A dead whale at an Icelandic whaling station, from our first expedition in 1978
Greenpeace has joined forces with a range of animal welfare and conservation groups to express outrage at Iceland's decision to resume whaling.
The groups below issued a statement calling on Iceland to abandon its whaling programme immediately.
- Campaign Whale
- Environmental Investigation Agency
- IFAW - International Fund for Animal Welfare
- Greenpeace
- Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
- Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
- World Society for the Protection of Animals
The statement warns that as its 'scientific' whaling programme continues, Iceland will again seek export markets for its whale meat.
It is also likely to use the data it collects from examining the whales' stomachs to support the spurious argument that whales are destroying fish stocks needed by humans. Clearly, commercial overfishing is the cause of global declines in fisheries.
The coalition condemned Iceland for circumventing the International Whaling Commmission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling. Iceland rejoined the IWC this year, after resigning from the international body in 1992, in protest against the ban. At this year's IWC meeting in Berlin, Iceland submitted its proposal to commence 'scientific' whaling.
The proposal outlined plans to hunt 500 minke, sei and fin whales. The IWC's Scientific Committee did not approve the plan, concluding that the so-called scientific research Iceland planned to conduct could be obtained by non-lethal methods.
Gerd Leipold, Executive Director of Greenpeace International said: "No science justifies the killing of whales. This is simply an underhand attempt by the Icelandic government to resume commercial whaling."
Read the joint statement (PDF) on Icelandic whaling in full.
