Another Ratbag Nation Starts Whaling

[mrmoshe]

Geez...just when you thought it couldn't get worse..now another ratbag nation, Iceland starts killing whales again.

When will these people learn that there's no justification in killing whales!!

These animals are close to extinction and they just thumb their noses at the rest of the civilised world.

It makes me fume when I read stuff like this.

Iceland slammed on whaling

AUSTRALIA'S Environment Minister Ian Campbell says Iceland is sticking two fingers in the air to the international community by killing a whale species listed as close to extinction.

Icelandic whalers reportedly yesterday broke a 21-year-old international ban on whaling when they harpooned the first fin whale since a moratorium was imposed in 1985.

Fin whales, the second largest species on the planet, are rated an endangered species on a red list compiled by the World Conservation Union but Iceland says they are plentiful in the north Atlantic.

"This is not just sticking a harpoon into a species that's endangered," Senator Campbell said.

"You wonder how Iceland could be a member of the global community with an act like this.

"This is really sticking two fingers in the air at the entire global community, the entire international, environmental institutional arrangements."

Senator Campbell, who has led efforts to have the International Whaling Commission turned into a conservation body, said Iceland was really saying the concerns of the global community really did not matter.

"They can't be taken seriously on any environmental issue in the future," he said.

Senator Campbell said that, without anything else going wrong, fin whales were close to extinction.

[Flattieman]

They broke the ban... can't wait to see a decent punishment...

Seriously, how can a "civilised" nation ignore the facts?

Not happy, Jan!

Flattieman.

[mrmoshe]

Some background on these turkey's justification in resuming whaling:

I hope our government now suspends ALL trade with Iceland over this.

It's not a lot of trade, but with their very small population, I'm sure any

suspension of trade with them will hurt them economically.

Stand up Australia and show these idiots that it's just NOT ON!!!

Enough of my rant.

Pete.

_________________________________________

ICELAND'S decision to approve new commercial hunting for minke and fin whales has confirmed a resurgence in whaling.

Icelandic whaling company Hvalur said it planned to start hunting immediately despite the onset of the North Atlantic winter and the whales' annual migration to warmer waters.

"What's most important for us is to get started," Hvalur chief executive Kristjan Loftsson said. "Our aim is to test all systems this year."

His Government's decision to licence a kill of 30 minkes and nine fins was announced on Tuesday by Fisheries Minister Einar Gudfinnsson.

It follows years of manoeuvring by Iceland to resume a commercial hunt, marks the failure of an international environmental campaign against it and foreshadows a larger kill for trade, possibly to Japan.

Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell said the decision was a disgrace. He said it would increase the devastating human impact on the world's whales and damage Iceland's international standing.

Reykjavik moved after whalers won a non-binding but strongly symbolic vote that declared the world moratorium on commercial whaling was no longer necessary at the past meeting of the International Whaling Commission in June.

"The resumption of sustainable whaling is clearly in line with the will of the majority of IWC members," the Icelandic Government said in a statement.

Like Norway, under IWC rules Iceland is free of the 1982 moratorium because it lodged an objection to it. But unlike Norway, which was the last nation to take up a commercial hunt in 1994, Iceland's actual membership of the IWC is controversial.

It was allowed to vote itself in with the objection already in hand in 2002 during a confused debate brought on unexpectedly. Australia was among nations to strenuously reject the validity of Iceland's objection.

Iceland used the IWC's scientific whaling loophole to relaunch its industry, taking 161 minkes for so-called research purposes.

The Icelandic Government said the IWC's scientific committee had accepted stock estimates that showed minkes and fins were abundant in the North Atlantic. The fin is listed as endangered by the World Conservation Union.

"The world needs to see that commercial whaling is sustainable and a normal result of marine resource management," a spokesman for Japanese whaling interests said.

Greenpeace and other environment groups campaigned strenuously in Iceland against a resumption of commercial whaling, warning the damage to its reputation could affect tourism, and polling the country to show that 82 per cent of its 16 to 24-year-olds never ate whale.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare's whales campaigner, Darren Kindleysides, said this foreshadowed a bid by pro-whaling nations to remove the second pillar standing against commercial whaling, a trade ban.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species has bans on whale meat trade. "Clearly there is a bigger move by whaling nations to get CITES to relax the trade," Mr Kindleysides said.

"This is another example of a whaling nation thinking it can act outside the will of the international community."

[Guest IFishSick.]

It's a real pain in the a@@ to see just about the whole world except Japan stop whaling, then all of a sudden countries join in again.

I don't like it!!!