Iceland and Norway resume whale meat exports to Japan

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2008

REYKJAVIK (AFP) — Iceland and Norway resumed whale meat exports to Japan this year after an 18-year interruption, industry representatives from both Scandinavian countries said.

"Iceland and Norway resumed exporting whale meat to Japan," Gunnar Bergmann Jonsson, president of the Icelandic association representing Minke whale hunters, told AFP.

"We (Iceland) have exported to Japan 80 tonnes of fine whale's meat about two weeks ago. The meat is now in Japan. We got the authorization from the government in 2006. And the last exports (before those) were in 1990," said Jonsson.

Despite Japan being the largest market for whale meat, Norwegian whalers prior to now met with no uptake from Japanese buyers who worried mercury and dioxin levels were abnormally high in...