Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
each sealing season. Such regulations notwithstanding, media reports in 2010 suggested
that the injuring of young seals abandoned during the hunt was widespread.
Reports suggest that the Norwegian sealing industry may be in serious decline, with ac-
tual culls amounting to less than 10% of the allocated quota.
Whaling
No Norwegian environmental issue inspires more international fervour and emotion than
that of renewed whaling in the North Atlantic.
The International Whaling Commission (
www.iwcoffice.org
) is a largely dispassionate resource on whal-
ing and the surrounding politics. There are also useful sections, such as the 'Status of Whales', with estim-
ates for current whale populations.
The International Context
In 1986, as a result of worldwide campaigns expressing critical concern over the state
of world whale populations, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) imposed a
moratorium on whale hunting. Although it has largely held, two key elements in recent
years have placed the moratorium under threat.
The first has been the decision by the three major whaling nations - Norway, Japan and
Iceland - to either resume commercial whaling or, in the case of Japan and Iceland, to
threaten to withdraw from the IWC and engage in a full-scale resumption of commercial
whaling unless the moratorium is replaced by a management plan that allows some whal-
ing.
The second development threatening world whale stocks is a concerted campaign that
has seen nations with no history of whaling - including Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Grenada,
Tuvalu and even landlocked Mongolia, San Marino and Mali - joining the commission.
The result has seen a change from nine pro-whaling votes out of 55 in 2000 to an al-
most-50%splitamongits88memberscurrently(a75%majorityisrequiredtochangeIWC
policy).Allegationsthatpro-whalingvoteshavebeenrewardedwithdevelopmentaidhave
not been denied by the Japanese.
Norway,foritspart,seesthemoratoriumasunnecessaryandoutdated.Itcountershistor-
ical evidence indicating that whalers in this region hunted their prey to the verge of extinc-
tion (in the 17th century alone, Dutch whalers alone killed an estimated 60,000 whales in
thewatersoffSvalbard),byclaimingthatmodernwhalershaveabetterandmoreinformed
