A Farewell to Greenland's Wildlife

If the Greenland government won't listen to its own environmental advisers, then perhaps it will respond to pressure from outside, bearing in mind that a huge annual subsidy of $300 million raised from Danish taxpayers sustains the whole wasteful enterprise

Lørdag d. 13. april 2002
John Bonner
Emnekreds: Anmeldelser af bøger, film mv, Bøger, Grønlands historie, Jagt, Miljø og natur, Oprindelige folk.

AUTOMATIC rifles, motorised dinghies and even video recorders are pushing many of Greenland's wildlife species towards the same sad fate as the dodo and the great auk.

Hunting has always been a way of life for the Inuit in one of the world's last great wildernesses, but now they have far greater mobility and firepower. And hunting is no longer a simple necessity that feeds the hunter's family--it's big business. Companies set up by the Greenland government will buy the carcass or valuable parts of any animal that strays within shooting distance of the island's 10,000 registered hunters. So thousands more are killed to pay for the same electronic goods and luxuries demanded by consumers everywhere.

Kjeld Hansen assesses the impact of this indiscriminate slaughter on Greenland's "living resources": its seabirds, marine mammals, fish and molluscs. He disputes the hunting lobby's claim that hunters live in harmony with nature and take only what they need. His evidence? Thousands of tonnes of meat left to rot in the snow because no one wants it. Most Greenlanders prefer pork or lamb imported from Denmark, the former colonial power.

A natural harvest could be sustainable if it were more tightly regulated. Even so, species such as Brünnich's guillemots (thick-billed murres) will need decades of peace to recover their numbers, he says in A Farewell to Greenland's Wildlife. If the Greenland government won't listen to its own environmental advisers, then perhaps it will respond to pressure from outside, bearing in mind that a huge annual subsidy of $300 million raised from Danish taxpayers sustains the whole wasteful enterprise.
A Farewell to Greenland's Wildlife
Kjeld Hansen £15