*Photograph by Chris Kirkland
“F*** Greenpeace,” declared the bumper sticker of a battered old station wagon. I couldn’t but laugh – only in Greenland.
Greenpeace devotes a lot of energy to Greenland. But they are very unpopular here. Here are some reasons why.
One – oil. Education standards are low, unemployment is high with few prospects – particularly in smaller communities, and the economy is precariously dominated by a single industry – fishing. Greenlanders want to improve their prospects and production of minerals and oil are seen as real possibilities for achieving that. So your average Greenlander is in favour of oil exploration. In a country of only 56,000 people, the discovery of an oil field could completely change Greenland’s future. And there are real prospects that the oil is out there: offshore east Greenland has basically the same geology as offshore Norway. And Norway’s sovereign wealth fund – the repository of proceeds from oil and gas production – currently stands at over 960 billion dollars: that’s over 160,000 dollars for every person. And Norway’s population is one hundred times that of Greenland’s. Ethics are a different discussion, but there is little doubt of what Greenlanders want.
Two – seal skin. The market for seal skin has collapsed since the 2009 European Union ban on the import of seal products – a ban that Greenpeace advocated for. Despite an exemption for Inuit people, the effect on the lives of Greenlandic hunters has been dramatic.
Three – whales. Greenlanders eat them. Obviously this needs to be managed and there is a licencing system and quotas to try to maintain sustainable populations. But there is no question in Greenland over whether whaling will continue.
Four – noone likes being told what to do, especially by outsiders.
Over the summer my husband visited the police station in Nuuk in a futile search for his stolen bicycle. The duty policeman scoffed, “Stealing bikes is a national pastime”, but he waved him out to the secure yard where he might find bikes, if they had any. There were none, but fading in the long sunlight were a couple of lonely impounded Greenpeace zodiacs.
