Bad weather has so far disrupted hunting and only four whales have been harpooned. Environmentalist pressure groups such as Greenpeace say the scientific programme is commercial whaling in disguise. Whaling means nothing to the overall Norwegian economy, highly dependent on North Sea oil and gas revenues. But for the individual whaler upholding the world ban on commercial catches could cost him more than half his earnings. The government should never have halted whaling,'' said Jarl Jakobsen, who had his annual income halved in 1988 when Norway halted commercial whaling.
Norwegian whalers fish in the winter and autumn.
Whaling has provided a stable income in the summer months when there is little else to take and the minke whales migrate north. The government justifies the minke catch as environmental and resource management in accordance with sustainable development principles adopted at the Rio Earth Summit last year. Norwegian whaling is concentrated in a few northern villages, but in Lofoten the industry also means a lot in terms of employment and tax revenues. Ola Flaaten, a professor in resource economics at the Norwegian College of Fisheries Science in Tromsoe, has estimated that every whaler in business creates between one and three onshore jobs. People are needed to process and pack the meat, maintain the boats and make the harpoons.