Weekend Economists Volvemos a Puerto Rico May 22-25, 2015

[MattSh]

44. Europe’s ban on seal products has been awful for Greenland’s Inuits, and for seals - Quartz

Strasbourg, France doesn’t seem like the type of place one might happen upon a group of Inuits. But that’s just what ministers of the European Parliament (MEPs) will find as they traverse the Quartier Européen this week, as a delegation of native Greenlanders lobby for the lifting of a 2009 European ban on seal products.

The Arctic visitors—who, living in an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, enjoy EU citizenship—will tempt MEPs with cuts of barbecued seal meat cooked on an open-air grill. The hope is to convince both lawmakers and the European public that the ban is not only misplaced—predicated on bloody images of clubbed, teddy-bear-faced babies—but actively contributing to the decline of Greenland’s native culture and livelihood.

Specifically, exports of seal pelts have dropped 90% in the years since the ban was implemented. The impact on Greenland’s coastal economy has been disastrous. Though the ban included an exemption for indigenous peoples in order to protect distinctive cultures and traditions, “the market seems to be negatively affected by the EU initiative,” a 2012 report compiled by the European Bureau for Conservation and Development (EBCD) states.

Many attribute the initiative, and others like it, to a campaign launched in the Canadian Arctic by Greenpeace in 1976—“a campaign that would come to define us as an organization for many years,” wrote Joanna Kerr, executive director of Greenpeace Canada in an op-ed for Nunatsiaq News, a weekly newspaper servicing Canada’s Inuit-majority regions of Nunavut and Nunavik. “The campaign had good intentions: to expose and end the commercial hunting of marine mammals, in particular Canada’s commercial seal hunt.” Greenpeace disseminated gory images of seal pups bludgeoned and eviscerated by inhumane, corporatist sealers—and it worked.

Complete story at - http://qz.com/407924/europes-ban-on-seal-products-has-been-catastrophic-for-greenlands-native-communities/