Conservation groups have reacted angrily to a decision by Iceland to ignore an international moratorium and resume commercial whale hunts for the first time in two decades.
The Icelandic Fisheries Ministry says the whale population in the north Atlantic is high enough to justify its proposed catch of 30 minke whales and nine fin whales in the year ending August 2007.
The chairman of the country's Travel Industry Association, Jon Karl Olafsson, defended the move, saying the issue had not been fully understood.
