ITK/ICC (Canada) * Statement from the Inuit of Canada to EU Parliament Concerning Proposed EU-Wide Seal Ban

 

Dear EU Members, Ministers, and Commissioners,

 

As Presidents of our respective organizations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada, who represent the Inuit of Canada nationally and internationally, we urge that you vote against and turn down an EU-wide ban on seal products.

 

If the EU adopts the proposed seal ban, whether with or without derogations, the immediate trade and market barriers created will cause very serious negative short and long term impacts on the Inuit of Arctic Canada. A seal ban will destroy international trade and product markets within the EU. Inuit communities will be immediately impacted because we depend on these markets to sell our seal products, such as raw materials, pelts, clothing, arts, and crafts. In reality, distinct and separate markets do not exist for Inuit and non-Inuit seal products such that Inuit can be protected or feasibly exempted.

 

Within the marketplace, our ability to sell our seal products locally, regionally, and nationally contributes to the sustainability and viability of our local tourism industries which have a domestic and international reach. These economic benefits help us further afford the costs of hunting and other daily expenses that are an everyday reality of living in the Arctic where economic opportunities are limited. Our basic human and community needs cannot be overlooked in the name of animal rights propaganda and moral claims influencing decision-makers in another continent who have no practical knowledge of our situation. Our hunting culture and adaptive society is a part of the planet’s humanity.

 

Furthermore, the EU’s support for a seal ban runs counter to the EU’s support for the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The seal ban does not recognize and respect Inuit culture, traditions, development, and interests. There is a failure in the ban to recognize the fact that our interests are of an international nature in respect to a ban’s impacts against us via existing seal trade and markets. And we were not in any way properly consulted with by the EU on the development of a seal ban, which has every potential to affect us.

 

Also, we believe that EU decision makers have been misinformed by highly financed and aggressive animal rights and anti-sealing lobby groups who will stop at nothing to achieve what we believe are misguided goals for animal welfare. Their campaigns make more in revenues from public donations than the total value of any seal hunt and use these resources to influence the EU political system with the goal of an outright seal ban. We urge you to consider the impact that these disinformation campaigns will have on us.

 

The inclusion of an Inuit exemption or derogation will be meaningless in the protection of our interests as it will not shield us from the negative forces of a market-wide downturn. A downturn will be made all the more certain by the current global recession. The last thing markets need right now is policies that create trade barriers and diminish consumer spending.

 

In conclusion, it is certain to us that the proposed EU seal ban, if passed, will affect Inuit at all levels in the Arctic like never before. An Inuit exemption will not protect our interests because there are no distinctly separate markets for Inuit seal products. We believe that the EU ban goes against our interests as an Indigenous people in relation to the EU-supported UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And we firmly believe that the pressure to have a ban in place shows ideological support for animal rights and anti-sealing activist thinking with EU decision makers.

 

Beyond urging that the EU not pass this seal ban, we invite you to visit our Arctic regions and communities and judge for yourself the validity of our claims, and the importance of sealing to our way of life.

 

Thank you

 

Sincerely,

 

Mary Simon                                                                Duane Smith

President                                                                     President

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami                                               Inuit Circumpolar Council (Canada)