AR-News: Seal skin fashion to boost Canada's fur trade

[Barry Kent MacKay]

By Pauline Mason
In Montreal, Canada
BBC ONline



A young girl strides down the catwalk wearing a blue seal skin biker 
jacket worth 3,000 Canadian dollars (£1,230).


Sealskin is back in fashion

Welcome to the 22nd North American Fur and Fashion Exposition (Naffem) 
in Montreal.

Naffem is North America's oldest and biggest fur and apparel show.

It is a showcase for Canada's C$335m export industry.

This year the emphasis is on youth.

"A new generation of designers has re-interpreted fur," says event 
organiser and vice president of the Fur Council of Canada, Alan 
Herscovici.

"It's lighter, sportier and more colourful."

Sealskin back in fashion

The mannequins on stage show off the Nunavut Inuit Collections.

In addition to the pricey fur jacket, other items include a number of 
modern looking clothes, including a delicate bustier made from ring 
seal skin and leather, priced at C$900.

The collection was set up seven years ago as part of the Nunavut 
government's seal skin strategy to promote the native industry.

Training

Elisapee Kilabuk is one of a growing number of Inuit designers working 
in sealskin.

The Nunavut Inuit Collections' co-ordinators Diane Giroux and Ingo 
Moslener run workshops in a range of remote Inuit communities, 
including Iqaluit where Ms Kilabuk lives.

Mr Moslener, who is also a master furrier, has worked with sealskin for 
five decades.


Nunavut Inuit designers would like to export more fur

He teaches the Inuit designers modern production techniques, such as 
machine sewing, finishing, dyeing, processing and sizing to European 
quality standards.

"These are products we could sell providing the market opens up now in 
Europe, Russia," says Mr Moslener.

"America is a big market but, unfortunately that's where it's blocked."

The US currently bans the import of sealskin products, though 90% of 
Canadian fur from other animals heads south of the border.

"I learn more tricks from [Mr Moslener], like beading when I make a 
backpack or purse; a lot of people like them, I get better prices," 
says Ms Kilabuk.

One of her medium-sized, beaded rucksacks sells for C$250 while mittens 
cost C$150 a pair.

"I would like to sell more outside Nunavut, if I'm able," adds Ms 
Kilabuk.

Divided charities

The Canadian government's policy of culling 30,000 harp seal sparked a 
ferocious campaign by animal rights activists.


Animal rights campaigners insist seal hunts are cruel

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) spearheaded the 
protest:

"The most important thing we do is educate the public about the cruel 
origin of seal products," says the head of IFAW's seal campaign, 
Rebecca Aldworth.

"We urge them not to allow this product on the marketplace."

But, the globe's biggest animal conservation charity WWF - which has 
been attacked by IFAW and other activists for refusing to back their 
campaign - defends the hunt.

"It's a well managed hunt," says WWF's Dr Robert Rangely.

WWF has been monitoring this year's seal hunt, when hunters have been 
required to shoot the seal in the head rather than use the traditional 
club.

"Right now there is no conservation issue," says Dr Rangely.

Even the environmental group Greenpeace, which led the anti-sealing 
campaigns of the 1980s, says the campaign is no longer a priority issue.

Meat not murder

And yet, there are fears that the animal rights lobby could threaten 
native people's livelihood.


Do people like Paris Hilton pose a threat to traditional living?

"I'm very worried by the damage they can do to native people like Inuit 
seal hunters; in just a few years they've killed a market," says Thomas 
Coon, the leader of the Cree Trappers Association (CTA).

"I'm worried they're going to kill our economy, our culture, our way of 
life."

The Cree are native to Canada, a "First Nation" people.

They have lived off the land in northern Quebec for centuries, 
travelling on traditional sledges and camping out in tents.

They still do, although these days they use snowmobiles to get about.

For them, beaver and bear meat are delicacies. Muskrat and squirrel are 
everyday foods.

Bone, sinew, fat and fur are tools, thread, fuel and clothes.

Even wolf and fox meat are used as trap bait.

Nothing is wasted.

Mr Coon blames the anti-fur movement for displacing people from the 
land by destroying their traditional markets.

"I see young first nation people taking their lives. They feel they 
have no future, many think all there is to do is take drugs and drink 
alcohol," he says.

"We must preserve our economy, our markets and keep people on the land."

IFAW is dismissive of his concerns.

"We don't oppose native subsistence hunting," says Ms Aldworth, but "it 
is an unacceptable use of real problems facing the native community to 
justify a trade the world despises".

A bigger piece of the action

The retail fur clothing market was worth $11.3bn (£6.37bn) in 2002-3, 
registering its fifth annual rise in a row, according to the 
International Fur Trade Federation.

Much of that rise reflects demand for wild fur, as opposed to European 
farmed mink.

It is becoming increasingly popular, as reflected by a 20% rise in wild 
fur prices this year.

Rap stars P Diddy - Sean Combs - and Mr Biggs - Ronald Isley - have 
brought out clothes ranges in coyote and fox fur.

Canada remains a major player in the wild fur market.

The trade contributes C$800m to the Canadian economy.

But at the moment, only about 3% of that goes to native hunters and 
trappers.

Indeed, work to promote and market native furs is opposed by some 
sections of the native community, in particular when commercial methods 
are used by hunters.


_______________________________________-

Barry Kent MacKay
Canadian Representative
Animal Protection Institute 
www.api4animals.org