Today is a day to celebrate. The European Union has slammed shut the door on trade in the products of the commercial seal slaughter.
The Canadian government used every trick in the book to try to derail the ban: massive lobbying, misinformation, and even threats of trade reprisals. But the EU stood its ground and honored its citizens’ opposition to this trade in cruelty. By doing so, the EU has saved millions of seals from a horrible fate.
Every year, the ProtectSeals team has endured hazardous conditions to document the seal hunt. We are committed to showing the world that the Canadian government is lying when it claims that the hunt is humane.
This is the beginning of the end for the Canadian seal hunt. The Canadian government estimates that losing this primary market will cost Canada’s sealing industry $6.6 million (CAD) each year. The hunt brought in less than $7 million last year. It's not hard to do the math.
Just the promise of an EU ban was enough to drive the prices for seal fur down to $15 (CAD) per skin -- a decline of 86 percent since 2006. As a result, many sealers stayed home. Out of this year's quota of 280,000 harp seals, fewer than 60,000 have been killed so far.
Now that the EU has banned its trade in seal products, countless more seals will live their lives in peace from this year forward.
Every day, more than 140 million people in southern Asia drink groundwater contaminated with arsenic. Thousands of people in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Myanmar and Vietnam die of cancer each year from chronic exposure to arsenic, according to the World Health Organization. Some health experts call it the biggest mass poisoning in history.
According to a 1999 study by the National Academy of Sciences, arsenic in drinking water causes bladder, lung and skin cancer, and may cause kidney and liver cancer. The study also found that arsenic harms the central and peripheral nervous systems, as well as heart and blood vessels, and causes serious skin problems. It also may cause birth defects and reproductive problems.
"How does the arsenic go from being in the sediment loads, in solids, into the drinking water?" said Fendorf, a professor of environmental Earth system science and a senior fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment.
To find out, he launched a field study in Asia in 2004 with two Stanford colleagues: Chris Francis, an assistant professor of geological and environmental sciences, and Karen Seto, now at Yale University. The initial study was funded with a two-year Woods Institute Environmental Venture Projects grant. Five years later, the research team appears to have solved the arsenic mystery and is working with policymakers and government officials to prevent the health crisis from escalating.
"We found out that, sure enough, within the first 2 to 3 feet from the surface, arsenic was coming out of the solids-that is, the sediments transported down from the Himalayas—and into the water, and then it migrated down into the aquifer," Fendorf said. Aquifers are the source of drinking water for people who use wells throughout Cambodia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, India and Vietnam.
Beginning March 24, Fendorf will co-host a four-day meeting on arsenic poisoning in Siam Reap, Cambodia, with about 60 experts, including government officials, scholars, NGOs and funding agencies, such as the World Bank. The meeting was convened by the American Geophysical Union and the Woods Institute.
Arsenic is in water in 25 states of the United States. Due to the ability for better water filtration in this area of the world it doesn't provide as much of a threat, but it is still cause for concern.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency often finds problems with bottled water, but doesn't tell the public about them.
Canada's federal food watchdog issued 29 recall notices for bottled water products between 2000 and early 2008, citing deficiencies such as contamination by bacteria, moulds, glass chips and trace amounts of arsenic.
Of the recalls, affecting 49 different products, it issued a public warning in only seven cases, two of which came after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made public its recall orders.
Source for some of this article came from: Stanford University (2009, March 25). New Solutions For The Arsenic-poisoning Crisis In Asia. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 25, 2009.
First I started scrolling through the list of grocers and seafood suppliers involved in ending the Canadian seal hunt. As I kept scrolling looking for my home state of Delaware I realized it just wasn't listed at all. So then I even tried doing a search and find in the browser, hoping I had missed it somehow...still no Delaware.
The situation is that Canada allows the slaughter of baby white seals. The commercial fishermen who earn a small amount of their living from selling the babies fur truly make most of their income from fishing and selling the fish to the United States. So, if grocers and seafood suppliers refused to buy fish from the fishermen who also slaughter baby seals then we might be able to get them to stop their awfulness.
After hearing about the horrific treatment of seals during Canada's annual seal hunt, more than 5,000 grocery stores, restaurants, and other companies have joined the ProtectSeals campaign. But alas, not one store in Delaware is on the list. Shameful.
What's the connection between your grocery store and the seal hunt? Sealers are actually commercial fishermen who earn only a small fraction of their livelihood from killing baby seals for their fur. The vast majority of the sealers' incomes -- 95% actually -- comes from commercial fishing. About two thirds of Canada's seafood is exported to the United States each year, achieving more than $2.5 billion for the Canadian economy annually. This dwarfs the few million dollars contributed to the Canadian economy by the commercial seal hunt.
By choosing to avoid Canadian seafood, you can give the fishermen who kill seals a clear economic incentive to stop the slaughter. So far, our boycott has resulted in millions of lost revenue for Canadian sealers. But we aren't there yet: As of today Canada still refuses to bow to international pressure, and is readying its sealing vessels for the 2009 slaughter.
So today, ask your local grocery store to step up for seals: Download this customer comment card and/or pledge form and give it to your store manager the next time you go grocery shopping.
I have contacted Acme, Safeway, WalMart, Superfresh, Pathmark, BJs Wholesale, Costso, ShopRite, Trader Joe's and GIANT in my local area. If you live in Delaware please continue my plea. If you live elsewhere please look into contacting your local chains. I will let you all know if I receive a response.
UPDATE:
Alicia from Costco Wholesale Corporation sent a response to my e-mail, it stated: "Dear Christy,
Thank you for your email to Costco Wholesale.
Costco Wholesale is aware of the U.S. Humane Society campaign requesting U.S. retailers to boycott Canadian fisheries in protest of the annual Canadian seal hunt. At this time we have no plans to participate in a boycott of Canadian fisheries.
Thank you for sharing your concerns with us.
Thank you,
Alicia Costco Wholesale Corporation"
UPDATE--
"Hi Christy,
Thank you for taking the time contact us. This has always been Trader Joe's stance on purchasing seafood in the eastern part of Canada.
Thank you for contacting us concerning your issue. We appreciate the opportunity to assist you.
While we are troubled by the concerns you have risen about the treatment of seals in the Northeast Provinces of Canada, and respect the interests of consumers who elect not to purchase certain products.
We are committed to providing our customers with the products they want and expect.
We respect the right of individuals to support issues that are important to them, but we will continue to provide our customers with the variety and choice that they are looking for when they shop at Albertsons.
SUPERVALU is in compliance with country of origin labeling (COOL) requirements now in effect for seafood. These requirements inform consumers of the origin of the seafood that they are buying, and allow them to make informed seafood choices in our stores.
If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our Customer Service Center at 1-877-932-7948.
Today an official working on a special project in Edmonton, Alberta has told the media about their plans to make ethanol fuel with garbage. They have plans to turn 100,000 tons of plastic, cardboard and paper into the fuel starting in 2010.
The $69.3-million plant will produce 36 million liters of ethanol per year, making it the world's first industrial scale ethanol plant using waste as a feedstock, said Don Pierce of Greenfield Ethanol.
Having waste be the world's next source for ethanol production is an awesome prospect. Not only would we be more apt to recycle but we would also be alleviating the enormous demand for gasoline and/or typical feed crops.
It is ashame it has taken three decades for them to get to this point, but what do we say, better late than never, eh?
