I cant believe that I never saw this vid till this morning!

I always get a chuckle when the whale harvest threads pop up. The Norwegians like a little whale too. I see nothing wrong with enjoying the great bounty that God gave us all.

Quote from Norway via

http://www.highnorth.no/Library/Ethics/an-in-in.htm


Not Necessary
Argument No.4 raises the same type of problem. In a letter from WWF Sweden to the Swedish Minister of the Environment it says "Today, the only commercial whale product is whale meat which is sold as a luxury product to one solitary market, the Japanese. Today, commercial whaling is no longer necessary to satisfy basic human needs, even though this has earlier been the case." Firstly, the premises for this statement are not correct. The Norwegian minke whalers had - and hopefully will still have in the future - a substantial home market. The major part of the meat has always been sold on this market, and the consumption of whale meat is particularly high in the coastal areas where whaling takes place. This also applies to Japanese coastal minke whaling. In Norway whale meat has never been a luxury product. Prices have been on the same level as those of other types of meat.
So to the question of needs. Is it possible to explain why there should be less need for whale meat than for pork, beef, lamb, chicken, reindeer etc? Would it be ethically commendable of the Norwegian coastal population to renounce a local resource like the minke whale and import pork from other areas instead? From an environmental viewpoint there is no other type of meat production that is so "pure" and that requires the use of so little fossil fuel as minke whaling. Any definition regarding what kinds of meat there is a need for, will always be a purely subjective assessment. People in the northern coastal communities would have no problem in saying that there was no need for turkey, there being no traditions here involving the consumption of turkey. The English would hardly agree.
It is true that whale meat of best quality fetches a high price on the Japanese market. This proves that the meat is in great demand - that there is a need for it. Is saddle of reindeer or first class steak an immoral product because it is expensive? Whaling provides jobs in coastal communities where there is often little or no alternative work. For those making a living from whaling it is hard to understand that other people can define their livelihood as "unnecessary".

Argue this one.

Quote


Grave Consequences
The whale protectionists are directly interfering in the lives of other people when they put forward demands for a ban on whaling in respect for their own symbols. Such intervention has very grave consequences. The whalers lose their livelihood, their social identity, and are perhaps forced to sell their boats and leave their homes. In the minke whaling trade, the boats are small, family businesses where father, sons and brothers work together. This relationship is broken up. The injured parties are the marginal, coastal communities where the boats belong. Those demanding a total ban on whaling by arguing for "respect for symbols" must consider whether they can find ethical justification for such intervention in other people's lives and communities. The two Human Rights covenants of 1966 establish the universal right to benefit from natural resources and to earn a livelihood.
People with differing ethical norms live side by side in our pluralistic societies. Meat eaters sit at the same table as vegetarians. Muslims work together with Christians. Such coexistence is built on tolerance, which is the second basic principle for ethical behaviour. One must respect the right of other people to believe in different things, to be different, and to act differently - as long as they don't harm anyone. This principle is perhaps even more fundamental to good relationships between different societies and different cultures, than it is to those between individuals.
In order to overrule the principles of tolerance, the right to harvest natural resources and the right to earn one's livelihood, the whale protectionists will have to produce a major ethical principle in favour of their right to force a ban on killing whales upon others. Arguments demanding respect for their symbols are by no means important enough. The ethical arguments on the part of the Save-the-Whale movement are not capable of meeting the basic demands made on ethical justification, i.e. demands on consistency, logic and the demand that facts actually are facts. It is unethical to force a ban on whaling upon others by threatening their society's economy, especially when such a ban is founded on a faltering ethical basis.