Rotterdam makes a stand over whaling

It’s done by this by requesting shipping companies and its terminals to actively stamp out the transit of whale meat from Iceland to Japan in response to nternational ill feeling over the issue of whaling.

The move follows the recent incident involving the global logistics company, Samskip, where six containers of whale meat were sent back to Iceland from Rotterdam after being removed by German authorities from a ship bound for Japan. The containers were apparently mis-labelled as “frozen fish”.

Sjaak Poppe, Port of Rotterdam, said to Port Strategy: “Our principle is that we don’t interfere in companies’ businesses. They are of course obliged to stick to the law and that’s it. But in this case, because of the feelings in society and at government level we decided to urge companies to stop shipping whale meat. We can’t prohibit it. We don’t ban. We are just asking companies to stop shipping it.”

Mr Poppe explained that in the Netherlands there’s a saying ‘The exception confirms the rule’, meaning you can only have an exception if there is a general rule. He said that the port’s call to stop shipping whale meat means that a general rule has now been created for others to follow.

Samskip has since said that it will not ship any more whale meat and Mr Poppe says that the issue may have gone some way to disuade other companies because of the bad publicity it generated.

The port’s public statement on the issue lead to a large response from the port industry. “I understand that other port authorities are thinking about taking a similar stance to us,” he added.