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After weeks of speculation, Europe is to
propose a ban on seal products that result from animal
cruelty, the EU's environment commissioner has said.
"We will propose a ban of seal fur imports if (a country)
can't prove they were obtained in a humane way" - EU Environment
Commissioner Stavros Dimas announced to the Reuters news
agency at a recent informal meeting of EU environment
ministers in Brdo, Slovenia. |
The ban would apply not just to seal pelts, but to all goods
derived from seals - including meat, vitamins and other products.
In recent weeks, articles have appeared in the press suggesting
that the EU was considering a seal product ban - but, until
now, Brussels has strongly denied that a ban was to be imposed,
stressing that such a move was only one of a number of possible
actions Europe could take. Commissioner Dimas did not give
a timetable for the introduction of such a proposal, saying
only - "It will take some time".
"I'm very much concerned at the way the hunt is conducted"
- he said, referring to a report from the European Food Safety
Authority published last December, which concluded that -
'Many seals can be - and are - killed rapidly and effectively.
(But) it is not always carried out effectively and this will
lead to seals feeling the skinning'.
EU member states - Belgium and the Netherlands - introduced
similar bans last year, prompting Canada - where some 275,000
harp seals are killed every year during the annual hunting
season - to launch a trade dispute with the EU as a whole.
Meanwhile, one of the leading international campaigners against
the seal hunt - Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society, whose vessel was seized recently by an elite marine
squad from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while monitoring
the hunt - claimed that his team has captured footage of seals
screaming while being skinned alive - evidence, he says, will
be used to help convince European institutions to ban seal
products.
"We haven't seen any evidence of a humane hunt here"
- Mr Watson said. "We're presenting this evidence to the European
Parliament. They are going to pass a bill to ban seal products.
That will end the Canadian seal hunt."
Two weeks ago, a delegation from Canada - including an Inuit
leader, fishermen from Newfoundland and Quebec and other regional
officials - isited Brussels in an attempt to convince Europe
not to ban seal products. They said the hunt was at least
as humane as any other form of hunting and that it was not
only a part of the Inuit lifestyle, traditionally - but to
this day, the indigenous population depends on the hunt for
meat and their livelihood.
Commissioner Dimas said that he would make sure that the
ban would not affect the traditional Inuit hunt.
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