Norwegian media has given extra mileage to the protest raised against quotas. The media informed that the quota is the same for the third straight year, after the government increased the number of minke whales hunters were allowed to kill by 30 percent to 1,052 – the highest level since it resumed commercial whaling in 1993.
In 2006 and 2007 the hunter filled only about half of the prescribed quotas because of bad weather. According to Greenpeace the quotas were higher than the market needed. Truls Gulowsen, leader of Greenpeace in Norway, said that the quotas have rarely been met since Norway resumed whaling in 1993. He informed that there is no market for whale meat and as a result Iceland has stopped whaling in August 2007.
When Norway resumed the hunting of whales in 1993 defying a 1998 commercial whaling ban imposed by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and this angered many environmentalists and many counties. But Norway was not bound by the IWC ban because of rules that allowed it to object to and opt out of the moratorium.
According to Fisheries Ministry Norway has plentiful of minke, the smallest of the baleen whales and thus a quota has been fixed. The ministry said that the model that is used to set quotas is conservative and the quota is within an interval that that researchers believe is completely safe when it comes to sustaining the minke whale population.
It is fact that the whaling sector in Norway has generated huge employment and it is an marginal enterprise.
