For three consecutive summers - the usual catch season - harpoons have already come to a virtual standstill in the waters of the vast island in the North Atlantic, despite large quotas for the current period (2019-2023).

In question: the resumption of commercial hunting in Japan - the main outlet for cetacean meat - as well as the entry into force of a coastal zone where fishing is prohibited, which requires going further offshore.

"Unless otherwise indicated, there is little reason to allow whaling from 2024", the date on which the current quotas expire, underlined the Minister of Fisheries Svandis Svavarsdottir, a member of the left-wing environmentalist party in the power in Iceland.

"There is little evidence that there is an economic advantage to practicing this activity," she wrote in a column published by the daily Morgunbladid.

The decision was welcomed by environmental organizations.

"This is great news for Iceland, the whales that live in its waters and its world-renowned whale-watching industry," said the Director of Marine Conservation at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). ), Sharon Livermore, quoted in a press release.

Iceland, Norway and Japan are the only countries in the world to allow whaling, despite regular criticism from animal and environmental activists, warnings about meat toxicity and a declining market .

Reassessed in 2019, Icelandic quotas authorize each year 209 catches for the fin whale, the second largest marine mammal after the blue whale, and 217 for the minke whale (also called minke whale), one of the smallest cetaceans. until the end of 2023.

Only one intake in three years

But due to a lack of outlets, the two main license-holding companies are at a standstill, and one of them, IP-Útgerd, announced in the spring of 2020 that it would definitely stop its catches.

The other, Hvalur, had opted out of the last three campaigns.

Only one animal has been harpooned in the last three seasons in Iceland, a minke whale in 2021.

A whale in the waters of Hafnarfjörður, north Iceland, August 2, 2021 Tom GROVE AFP/Archives

Japan, by far the main market for whale meat, resumed commercial whaling in 2019 after a three-decade hiatus.

If the archipelago sold its own goods via "scientific" catches, hunting - under quotas - was able to resume after the withdrawal of Tokyo from the International Whaling Commission.

Commercial whaling was banned in 1986 by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) but Iceland, which opposed the moratorium, resumed it in 2003.

Only blue whale hunting, banned by the commission, is also banned in Iceland.

In 2018, the last significant whaling summer in Icelandic waters, 146 fin whales and six minke whales were speared.

With its economy increasingly oriented towards tourism, the island of 370,000 inhabitants is also seeing the development of the whale watching sector for foreign visitors, who are more attracted by live cetaceans.

For marine biologist Gisli Vikingsson, whaling can be done in a sustainable way if quotas are respected, but the acceptability of the practice goes beyond scientific considerations.

"Even if whaling is biologically sustainable, it may not be socially or economically sustainable and that's outside of our area of ​​expertise," the expert told AFP. the Institute for Maritime and Freshwater Research.

In Norway, the context of hunting has been gloomy in Norway for several years as well.

Whale hunters are struggling to fill the quotas granted by Oslo and the number of boats engaged in this highly controversial activity on the international scene continues to decrease.

In 2021, 575 cetaceans were caught, less than half of the authorized quotas, by the 14 vessels still operating in Norwegian waters.

In the North Sea, the Faroe Islands authorize a ritual hunting of delphinids, the "Grind", for local consumption, despite there too a meat loaded with heavy metals and international controversies.

© 2022 AFP