Announcer: At the World Conservation Congress in Montreal there was a showdown between the Inuit and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The Inuit won. They successfully lobbied against the IFAW's application to become a member of the Congress. The International Fund is largely responsible for the European Community's decision to ban imports of Canadian fur. David McLaughlin reports.

McLaughlin: Membership in the World Conservation Union gives an organization some credibility. The Inuit are members. The International Fund for Animal Welfare wanted as well. Rosemarie Kuptana is President of Inuit Circumpolar Conference. She helped lead the lobbying effort against their application.

Kuptana: International Fund for Animal Welfare and other Animal Rights groups and organizations always tend to appeal to the emotions of an uninformed public.

McLaughlin: The group sponsors ad campaigns condemning the use of the leghold trap. It encourages European women not to buy Canadian furs. Those campaigns and all similar ad campaigns for the past fifteen years are the brain-child of Ian MacPhail, a naturalist and special consultant to the IFAW.

MacPhail: We use highly emotional language in order to get the public to show concern and donate money.

McLaughlin: It's the very reason why the World Conservation Union denied membership to the IFAW. MacPhail doesn't apologize. He says the International Fund for Animal Welfare is against all uses of animals for their fur.

MacPhail: Let's put it bluntly; we are against fur. I think women look rather daft in them myself. McLaughlin: But Rosemarie Kuptana says the fur ban has hurt Canada's Indigenous people. It's depressed fur prices and threatens an important source of their livelihood.

Kuptana: The animal rights groups are imposing their value system on people who do use animals for their way of life, for their survival.

McLaughlin: But MacPhail is convinced the International Fund for Animal Welfare isn't hurting the Indigenous peoples' economy.

MacPhail: Well again, I don't want to be sarcastic but I can't help noting that the noble savages are frightfully well dressed. One of them is wearing a gold Rolex watch which I can't afford. I think they should be awfully careful about doing the Nanuk-of-the-North/starving-in-igloos story. Because I don't think that there are many really genuine noble savages living on the land on what nature provides. I would like to meet one. I'd like to shake him by the hand.

McLaughlin: Can I see if I could introduce you to Rosemarie Kuptana?

MacPhail: Well, I don't want to get involved.

McLaughlin: The animal rights group and the Inuit remain poles apart on what they admit is a deeply emotional topic. They will not get a chance to discuss their differences in private now, in the same organization.

David MacLaughlin, CBC News, Montreal.