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Iceland sets out plan to resume whaling
13th March 2003
COPENHAGEN - Iceland said yesterday it would submit plans to resume scientific whaling to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) later this month - a key step towards restarting its controversial whale hunting.
Iceland, which has not hunted the marine mammals since 1989, said after rejoining the IWC in October it planned to start hunting again. It said commercial whaling would not begin until 2006 but that whaling for scientific purposes could come sooner.
Stefan Asmundsson, the fishing ministry's whaling commissioner, said the government would submit a plan for scientific whaling to the IWC later in March.
"We have made no decision on when we will start scientific whaling," he added.
He said the IWC, which requires member states to present detailed research plans before they can begin hunting for research purposes, would discuss Iceland's proposal at its annual meeting in June. No decision would be made before that.
A vast majority of Icelanders support the resumption of whaling, which has long traditions in the country, and advocates argue that a rising whale population in north Atlantic waters deprives fishermen of their catch.
Environmental groups disagree and tour operators fear whaling would put an unfavourable spotlight on Iceland, which has become a trendy destination.
They say tourism revenues from whale-watching are twice what whaling yielded before Iceland began enforcing a ban in 1989.
Asmundsson said Iceland was investigating whether there would be a market for the whale products. He said scientific whaling would be very expensive if Icelanders could not sell those parts of their catch not earmarked for research labs.
Whale meat and other products are popular in Japan, which also carries out what it calls scientific research whaling.
Iceland refused to sign up to the 1986 commercial whaling moratorium and stormed out of the IWC a decade ago in anger over the ban, before rejoining last year. It stopped whaling in 1989 amid international pressure.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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