News & updates

SEALS AND THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

Share this
Image: NEW image needed.

The Benefits of Trade in Seal Products

AT ONE WITH NATURE

Visitors to the northern reaches of the world are struck by the natural beauty of the rugged landscape, the purity of the air, and the abundance of sea life in the oceans.

Canada, Greenland, Norway, Russia, Finland and Sweden lay claim to some of the most unspoilt lands and waters.

The north of North America, the Barents Sea, the White Sea… This is where man and nature live side by side, cohabiting in a harsh, remote, cold – and beautiful – environment.

There are cars and trucks and boats and some modern amenities but the underlying way of life is largely the same as it was for earlier generations.

There are no large factories, no skyscrapers and no interminable traffic jams. Strip malls and shopping centers do not litter the landscape. Hotels and office blocks do not conquer the skyline. Packs of taxis do not race noisily along the streets.

These small settlements are not known for attracting law firms or investment banks, car manufacturers or computer chip developers, bureaucratic centers or retail giants.

Here, local resources are utilized to support livelihoods. Fishermen and hunters tackle the seas and the ice to bring home their catch. What they don’t consume, they sell.

The natural beauty in remote northern regions continues to exist because people maintain traditional ways of life. Central to this is utilizing local natural resources, including seals.

View PDF in English.

View PDF in French.

View PDF in Spanish.

View PDF in Italian.

View PDF in Russian.

Related content

Seals

Refuting seal propaganda

By Jim Winter. DEAR ELLEN, It saddens me to see that you have bought into the vicious propaganda of the animal rights corporations and have

IWMC Feature

Conservation Influencers

Conservation Influencers is a searchable directory of the animal activist, environmental and ecological lobby. It examines the history, mission, methodology and reputation of NGOs to assess their impact on the global conservation cause.

Franz Weber Foundation

From 1990 until 2015, Franz Weber Foundation (FFW) managed the Fazao-Malfakassa National Park in Togo, which was, according to an in-depth investigation by Duke University, ‘established by forcing the local communities off their land and without taking into consideration their point of view’. That same study cited convincing evidence from reports published in 1990, confirming that competition for land use was already ‘creating conflict between the local communities and park managers’. In 2015 Togo refused to renew FFW’s contract because, the report says, ‘local communities were still excluded from the management of the natural resources of their land’ and FFW had ‘failed to fulfil its contract’. Franz Weber Foundation plays a major role within CITES because it funds and manages from Switzerland the African Elephant Coalition (AEC), which represents 32 African range states, some of which have barely any elephants and others none at all. Contrary to the wishes of the range states in Southern Africa, which manage most of the world’s wild elephant populations, the AEC at CITES’ CoPs repeatedly tables proposals to put all of the world’s elephants in appendix I. And the AEC uses its voting power to keep in place prohibitions on ivory sales and all other trade in elephant-related derivatives, including skins and hair, which Southern African nations wish to legalise.

Read more...