After a two year suspension, Iceland has resumed hunting endangered fin whales.  Photographs taken by undercover Greenpeace activists show a harpooned fin whale being cut up for meat, likely to be exported to Japan.  Meanwhile, environmentalists are fighting whaling in the courts and the world’s ports.

Greenpeace Whaling Action, Hamburg

Earlier this month, six containers, containing 130 tonnes of whale meat, shipped from Iceland, bound for Japan, were stopped at the port of Hamburg and sent back to Iceland.  The EU does not allow the importation of whale products.  This appears to be the first time that the trans-shipment of such products has also been banned.  The International Whaling Commission imposed a global moratorium on whaling in 1986.  Iceland and Norway are the only two countries still openly practicing commercial whaling in defiance of the moratorium.

Japan notionally supports the whaling moratorium, while exploiting a loophole which allows whaling for “scientific research.”  Earlier this month, the government of Australia, supported by New Zealand, asked the International Court of Justice at the Hague to halt the Japanese whaling fleet’s annual trips to harpoon minke and fin whales.  The Japanese argue the whaling is scientific research allowed under international law while Australia calls the claim a front for commercial whaling.