Iceland's decision to resume whaling condemned
(AP)
Updated: 2006-10-18 09:37
WELLINGTON, New Zealand - The government and conservationists in New
Zealand, a leading anti-whaling nation, condemned Iceland's decision to resume
commercial killing of whales in defiance of a worldwide ban on hunting whales
for meat.
This handout picture released by
Greenpeace in January 2006 shows a Japanese whaling fleet injuring and
then killing a whale in the Southern Ocean off Antarctica. Iceland has
said it would resume commercial whaling, making it only the second country
to do so after Norway, in a decision that is expected to spark protests
from around the world. [AFP] |
"New Zealand will be making it very clear to the Icelandic government that we
utterly reject their country's right to resume commercial whaling" Conservation
Minister Chris Carter said.
Metiria Turei, conservation spokeswoman for New Zealand's Green Party, said
Iceland's decision to kill fin whales is especially worrying because the species
is endangered.
Jo McVeigh of the environmental group Greenpeace also condemned the
announcement by Iceland's Fisheries Minister Einar Kristinn Gudfinnsson, who
told parliament his ministry would begin on Wednesday issuing licenses to
whaling ships to hunt fin and minke whales.
"There's no good reason for Iceland to have done this," McVeigh said.
"There's no market for the meat and it especially doesn't make sense with the
rise in the whale-watch industry that Iceland has seen."
Icelanders have been hunting whales since the days of the Vikings, but
stopped commercial whaling in 1985, and scientific whaling in 1989, under an
international moratorium on commercial hunts.
In 2003, Iceland resumed the killing of whales in the
name of scientific testing, a move condemned by environmental groups and some
nations, including the United States and Britain.
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