The President of the French Republic will pay a formal visit to Greenland on Sunday June 15, 2025, more than a year after the inauguration of the European Union office in Nuuk by Ursula von der Leyen, President of the Commission. He will hold talks with the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Denmark and the Prime Minister of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.
Humpback whale in Greenland waters © dune_huus
Robin des Bois (Robin Hood) would like President Emmanuel Macron to take this opportunity to discuss the safety of whales and other cetaceans in the North-East Atlantic and Arctic too. The attention of the Greenlandic Prime Minister should be drawn to the anachronistic and cruel nature of whaling and dolphin hunting in the coastal waters of the territory for which he is responsible.
Between 2013 and 2023, in Greenland’s coastal waters, 1,915 whales were killed, including fin whales, humpback whales, minke whales and bottlenose whales. According to official statistics, which do not take poaching into account, 274 orcas, 2,457 belugas, nearly 3,000 pilot whales and more than 4,500 dolphins were killed during the same period. While it may appear legitimate to some that the indigenous people of Greenland continue, despite the economic revolution on the world’s largest island, to demonstrate their cultural and dietary attachment to these exceptional creatures, the fact remains that these figures exceed reason and necessity. In 2013, the narwhal hunting quota was 398; in 2023, it was 654.
Before flying to the 51st G7 summit in Canada, President Macron will not have time to notice that in some restaurants in Nuuk, the skin and fat of narwhals, belugas, bowhead whales and fin whales are served under the name ‘mattak’. This commercial and touristic exploitation is an insidious promotion of whaling and contradicts European Council Directive 92/43/EEC of May 21, 1992, on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora, which prohibits all forms of intentional capture or killing of cetaceans and trade in whale by-products.
As a representative of the European Union, Emmanuel Macron should also take responsibility for calling on the Prime Minister of Denmark to put a definitive end to “Grindadráp”, the annual slaughter of hundreds of pilot whales and other dolphins cornered by recreational and professional fishermen using motorised boats and organised noise making in the bays of the Faroe Islands, another autonomous territory of Denmark. Denmark, a member of the European Union, remains committed to harpooning. It is a brother in arms with Japan.
Whales have much greater ecological value in the ocean than economic value on restaurant tables. Pioneering studies by Robin des Bois (1) show that whale carcasses on the ocean floor create biological oases and feed marine species adapted to life in the deep sea. The fight against global warming is featured as a major component of the national and international policy defended by Emmanuel Macron. Robin des Bois reminds him that the Citizens’ Climate Convention he initiated recommended the protection of whales in one of its proposals, highlighting their contribution to carbon storage during their lifetime and after their death.
Robin des Bois has been an observer since 1988 at the International Whaling Commission, since 1989 at the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, known as CITES, and since 2005 at the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic, known as OSPAR.
(1) On Whales and their Usefulness, April 2010
Fish Eat Whales, July 12, 2011
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