Unique Whale Offer to Icelandic Government from Greenpeace
Reykjavik, Iceland 5 September 2003: The arrival of the Rainbow Warrior in Iceland today launched a public tour that
will take the ship around the small North Atlantic Island. At the same time Greenpeace presented an offer to the
Icelandic Government, giving them a chance to save their globally damaged reputation and the whales of the world.
“Greenpeace will be the link between people around the world and the people of Iceland who want to protect this island’s
natural resources. We will encourage our supporters and the general public to actively choose Iceland as a nature based
tourism destination in the future”, said Greenpeace spokesperson Frode Pleym at a press conference onboard the Rainbow
Warrior in Reykjavik.
In return, Greenpeace urge the Icelandic Government to stop the current whale hunt of 38 minke whales, publicly agree
that so called “scientific whaling” will not resume at anytime, under any guise and withdraw Iceland’s reservation to
the international ban on commercial whaling.
“The Icelandic Government’s attempt to justify whaling “on scientific grounds” is economic suicide. Whale watching is
now the heart of an even larger nature tourism industry that is exceeded in economic importance only by Iceland’s fish
based industries. Already we see tourists cancelling trips to Iceland due to the whale hunt.”
The market for whale meat and blubber is not a lucrative option to declining tourism. Viability of selling the whale
blubber is uncertain as the Icelandic domestic market is very small and the only potential export market in Japan
remains highly questionable. (1)
“This clearly shows that there are no legitimate reasons for the Icelandic Government to hunt whales. The argument that
it is necessary to control the minke whale stocks to safeguard cod, is pseudo science and used by the Government to gain
public opinion”.
The Rainbow Warrior first sailed against Icelandic whaling on her maiden voyage in 1978 when the world's largest mammal
was on the verge of extinction. Today seven of the 13 great whale species are endangered, the remainder are still
recovering from former overexploitation.
The purpose of the Rainbow Warrior tour 2003 is to engage in dialogue with the people of Iceland to support and interact
with the existing local pressure on the Icelandic Government. If international reaction is short lived the Icelandic
Government will proceed and pave the way for a resumption of full- scale commercial whaling for export in 2006.
“We offer to work with the people of Iceland towards a future-oriented ecological society while the Icelandic Government
is holding their people hostage in an unsustainable tradition. Whaling is part of Iceland’s past and Iceland’s future
can only be undermined by a renewed whale hunt”, concluded Frode Pleym from Greenpeace.
Note: (1) Japanese consumer groups say studies by the National Veterinary Institute in Oslo and the Norwegian College of
Veterinary Medicine have found the average concentration of PCBs in north-east Atlantic minke whales to be 3.8 parts per
million (ppm). The provisional regulatory standard for PCBs in marine products in Japan is much lower, at 0.5 ppm…”