Iceland is considering banning commercial whaling in the coming two years. Ms Svavarsdottir, a member of the Left-Green Movement, said there is no significant commercial benefit of whaling to the economy.
There are only a few places where people can hunt whales in the northern European country, which is an island in the North Atlantic.
Demand for the mammals’ meat has dropped a lot since Japan, Iceland’s main customer, started hunting whales again in 2019.
He says that whaling is no longer profitable for Iceland.
For what reason should Iceland keep whaling, even though it hasn’t made any money, in order to sell something for which there isn’t much of a market? On Friday, Svandis Svavarsdottir wrote in the newspaper Morgunbladid about what she thought about the world.
As of the last few years, the annual quotas in Iceland allow the hunting of 209 fin whales that are thought to be endangered as well as 217 minke whales, which are one of the smallest whale species.
She said that the fact that only one whale was killed in three years showed that the practise was not good for Iceland’s economy because it only made money for one person. She said this would be a big factor in whether or not to keep whaling after 2023.
Japan started hunting whales for profit again in 2019, after a three-decade break. This caused a big drop in demand for Iceland’s whale exports, which made hunting less profitable.
Other things have also made it more difficult to hunt whales. Distancing rules made Iceland’s whale meat processing plants less efficient, and the expansion of a no-fishing zone pushed up the cost of hunting whales by a lot.
Besides that, she said that Iceland’s whaling activities can hurt the economy, like when commercial whaling started there in 2006. Whole Foods, for example, stopped selling Icelandic products when commercial whaling started there again in 2006.
Activists who have been calling for an end to whaling in Iceland for a very long time have been happy about the news.
“As you can see, this is very good news, and it’s not coming soon enough. Icelandic whalers have killed hundreds of whales in the last few years, despite almost no demand at home “Vanessa Williams-Grey, who works for Whale and Dolphin Conservation in the UK, said that.
In 2019, hundreds of thousands of whale-watchers will come to Iceland to see the animals. This is because other whale-related businesses are now more successful in Iceland.
At the moment, Iceland, Norway, and Japan are the only countries that allow commercial whaling, but that could change.