Iceland rejoins IWC but remains exempt from whaling ban

Thursday, July 5, 2001 (Reuters)

REYKJAVIK - Iceland has decided to rejoin the International Whaling Commission (IWC), but is also planning to start hunting whales again, a fisheries ministry spokesman said yesterday.

Iceland has been granted an exemption from an international moratorium on commercial whaling, agreed in 1986, and its status in the IWC will be like that of Russia and Norway, Stefan Asmundsson, the ministry's specialist in international law, told Reuters.

The country is keen to start whaling again to help offset the slump in the fishing industry which provides much of its export income.

Reykjavik left the IWC, the body which regulates the whale industry, in 1992 when it felt the Commission had become an anti-whaling lobby.

No decision has been made on when to restart whaling, Asmundsson said, but it will probably not happen until next year at the earliest.

"In all honesty I would have to say that the possibilities of us starting whaling again this year are extremely slim," he added.

"Later this month we will attend our first IWC annual meeting for several years. We will base our future actions on what we see in that meeting and how we estimate the present development of the whaling industry."

Iceland, which hunted 400 whales a year on average between 1948 and 1985, last killed a whale in 1989.

Asmundsson said Iceland sensed the IWC was moving back to the original aims set out in its charter which were "the proper conservation of whale stocks" and "the orderly development of the whaling industry".

"For the first time in many years we feel there are signs within the Commission that support is increasing for sustainable whaling in some form...we do very much believe that we will be able to push the matter in the right direction," he added.

(Copyright Reuters Limited 2001)

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