EDITORIAL

The Right to Be Commercial

"It is often assumed that indigenous people only have two options for the future: to return to their ancient way of life, or to abandon subsistence and become assimilated into the dominant society. They should also have a third option: to modify their subsistence way of life, combining the old and the new in ways that maintain and enhance identity while allowing their society and economy to grow."

This quote is taken from the publication Caring for the Earth, published by IUCN, WWF and UNEP, which offers guidelines for sustainable development. The statement is valid not only for indigenous peoples, but for all of us. There is nonetheless a reason for highlighting indigenous peoples. They are often subject to other people's desires to defend their rights, on the condition that their cultures stay the same. These are the people who assume that there are only two options.

Greenpeace states in a position paper that it is "not opposed to" the Inuit killing seals as long as it is for subsistence purposes, "i.e. that the meat is consumed and the pelt utilized by the family group or community." Maybe Greenpeace has not observed that the Inuit have been trading sealskins and other marine mammal products for hundreds of years. Maybe it doesn't know that Inuit communities have a commercial economy. Maybe it doesn't know that in many remote Inuit communities, the sealskin trade represents the major part of the cash economy. Maybe it wants to believe that "the people of nature" have no desire for electricity, water closets, newspapers, washing machines and televisions.

The Greenland hunters' organisation KNAPK stated recently that it wants to keep the option open for exporting whale meat in the future. Had it not been for the unsustainable whaling industries of the Netherlands, England, Norway, Denmark and Germany, which depleted stocks of several whale species, whale meat exports could today be making a major contribution to the faltering Greenland economy. The question is asked daily how the people of Greenland can afford to eat whale meat when that meat could be sold for 10 times the price in Tokyo than in Nuuk.

Hopefully, all whale stocks in the North Atlantic are returning to levels that can be described as abundant, but this could take time. For the grey whales of the east Pacific, it took 70 years for them to return to their pre-exploitation level. But even if there is some way to go before such high levels are reached, how long must the people of Greenland stay constrained in a strait jacket - the aboriginal subsistence category - by the very same people that got rich tapping their resources?

At this stage, let us step to one side and declare that if legally caught and traded whale meat is truly serving as a cover for illegal products, this problem must be addressed.

And then a step backwards. Most likely the first debate on Greenland whaling will start with the Environmental Investigation Agency, EIA. What better for a camera secreted in a shopping bag than the freezers in the Nuuk supermarkest bulging with whale meat and blubber? The EIA should save itself the bother. They can just ask the Harpoon for the pictures - obtained without the use of a hidden camera and without risking our lives.

Greenland need not worry about demands that it remain in a category in decay; - aboriginal subsistence whaling. Its right to be commercial is just too obvious.