Nunavut, Greenland plan Europe tour to counter anti-sealing lobby

CBC News

Last Updated: Friday, August 3, 2007 | 9:11 AM CT

Leaders from Nunavut and Greenland plan to tour Europe together, hoping to fight the growing activism against seal products.

Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik, two cabinet minist

ers and a senior official visited Greenland earlier this week, meeting with Prime Minister Hans Enoksen and other officials.

Okalik told CBC News that one of the main issues they discussed was the recent banning of the import of seal products by some European countries.

He said a tour might be a way “to combat the awareness campaign done by these animal fundraisers, to tell our story and to show the world that Inuit continue to consume meat from seals and the byproducts have to be used,” Okalik said Thursday. “So that’s one thing we will be advancing in the fall.”

Last month, the Netherlands became the latest European country to ban the trade of products derived from the Canadian seal hunt. That ban, which takes effect Sept. 11, excludes seal pelts harvested by Inuit hunters.

However, Inuit officials in Canada are still concerned the ban will affect the hunters.

Belgium adopted a similar ban in April. Earlier this week, the Canadian government announced it will challenge the Belgian ban — the first ban since the Conservatives took power — to the World Trade Organization.

Around the same time, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution calling for an end to the Canadian seal hunt.

The European Union itself has not banned products coming from the hunt, although it agreed earlier this year to study its humaneness.

In the meantime, Okalik said there is also a potential market for more Nunavut seal pelts in Greenland. Nunavut sells only 9,000 skins a year, he said, which accounts for roughly one-third of all the pelts harvested annually. Okalik said boosting the number sold would be good for the territory’s economy.

Nunavut and Greenland also agreed to look into re-establishing a direct airline link between the two regions. Both governments will discuss the issue with airlines, Okalik said, adding that his territory’s growing fishing industry is creating more demand for a direct air route.

An existing air route was discontinued in the fall of 2001, after Greenlandair cancelled a partnership agreement with First Air. At the time, the airline said the route was not economically viable.