The Resumption of Whaling Hurts Iceland Tourism:
The Icelandic government is getting a quick lesson in ethical tourism as a result of its decision last month to resume commercial whaling, despite a 21-year international moratorium on the practice. The airline Icelandair and several of the country’s leading whale watching companies have reported cancellations in response to the Fisheries Ministry’s policy, which maintains that the whales are a sustainable resource. The new rules allow the taking of 30 minke whales and 9 fin whales, like one killed last month, right, by the end of August 2007.
“We have had people canceling their reservations as a political gesture,” said Clive Stacey, managing director of Discover the World, a British company that sends on average 7,000 tourists a year to Iceland, and that has now added a travelers forum to its Web site (www.discover-the-world.co.uk/whalingdebate). As one tourist writes, “We had told all our friends to go and visit Iceland to see the whales, as well as the wonderful scenery, but how can we do that now?”
According to Asbjorn Bjorgvinsson, the chairman of the Icelandic Whale Watching Association, last year some 90,000 tourists went on whale watching trips — an industry begun in the early 1990’s following a Greenpeace-organized boycott that led to the government ban on whaling in 1989.
Mr. Bjorgvinsson and the managing director of Icelandair, Jon Karl Olafsson, who is also chairman of the Icelandic Tourism Association, are lobbying against the government’s decision, as are some 460 Icelandic companies worried about the effect on tourism.
“Travelers need to know that boycotting Iceland will only hurt the whales,” Mr. Stacey said. “The only people fighting for them are those in the tourist industry, and we need their support.”
The International Fund for Animal Welfare is also gathering protest letters from around the world at www.ifaw.org.
I agree with Mr. Stacey. The tourists decisions seem to be "A contradictory or self-defeating course of action" or a "New Jersey based third wave ska. Awesome" (see #6 in the previous link). Either way, it's a Catch-22.
