an all-time
high of 90% in December 1994. At the same time,
opposition has been rising, going from just over
10% in September 2006 to about 20% today. Fur-
thermore, the research from 2010 shows that even
those Icelanders who identify as pro-whaling did
not always express unconditional support—many of
them would qualify their support with “if it does not
cost us more” to conduct whaling than to not.
This conditional support might be linked direct-
ly to political rhetoric on the subject. The research
contends that “whaling has increasingly been pre-
sented as an export industry that enhances employ-
ment” by pro-whaling politicians such as former
Minister of Fisheries Einar K. Guðfinnsson, former
MPs for the Liberal Party Grétar Mar Jónsson and
Guðjón A. Kristjánsson, and current Independence
Party MP Jón Gunnarsson. What these politicians
all have in common is that they are all conserva-
tives, and all hail from areas with a vested interest
in whale hunting or, in Jón Gunnarsson’s case, have
family members directly involved in whaling (his
son, Gunnar Bergmann Jónsson, owns the whale
hunting company Hrafnreyður ehf).
Who benefits?
But what then do we actually gain from whaling,
if anything? That’s where things start to get hazy.
Jóhann Guðmundsson, the Deputy Director
General of the Ministry of Industries and Innova-
tion, told the Grapevine that the ministry has no
idea how many people, exactly, are employed di-
rectly or indirectly in the whale industry. When
asked what Iceland gains from whale hunting that it
doesn’t gain from other industries, he told us, “We
maintain that it is the right of Icelanders to hunt
whales. We don’t answer this question of what we
gain from it; we solely provide the legal framework
within which whaling can be conducted.”
Does Iceland have the right to conduct whaling
hunting? The ministry unequivocally says that “nei-
ther of the two species harvested by Iceland qualify
for any of the IUCN threatened categories (‘criti-
cally endangered’, ‘endangered’ or ‘vulnerable’) in
the most recent regional assessment for North At-
lantic cetacean populations,” and that the numbers
of whales hunted are “generally accepted values for
sustainable catch rates”.
However, Jóhann admitted that “there is no do-
mestic market for whale meat.” He roughly estimat-
ed that less than 10% of Icelanders eat some whale
meat at some point in the year, “Exclusively minke
whale. Icelanders don’t eat large whales [like fin
whales].” He added that the government neither fi-
nancially supports the whaling industry, nor makes
an effort to promote whale meat on foreign markets.
This would put the onus on exports for the industry
to sustain itself.
Yet exporting whale meat does not turn a prof-
it. On the contrary—according to a 2010 research
report from the Institute of Economic Studies,
“The Macroeconomic Effects of Whale Hunting”
(“Þjóðfélagsleg áhrif hvalveiða”) in the year 2009,
minke whale hunters reported a profit of only about
600,000 ISK before taking into account write-offs
and expenses, and after salary costs of 21.7 mil-
lion ISK and a VAT paid of 22.3 million ISK. The
report also stated that “[whaling] also resulted in
losses when write-offs and expenses were taken
into account.” Any profit projections in the report
are based on being able to sell all the whale meat
caught at some unspecified point in the future.
As for exporting fin whale meat, recent events
have shown that this might prove difficult at best.
Last month, ships containing whale meat that were
bound for Japan were stopped in both Germany and
Holland and had no choice but to return to Iceland.
Shipping company Samskip have since decided
not to take part in shipping whale meat. The whale
meat now sits in frozen storage, awaiting a buyer
and someone to ship the meat to them.
Whale non-watching
If Iceland doesn’t gain from whaling, is it harmed
by it in any way? Rannveig Grétarsdóttir, who owns
and operates the whale watching company Elding,
would say so.
She dismissed the argument that despite con-
cerns that whale hunting would damage tourism,
tourists continue to increase in number. She says
that a tourist’s chances of seeing a whale in Faxaflói
Bay are steadily declining. “In North Iceland,” she
adds, “there were minke whales all over. Now they
hardly see any minke at all in Húsavík [North Ice-
land, where minke whale hunting is also conduct-
ed]. If this continues, our business will continue to
suffer.”
This conflict of interests between whale hunters
and whale watching groups led to former Minister
of Fisheries and Agriculture Steingrímur J. Sigfús-
son creating a “whale sanctuary” around Faxaflói
Bay, where whales could not be hunted, in 2009.
This area has since been reduced by current Min-
ister of Fisheries and Agriculture Sigurður Ingi
Jóhannsson.
Rannveig is also hardly black-and-white on the
whale hunting issue. “The most important thing,”
she told the Grapevine, “is getting whale hunting
out of Faxaflói Bay. They could, for example, hunt
them off the coast of east Iceland, where there are
almost no whale watching groups, but there are sup-
posed to be whales in the waters.”
Be that as it may, the question remains: if there
is no domestic market, exports are sitting in frozen
storage for the foreseeable future, and whalers are
operating at a loss, is it wise to continue the prac-
tice, even if one legally can? That will have to be
a question for Icelanders to answer for themselves.
For the time being, while most Icelanders support
the practice, the dialogue about whaling among Ice-
landers themselves is far from black-and-white.
To outside observers, Icelanders’ attitudes about whaling can seem monolithic: it is a part of our cultural heritage, our right as a sovereign nation to hunt
whales, and any opposition is emotionally based and hypocritical. But there is internal opposition to the whaling question, and the closer one looks at the facts
about whaling in Iceland, the more difficult it becomes to understand why we do it.
We maintain that it is
the right of Iceland-
ers to hunt whales.
We don’t answer
this question of what
we gain from it”
- Deputy Director
General of the Minis-
try of Industries and
Innovation Jóhann
Guðmundsson.
“
„
"How should we shoot you?" - photo by Julia Staples
6The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 11 — 2013