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Robben, Seals and more... Das NGO's, Gutmenschen, Weltverbesserer, Umweltschützer und Tierschützer in den seltensten Fällen
von Sachkenntnis geprägt sind ist nichts neues. Auch das sie der Sache dienen darf in den meisten Fällen bezweifelt werden. Wenn sie nicht gerade indoktrinierte Mainstreamer sind oder gutwillige Knallhörner, die sich von "Freunden" vor den Karren des Gutmenschentums spannen lassen, sind sie vielleicht ausgebuffte Geldsammler. Denn womit ließe sich
besser Geld machen als mit dem Mitleid und den Emotionen. Ein gutes Beispiel sind die Robbenschützer. Die haben es besonders leicht, denn Robben sehen ja so süß aus......Ein interessanter Artikel im Toronto Star Toronto Star, Mar. 23, 2005. 01:00 AM
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_
Type1&c=Article&cid=1111490467030&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795
Anti-sealers have dubious motives
The seal hunt hurts the powerless while acting as the biggest fundraiser for animal welfare group, says Joan Forsey
The International Fund for Animal Welfare discovered more than 30 years ago that by depicting sealers as brutal killers of "baby" seals, it could raise hundreds of thousands of dollars within months.
Last year, the IFAW raised $77.5 million U.S.
With huge amounts of money so easily available when you play on people's emotions — brutal men versus cuddly "baby" seals — and when you target people who can't fight back, other "charitable" organizations were quick to jump on the bandwagon.
The Humane Society of the United States, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and Harpseals.org were among the many demonstrating against the seal hunt this week.
As the Royal Commission on Seals and Sealing reported in 1986: "The anti-sealing campaign owes part of its success to the fact that it has been able to isolate as its target a small group of rural people whose way of life is far removed from the understanding of the urban people at whom the anti-sealing appeal has been aimed."
Success is also due, no doubt, to their campaign methods — once described by two Inuit organizations as "unethical and demagogic."
The Inuit Tapirisat of Canada and the Inuit Circumpolar Conference were referring to methods used by the IFAW. They detailed many of them in a document urging the IUCN (World Conservation Union) to reject the IFAW's application for membership. (It did.)
Among their examples: Ads that made use of "shock effects" and were often "extremely biased, vulgar and offensive"; and "threats to lobby for the withdrawal of foreign aid to a developing country." The IFAW was trying to stop the seal hunt in Namibia.
Eugene Lapointe, president of IWMC World Conservation Trust, calls the present campaign "vicious and unjustified" and "potentially harmful to all wildlife management sectors, because each time protestors gain any support, they strike a blow to science and to the human rights of those who make their living from the land and the sea."
In this clash of cultures, urban vs. rural, sealers are outnumbered and overmatched. As a result, organizations like the IFAW have money to burn.
They can have headquarters in some of the most expensive real estate areas in the U.S. — e.g., Cape Cod (IFAW) and Malibu (Sea Shepherd). And when Brian Davies, founder of the IFAW, retired from the organization in 1997, the IFAW was able to give him $2.5 million, payable over seven years, in return for use of his name.
"The payment to Davies is not surprising," Lapointe said at the time. "Most of us in the sustainable use field have always known that economics and personal wealth were the primary motivator in the animal rights industry."
Lapointe is now organizing a "Sustainable use coalition" to support Canadian sealers and fishermen.
Another knowledgeable person who has questioned IFAW's motives is Annemieke Roell. She worked for the IFAW for 13 years, part of that time living among sealers on the Magdalen Islands.
She became their friend, and in the 1990s tried to negotiate a truce between the IFAW and the sealers. The IFAW fired her. Peter Kuitenbrouwer of the Financial Post wrote at the time: "In firing her, Roell says the IFAW confirmed what seal hunters have been saying for years: that the fund depends on heart-wrenching images of defenceless white
coat pups, and evil hunters, to maintain its global fundraising clout."
Sealing has been judged to be humane by representatives of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA) and a Royal Commission. Groups of up to five CVMA members observed sealers killing seals between 1979 and 1984; four did so in 1999; and one in 2001.
The commission studied the seal industry for two years. They are independent experts. But the anti-sealers are not interested in experts, unless chosen by themselves.
Besides, it's not facts, it's money they want.
The IFAW devotes nearly two pages in its 2004 annual report to describing the many ways you can support it financially.
For anti-sealers, who in effect raise money on the backs of the poor, the seal hunt is their annual fundraiser.
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Joan Forsey is a Newfoundland-born freelance writer based in Toronto. |
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