A WDCS report has revealed how quotas that allow indigenous people to continue whaling are being abused in Greenland, with a company cashing in on the allowances to sell whale meet for high prices to hotels and supermarkets.

While the agenda at the recently concluded IWC meeting was focussed upon resolving disputes surrounding Iceland, Japan and Norway’s continued whaling, these revelations may throw closer scrutiny on the “aboriginal subsistence whaling” (ASW) allowances.

Limited Allowances

Despite the moratorium on commercial whaling, these allowances mean some indigenous peoples can hunt a limited number of whales to meet long-standing cultural and nutritional subsistence needs. These include the Inuit of Greenland.

WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, does not oppose legitimate so-called “aboriginal subsistence whaling” (ASW) — as long as it is humane, sustainable, well managed and based on documented human need for local subsistence use only.

Supermarkets and Hotels

Although the IWC grants ASW quotas as an exemption to the commercial whaling moratorium to meet the nutritional subsistence needs of indigenous communities, the WDCS investigation revealed that people with a genuine need for whale meat may be denied access because so much is sold at high prices through hotels and supermarkets.

In a secretly filmed conversation with journalists, the director of Arctic Green Foods (AGF), Greenland’s largest single buyer of whales, explained: “We are selling the whale meat faster (to supermarkets) than we can get hold of whales.” The price in supermarkets for whale meat and mattack is up to 10 times higher than in the local meat markets, yet “it still sells, and sells, and sells!”

Managers of the main supermarket chains in the towns and cities confirm the high price whale meat and mattak are sold for. “Mattak is more expensive than the best parts of imported beef,” said Les Nyborg, manager at Brugsen’s supermarket in Nuuk, in an interview with reporters. “It is very popular. People use it as a snack, to chew on it. We make 1 million kroner [approx € 143.000; US$ 165.000] a year only with this one product.”

When its stocks are low, the processing company commissions fishermen to get them whales. “We asked a particular whaler, with whom we have worked before, if he could get us five whales – and fast, because we need them now. We are sold out.” said the manager.

Whale meat intended for the subsistence needs of remote and isolated Inuit populations, also ends up as fancy 4-star dinners in hotel restaurants.

Lucrative

Niels Olsvig, one of the whalers in Ilulissat, acknowledged that “Most of the whale meat is sold to the local meat market and to hotels.” In the summer season more than 50 luxury cruise liners have Ilulissat as their destination, as well as daily direct flights from Iceland. “Whale steak” is openly listed on the menu of many of the hotels at prices equivalent to other luxury dinners (e.g. DKK 160, € 22; US$ 27)

Government Involvement

The companies’ involvement in these practices is worrying, but hardly unsurprising given the profits that can be made. More worrying is the fact that this all appears to be done with full knowledge from the government.

AGF informs the department of fisheries and hunting of the Government of Greenland about its requests and waits for its approval. “We hope we are allowed to get the whales we want, but it depends on the quotas. The Government has the overview, and maybe we get some others.”

Increasing Quotas

The Greenland government claims that the whole vast territory is ‘local’ and does not distinguish between the original people of Greenland, the Inuit, who culturally eat whale meat, and the Danish population of Greenland. They have now asked the IWC to increase their quotas.

“Commercial wholesalers commissioning whalers to hunt whales so they can sell meat to tourists or town people, who have all the options of a modern supermarket is not what the IWC intends when it authorises subsistence whaling. This practice clearly limits the availability of whale meat to those in remote settlements who live under harsh circumstances and have a genuine subsistence need for whale meat.”

As long as Greenland fails to take its full quota of whales yet its whalers sell meat to supermarkets and hotels, the WDCS believes it cannot justify its repeated request for an increase in its whaling quotas.

The fact that it has taken the WDCS investigation to uncover what is going on is Greenland demonstrates the current deficiencies in the IWC monitoring. The issue of abuses of subsistence quotas and the fact that countries are able to use loopholes to carry on whaling but highlight the need for some kind of reform in the IWC.

It may fall on the shoulders of NGOs such as WDCS to bring to public attention the current failures of the organisation that is supposed to be protecting the world’s population of whales.