Yahoo News 18 Feb 09;
REYKJAVIK (AFP) – Iceland will maintain its new whaling quota of 150 fin and up to 150 minke whales this year despite international calls for it to reconsider the sixfold catch increase, the government said Wednesday.
"It is our conclusion that the decision on whaling remains unchanged for this year," Fisheries Minister Steingrimur Sigfusson told reporters, adding that no decision had been taken for the coming four years.
Iceland's former government announced the increase in late January as one of its last moves before leaving office, saying the annual quota would be valid for five years.
But a new left-wing interim government that came to power just days later vowed to review the decision.
Seven countries -- Britain, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States -- sent a letter to the new government last week urging it to review the decision.
"We realise that this might lead to harsh criticism and even acts against Iceland and we will have to react to that," Sigfusson told AFP.
The new minority government is made up of two anti-whaling parties, the Social Democrats and the Left Green party but it decided to maintain the quota after seeking legal opinion on the matter.
"It is (the lawyer's) conclusion that the Icelandic state is bound by the decision ... Therefore the current minister of fisheries is not able to recall the regulation," Sigfusson said.
Sigfusson said whalers could not, however, expect the quota to remain at the same level for the next four years.
"The government must follow the whaling and issues related to whaling closely and maintain the right to act, even this year, if there are changes in the preconditions" for whaling, he said.
Prior to the announcement of the increased catch, Iceland, which pulled out of an international whaling moratorium in 2006 after 16 years, had a quota of just nine fin whales and 40 minke whales per year.
Sigfusson said Iceland's Whaling Act of 1949 will undergo a review, starting Wednesday. Areas close to several harbours frequented by whale watchers will be closed to whaling, he added.
Iceland and Norway are the only two countries in the world that authorise commercial whaling. Japan officially hunts whales for scientific purposes, which are contested by opponents, and the whale meat is sold for consumption.
Iceland To Allow Whaling In 2009
Ints Kalnins, PlanetArk 19 Feb 09;
REYKJAVIK - Iceland's interim government said on Wednesday it would allow whale hunting to go ahead this year but left in doubt whether the practice would be allowed to continue beyond 2009.
Fishermen will be allowed to catch 100 minke whales and 150 fin whales during 2009, a decision that will upset environmental groups and many in the international community.
Fisheries Minister Steingrimur Sigfusson said hunters should not take it for granted that whaling would be permitted over the following four years, as proposed by the previous government.
The decision to resume whaling was taken despite international pressure and a promise by the new government of Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir to review a decision by the previous administration to set new five-year quotas.
The United States, Germany, Britain, France, Finland and Sweden have called on Sigurdardottir to drop the whaling plans.
An international moratorium on whaling has been in force since 1986.
Iceland ended a 20-year ban on commercial whaling in August 2006, issuing quotas that ran through August 2007. After a temporary halt the country resumed whaling in May last year, despite protests by environmentalists.
(Editing by Tim Pearce)
