Whale watching

Anti-whaling groups often put forward the argument that coastal communities do not need to hunt whales because they could earn much more money by developing whale safari tourism. Furthermore, they allege that whale watching and whaling are mutually exclusive economic activities. At the moment, Greenpeace is campaigning to convince the Icelanders that the future is in whale watching, not whaling.

The High North Alliance believes that experience and logic refute the claims made by Greenpeace and its allies.

Firstly, it is surprising to hear a self-proclaimed green organisation advocate the development of tourism! What is so ecologically sound about plane loads of polluting whale watching tourists travelling around the globe? Whale watching may easily involve any number of adverse effects on the environment.

Secondly, the High North Alliance believes that whale watching and whaling can happily co-exist for one or more reasons, either because whales are abundant, different species are targeted, or because the two activities take place in geographically separated areas. Norwegian experience, with both commercial whale watching and whaling, demonstrates this point. “I don’t see the conflict between whale-watching on the one hand and whaling on the other. (...) Whaling and watching can live side by side. Sure we can,” Mr Erwin Fulterer, manager of Norway’s largest whale watching company ‘Hvalsafari’, said to The International Harpoon – The Paper with a Point (No.2, July 24, 2001).

Thirdly, the High North Alliance seriously questions the alleged profitability of whale watching and the benefits generated for the tourist trade. A detailed review of the annual accounts of the leading Icelandic whale watching companies demonstrate an accumulated loss of more than one million Euro (87.616.296 Icelandic kroner) for the years 1999-2002. The total liabilities for these companies in 2002 amounted to about 4 million Euro (306.806.056 Icelandic kroner) (source: Figures assembled from the Icelandic Enterprise Register by Kristjan Loftsson, Director of Hvalur HF (Icelandic whaling company)).

A study submitted to the IWC in 2001 found that the benefits from whale watching have been grossly over-exaggerated (“A Bioeconomic and Socio-Economic Analysis of Whale-Watching, With Attention Given to Associated Costs”, by Dr Mike Evans, University of Alberta, Canada and Dr Brendan Moyle, Massey University, New Zealand). Their study shows that the report “Whale-watching 2000: World-wide Tourism Numbers, Expenditures, and Expanding Socioeconomic Benefits” (Erich Hoyt, 2000) over-inflates the returns from whale watching through the use of inappropriate methodologies. Using “industry inputs” as “benefits rather than as costs” exacerbates the inflation.

The High North Alliance believes that whale watching might help boost trade in certain coastal communities and it has no objection against the development of whale watching as long as steps are taken to limit the negative effects on the environment. But the occurrence of whale watching is no reason to give up sustainable whaling.

As earlier correspondence between Greenpeace and the High North Alliance shows, history has a tendency to repeat itself. See: http://www.highnorth.no/Library/Watching/th-ec-pe.htm