Let's make whale conservation history together!

Dear visitor of my GoFundMe,

My name is Arne. I am the founder of the marine conservation non-profit Hard To Port .

I have been working on the forefront of a campaign to end commercial whaling in Iceland for many years.

After years of hard work, our consistently constructive campaign approach is finally paying off: the end of commercial whaling Iceland finally seems to be within reach!

My work with Hard To Port has played a vital role in the recent developments on this issue and I would appreciate it if you took a moment of your time to read through this Go Fund Me appeal and short overview of our accomplishments for whale conservation in the North Atlantic.

If you believe that my efforts with Hard To Port for whale conservation are worth supporting, I would appreciate a small financial contribution towards our organization.

Paving the way for change

The main focus of our work on commercial whaling in Iceland has always been on creating and improving transparency on this very controversial and secretive industry. We started our campaign in 2015 and continued on a promising and constructive path throughout our engagement last summer. Over a period of several weeks during the 2022 hunting season, postmortem observations and documentation during the landing process of fin whales allowed us to make important conclusions about the (inaccessible) hunt at sea itself. We were able to document several irregularities that cast serious doubt on the claim that the massive marine animals were being killed in a “humane” manner. (Read more )

After publishing the results of our investigation in the Icelandic media, the Government responded to the highlighted incidents and the publicity they had received with a pledge for more oversight and transparency. The Government made good on this pledge by revising the regulations on whaling and by making the video documentation of whaling operations mandatory. (Read more )

The following documentation of weeklong onboard monitoring during the remaining 2022 hunting season later led to an extensive report by the Food and Veterinary Authority which painted a very grim picture of the reality of the whaling operations at sea. Our assumptions had been confirmed.

An unprecedented debate

The whaling report was a game changer. Its release was followed by an unprecedented lively debate about the ethical defensibility of commercial whaling in Iceland. Whaling was one of the most discussed topics in the days and weeks to come.

Local initiatives strengthened our collective efforts with powerful and creative events and ideas that helped to further put the absurdity and cruelty of commercial whaling in the minds of Icelanders. Now that the truth had finally been revealed, many people came forward to speak out against the continuation of hunting whales. This shift in mindset was later confirmed in a national poll that saw a growing opposition to whaling within Iceland at 51%.

The Minister’s courageous call

Iceland’s Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, who is in charge of the country’s whaling activities, called the results of the report striking . Given the number and severity of the violations documented in the whaling report, the Minister requested an assessment from an Expert Council on Animal Welfare. This assessment confirmed and reinforced the conclusions from the whaling report and concluded that the methods used in the Icelandic fin whale hunt do not meet the objectives of the country's Animal Welfare Act.

The expert’s opinion was released only days before the official start of the 2023 fin whaling season. In a courageous decision that put the well-being of animals first, the Minister suspended the whaling season temporarily until the end of August 2023. It was an important win for the whales, marine conservation, and animal welfare.

Small initiatives have a big impact

We at Hard To Port are incredibly proud and happy that our work has had such a meaningful impact in Iceland. For the first time, a political leader of a whaling nation acknowledged the inhumane and disturbing reality of commercial whaling. Thanks to the decisive actions that followed our investigative work, dozens of fin whales will be spared this summer and can migrate through Icelandic waters unharmed.

Our contribution to this positive development in Iceland would not have been possible without the ongoing financial help from our loyal and generous supporters and the general public.

By contributing to this crowdfunding, you will help us to continue our work for the whales in the North Atlantic and further strengthen the movement that wants to see the hunting of whales come to a permanent end.

Let’s take this campaign over the finish line together!