The Islands and the Whales review – a community poisoned

Pamela Anderson’s appearance in this sombre documentary on hunting in the Faroe Islands is almost the least surreal thing in it“In the past, nature was a giant, and humans were so small.

Now it’s the other way around.” The speaker is a Faroe Islander in Mike Day’s sombre, poignant, almost funereal film about a growing crisis in the way of life being pursued in that wild and beautiful archipelago 200 miles off the coast of Scotland.

(The Faroe Islands are a self-governing region, subject to Danish control.) With farming being almost impossible, the islanders are historically reliant on fishing and particularly whale-hunting, and also hunting seabirds for food – a slightly bizarre activity, although rationally speaking no more bizarre than any other carnivorous practice.

Yet rising levels of mercury in fish and whales are causing anxiety.

Are they now dependent on food which is poisoned? An older generation

Read full article