Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.08.2013, Qupperneq 10

Continued
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Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson wrote a
piece in the Grapevine on July 2, arguing
the case for sustainable whaling. He starts
by claiming that whale meat is “a large
source of cheap, healthy food,” which is
readily “available and hardly utilised.”
Then the professor argues that hunting a
few hundred whales in Icelandic waters is
a fully sustainable practice.
However, the problem is the market.
There is no commercially viable market
for a few dozen minke whales domesti-
cally, so the industry must be considered
to be “hobby whaling.” There is no export
market in Japan, which used to be the
main argument for resuming the hunt.
As for fin whales, Icelanders have never
eaten fin whale meat, all of it has been
exported to Japan, but with the collapse
of consumer demand for whale meat, the
export process has been very slow. The
latest export was in June, from the 2010
season.
In 2012, roughly 870 tons of fin whale
meat from Iceland was sold in Japan.
However, if Hvalur hf.—the sole company
engaged in fin whaling—would fulfil this
year’s quota of 154 fin whales, the total
would amount to c.a. 1850 tons, more than
double the amount sold in Japan last year.
Granted, professor Gissurarson argues
that whaling could be a solution to global
hunger, while admitting that history is
grim as there was “terrible overexploi-
tation of whale stocks in the early 20th
century. The International Whaling Com-
mission, IWC, which was established in
1946, was proving ineffective in protect-
ing whale stocks and the majestic blue
whale, the world’s largest animal, was
almost driven to extinction.” Fittingly, he
omits the fact most stocks of large ceta-
ceans are far from recovery. Instead, he
sets up a straw man argument.
Firstly, the “Case for Sustainable
Whaling” morphs into a diatribe against
the European Union, which is under the
sway of radical environmentalists. Mov-
ing on, professor Gissurarson argues for
the case of whaling by comparing fish
and mammals by explaining the Icelan-
dic fishing quota system which is an “an
efficient system in their fishery, making
it profitable unlike most fisheries else-
where. However, the demand for whale
meat is quite limited thus the comparison
is absurd. Of course, Gissurarson makes
no mention of how many years it took Ice-
land to overcome its challenges in man-
aging the cod stock. Having expelled the
British and German trawlers out of their
EEZ by the mid 1970s, the only manage-
ment device was to increase the number
of fishing vessels. Only ten years later,
the Icelandic fisheries were in a serious
crisis and it took at least 25 years to figure
out how to best follow scientific advice on
how much fish could be taken out of the
system—and that had a lot less to do with
the ITQ system than the industry’s will-
ingness to accept science.
Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson then
launches into the famous pest argument
or what is called in academic circles:
speciesism. His argument is that whales
consume too much fish from the sea bar-
ons, according to estimates. Nonetheless,
Gissurarson does not delineate which
species he is referring to. For example,
numbers in one study described the diet
of the fin whale and it was stated “that
3% of the food was composed of fish and
97% of planktonic euphausiids” and of
the 3%, cod and herring were not part of
the examined fin whale corpse. So which
whales is he referring to?
Nonetheless, the most interesting ar-
gument and illusionary concern set forth
in the article is the framework Hannes
uses. He commences his article with con-
cerns over rising food prices and ends
with pointing out food scarcity among the
poor. Therefore, the question needs to be
asked: Will Icelandic stewards transport
whale meat to poor countries or distribute
the meat among those in need here in Ice-
land? In fact, until now the fin whale meat
or the highly efficient seafood processor
has ended up as canine food for pampered
dogs in Japan. So basically, Japanese dogs
have been enjoying fin whale meat. At
the same time, Icelandic whale watching
companies are blooming and are creating
jobs, sustainable ones that do not invoke
the ire of the international community—
and are making much more money than a
few private individuals and their kin.
And now that fin whale meat is being
denied access to European ports, how will
Hvalur hf. transport it? Well, according
to Hannes Gissurarson, the moral thing
might just be to fly it to poorer countries
at a discount rate since there is little de-
mand elsewhere. Not doing so would be
immoral according to his logic.
Árni Finnsson is chairman of the
NGO: Iceland Nature Conservation Association
Marvin Lee Dupree is a postgraduate student.
Moral Stewards
Re: The Case for Sustainable Whaling
Comic by: Lóa Hjálmtýsdóttir
10The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 11 — 2013
cially with Reykjavík’s annual Gay
Pride festival celebrated through-
out downtown Reykjavík from Au-
gust 6–11. A limited edition Gay
Pride themed brew will be offered
in Icelandic liquor stores just for
the occasion. The beer sports a
rainbow-coloured label and is titled
“Ástríkur,” which translates appro-
priately to “rich of love.” Now that’s
something to skál over.
Besides, it’s probably better to
stick to beer these days, with re-
cent investigative reports muffling
out the once-glamorous clang of
champagne glasses. Journalists
working for Vísir recently visited
two downtown Reykjavík clubs,
Crystal and VIP Club, and reported
a strong possibility of illegal activ-
ity regarding the women working
there. Steinunn Gyðu- og Guðjóns-
dóttir, who runs a shelter for former
prostitutes, told reporters that the
clubs “bear many of the signs of hu-
man trafficking.” The clubs however
have denied the accusations and are
now suing the journalists for slan-
der.
Plus, is it really worth paying 20,000
ISK (the price one of the above men-
tioned clubs charges for “alone
time” with one of the women) when
according to a study by Laufey Tryg-
gvadóttir, Icelandic women have
sex with more people than women
of the same age in other Nordic
countries. You go girls. The same
study, however, also revealed that
Iceland has proportionally the high-
est rate of chlamydia in all of Europe.
I guess being the best at everything
has its downsides. Speaking of be-
ing the best, at least Iceland is still
the land with “the most beautiful
women and the strongest men.” But
speaking of the downsides, steroid
use has increased dramatically in
the last year amongst those strong,
strong men (and women). Accord-
ing to reports by the police, more
steroids have been confiscated in
the first three months of this year
than have been confiscated over
the past three years combined.
On a more positive note, Seljaval-
lalaug has been selected by Guard-
ian readers as one of the top ten
swimming pools in the world. THE
WORLD. Oh, and Sigurwin the gold-
fish has arrived safely in his brand
new, luxury aquarium. So regard-
less of what’s happening with the
continuing dispute over mackerel
quotas between the Icelandic gov-
ernment and the EU Fisheries Com-
mission, at least we know of one
fish whose life is coming along just
swimmingly.
NEWS IN BRIEF
JULY