The High North Alliance ( no, Høge Nord Alliansen) is an umbrella organisation of several

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques inclu ...

whaling Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industr ...

and Nordic

municipal A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

councils. The organisation objectives are, it says, "to protect the rights of whalers, sealers and fishermen to harvest renewable resources in accordance with the principle of sustainable management." The alliance was founded in 1991 in response to calls from

environmentalist An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...

s to prohibit completely commercial

, and, from more radical groups, calls to prohibit the killing of

marine mammal Marine mammals are aquatic mammals that rely on the ocean and other marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as seals, whales, manatees, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their ...

s for any purpose. The alliance is organised by a governing committee of six members, three from

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

, and one each from the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...

and

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

. The alliance is funded by membership fees, and from grants from organisations such as the North Atlantic Marine Mammal Commission (founded by Norway, Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands in 1992) and the Regional Development Committee for Northern Norway. Activities of the Alliance include lobbying the largely sympathetic Norwegian government for increases in Norway's whaling quota, promoting studies into methods of more humane whaling, lobbying the

International Whaling Commission The International Whaling Commission (IWC) is a specialised regional fishery management organisation, established under the terms of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) to "provide for the proper conservation ...

into relaxing the whaling moratorium, and responding to campaigns from anti-whaling groups such as the

Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), formerly Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society in the UK, is a wildlife charity that is dedicated solely to the worldwide conservation and welfare of all whales, dolphins and porpoises (cetaceans). It has ...

and Greenpeace.

External links

High North Alliance homepage
Nordic organizations Whaling in Denmark Whaling in Iceland Whaling in Norway 1991 establishments in Norway 1991 establishments in Iceland 1991 establishments in Denmark Organizations established in 1991