DIVING NEWS
Sea Shepherd offers to pay off cetacean hunters
Picture: Erik Christensen.
Marine-conservation activist group Sea Shepherd UK has offered the Faroe Islands government a cash incentive of a million euros payable over 10 years to end the Grindadráp – the annual slaughter by islanders of pilot whales and other small cetaceans.
In the past 10 years alone 7744 small cetaceans of five different species have died in the hunts, says the charity. The practice has long been defended by the participants as a cultural tradition.
1 October 2018
Conditions of Sea Shepherd’s offer are that the incentive payments can be spent only in the Faroe Islands (with documented proof provided).
They must be used to promote eco-friendly tourism to the islands; to establish co-operative whale/dolphin-watching businesses in small communities; to provide teaching materials or specialist lectures on marine conservation to Faroese children; and to train citizens in marine-mammal rescue techniques so that they can help to rescue stranded cetaceans where possible.
Each yearly payment of 100,000 Euros will be made only if no cetaceans are deliberately hunted and killed in the Faroe Islands throughout the entire preceding 12-month period.
