The International Fur Ban and Public Policy Advocacy: The Significance of Inuit Cultural Persistence

• Published in: Practicing Anthropology
• Main Author: Williamson, Robert
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Informa UK Limited 1999
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; Finn; greenlandic; inuit
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.17730/praa.21.1.q277u6q561523748; http://meridian.allenpress.com/practicing-anthropology/article-pdf/21/1/2/1862751/praa_21_1_q277u6q561523748.pdf

In mid-July of 1997 a significant event occurred when a first ministers' meeting of the European Union abrogated the legislation of the European Parliament, which, in 1989, had voted to ban importation of trapped fur products into Union countries from Canada and the United States. For eight years the representatives of the Aboriginal people and some anthropologists had worked against the implementation of this legislation, which threatened the life-way of a substantial proportion of the North American trappers, 70% of whose product is marketed in Europe. More than half of these trappers are Aboriginal in ancestry and contemporary cultural lifestyle. The marketing ban issue was heated and inflated in a manner disproportionate to the extent of North American European trade that the fur market comprises. This emotional climate was largely generated by animal rights organizations, often employing shock techniques openly anti-Aboriginal in tone. The campaigns have been conducted with growing public support all over Europe, and to some significant degree in the urban United States—but most particularly so in Great Britain. The activities of the International Fund for Animal Welfare and its fraternal groups have been well documented by George Wenzel (Animal Rights, Human Rights: Ecology, Economy and Ideology in the Canadian Arctic. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991) most notably, and also by such responsible people as the Greenlandic diplomat, ex-European Parliament Member and writer Finn Lynge.