Around the World

REYKJAVÍK, 16 May 2023 – I was on my way to Hamburg to begin an English teaching position while on a layover in Iceland. I decided to push back my flight a couple of days to experience the nation that calls itself the land of fire and ice. The images I had seen and stories I had heard of the natural beauty were too intriguing to spend a few hours at Keflavík International Airport. I booked a hostel on the outskirts of the nation’s capital, Reykjavík, and decided to stroll into town.

It was blistery and wet, the typical gray one would expect to experience on a May morning in Iceland. This dreariness, however, sharply contrasted with the lively pastel-colored Scandinavian architecture that lined the narrow streets. As I made my way down Skólavörðustígur road, I stumbled across a group of young protestors in the shadow of the famous scenic Hallgrímskirkja church. They held up a banner that read in Icelandic: “Will Iceland be the last country on Earth to ban whaling?”

Iceland has had an interesting relationship with whaling as it is one of three nations (along with Japan and Norway) that has a reservation against the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) 1986 moratorium on the practice. Iceland had initially stopped whaling completely by 1989 but left the IWC agreement in 1992. The country then rejoined in 2002 but took out a reservation against the moratorium. Commercial whaling officially was reinstated in October 2006 but restricted by a self-imposed quota. Fin whales and minke whales are the only targets of commercial whaling vessels in Iceland and Hvalur hf, a corporation led by Kristján Loftsson, is the only commercial hunter of fin whales in Europe.

Fin whaling is done exclusively by Hvalur hf in Europe, as this whale population is considered highly endangered by the World Wildlife Fund and vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The market for this meat is almost entirely limited to Japan which imports around 90% of all the meat sold by Hvalur hf.

Months after this protest, on 20 June, the Icelandic government halted the annual start of the whaling season over concerns about animal welfare. Icelandic law requires the hunt of any animal to be done quickly and painlessly, and questions had been raised about the brutality of the whaling process. This halt followed public reaction to numerous incidents of harpooning taking between 30 minutes to two hours to kill the whale after the initial blow. Whaling was allowed to resume on 1 September but under close supervision of the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority which set new mandates for the commercial whalers. These mandates included the immediate death of the whale, videotaped evidence of the hunt, the use of approved weapons, and that the hunt could only take place during daylight. The self-imposed quota of 209 fin whales, set in 2019, is still in place but set to expire in December 2023.

According to a poll conducted by an Icelandic media outlet, a plurality of Icelandic citizens oppose whaling at 42%, whereas 29% support continuing the practice. A majority of Icelandic citizens believe whaling is not a culturally significant custom. This is evidenced by the fact that only around 2-3% of Icelandic citizens eat whale meat and the market for this product is continuing to diminish. Whaling has little impact on the overall economy of Iceland and makes up less than 1% of total seafood export. Compared to the whale watching industry, revenue from whaling is insignificant, as whale watching generates around $12 million annually for local economies with 1 in 5 tourists enjoying this activity. In 2017, tourism accounted for nearly half of Iceland’s economy, a stark contrast to the whaling industry that managed a loss of $7.5 million in 2015, even before many operations had been halted due to COVID-19 or environmental concerns.

While this issue at face value seemed to be a question of economic benefit to a small nation, it is rather perplexing that this is even an issue at all. There seems to be no advantage from any perspective to justify the continuation of this practice. The environmental concerns of the dwindling fin whale population should be enough to outright ban whaling, but with the other compounding factors, it seems outrageous to allow it. A plurality of the Icelandic population opposes whaling, there is no cultural significance, there are near-zero and even further diminishing economic benefits, and the rest of the world has already banned it.

I stayed for about an hour at this protest taking in the sights and sounds of Iceland’s young generation pushing for change. A replica whale skeleton had been laid about the street and a young woman urged over a megaphone. Her Icelandic speech may have been incomprehensible to me, but I sensed the passion and the strain in her voice. A voice that has been imitated around the globe as the future of our youth is being used as collateral with the commercialization of the environment for the economic gain of a few.

I continued my meander along to the Hallgrímskirkja, with mixed feelings about what I had encountered. I felt hope that the youth here were like the youth anywhere else in the world; determined, passionate, and keen on making positive change. At the same time, I felt uneasy as my initial thoughts were that perhaps the whaling industry might be too powerful an opponent to resist in this economically limited nation. I am now hopeful having researched the realities of this issue and realize the end of whaling in Iceland may be near. Nevertheless, there is work to be done on all fronts to ensure that the world we love and need is protected for generations to come.