World Whaling

Introduction / MAP - Aotearoa - Canada - Caribbean - Faroe Islands - Greenland - Iceland - Indonesia - Japan - Norway - Philippines - Russia - USA

Greenland

Greenlanders have been whalers for at least 4,000 years. Throughout this period, up until unsustainable industrial whaling that began in the 18th century and continued for another 150 years, stocks remained healthy, and the people were assured of an abundant source of healthful food in a region of ice, rock and sea.

Up until the 1700's, Inuit hunters harpooned primarily bowhead and humpback whales from traditional skin boats. Following Danish colonization in the 1700's, new technologies such as wooden boats and iron tipped harpoons changed the face of Inuit whaling, but not the substance. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the Greenland Inuit for the most part watched as European industrial whalers decimated the whale populations, in particular the highly-prized bowhead whale. Throughout this period, the small-scale whaling of the local communities suffered: in the aftermath of the unregulated industrial over-harvesting of the whale stocks, local people relied on the presence of a catcher boat, sent by the Danish government to address the local need for whale products, to deliver mattak (skin and blubber) and meat. Yet even throughout this period of dependence, the cultural and nutritional need for whale meat remained, and local people hunted the small beluga and narwhal from kayaks and small wooden boats.

Community-based small-scale whaling was re-established in the middle part of the 20th century, when small fishing vessels equipped with harpoon cannons began taking small numbers of minke, humpback and other large whales for local consumption. Today, some of the whale meat and mattak is distributed through local markets, and is sold to fish plants where it is frozen and shipped to other communities.

In more recent times, an even smaller-scale whale fishery, known as collective whaling, has emerged. In this type of whaling, groups of small skiffs powered by outboard motors hunt minke whales. Collective whaling was designed to allow those living in more remote communities without access to a larger fishing vessel to acquire the necessary meat and mattak to sustain themselves and their communities. Smaller cetaceans such as beluga, narwhal, pilot whales and harbor porpoises are also taken from small powered skiffs and kayaks.
In the subsistence economy of the Greenland Inuit, the meat, mattak (skin and blubber) and currency whaling provides are all integral parts of the health, well being and survival of the coastal communities and culture. Ancient and complex systems of distribution ensure that all members of the whaling crews share in the harvest, and a portion of each hunts' catch is sold in the markets, shops and grocers in the surrounding communities. In this way, ancient relationships to the sea and the local environment are sustained, and the contemporary need for cash to purchase equipment, raise families and sustain communities is met.
Greenland is a participant in the IWC; the semi-autonomous Home Rule Government is represented as a part of the Danish delegation. In addition, Greenland is an independent member of the Canada-Greenland Joint Commission on the Conservation and Management of Narwhal and Beluga, and the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (NAMMCO).

For more information on whaling in Greenland, visit: High North Alliance