Danish support played a large part in Greenland finally been handed its annual whaling quotas yesterday by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) during the organisation’s annual meeting in Slovenia.

Greenland’s annual quota will allow the Arctic nation to catch 164 Minke whales, 19 Fin whales, ten Humpback whales and two Greenland whales in west Greenland from 2015-2018, and also 12 Minke whales in east Greenland during that same period.

“I am very pleased that, together with Greenland’s government, we have managed to secure large-whale quotas for Greenland for the amount that the government wanted via a sustainable platform based on scientific recommendations,” Martin Lidegaard, the Danish foreign minister, said in a press release.

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Subsistence and sustainability
Greenland had been without IWC-approved whaling quotas for two years after the organisation rejected the nation’s quota wishes in 2012.

The quotas were given to the indigenous people of Greenland in order to cover subsistence needs and the IWC scientific committee accepted the quotas as being biologically sustainable. The IWC also accepted an EU proposal aimed at improving the IWC’s management of indigenous peoples’ whaling activities.

Aleqa Hammond, Greenland’s prime minister, was pleased with the IWC decision and praised the co-operation between Denmark and Greenland in the whaling case.

“Whaling has a massive financial and cultural importance to Greenland, and it is essential that the IWC now comprehends that,” Hammond said in a press release. “I am pleased that we have managed to convey our interests with support from Denmark.”