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Magdalene Islands: IFAW Missionary Converted by Natives - Got the Sack |
| 14.05.1996; |
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Annemieke Roell spent 13 years working on the International Fund for Animal Welfare's (IFAW) campaign to stop the Canadian seal hunt. But, according to a report in the Canadian daily newspaper, Financial Post, on April 27, after spending three years among the seal hunters in the remote Canadian Magdalene Islands, she now calls the IFAW campaign "a waste of money". She was sent there by IFAW to convert the seal hunters into seal safari tourist guides.
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| Last autumn Roell tried to arrange a compromise between the sealers and IFAW. Some sealers signalled that they might be willing to give up the seal penis trade that has been strongly criticised by IFAW. But IFAW rejected the idea of a compromise and gave Roell the sack. Marion Jenkins, public relations manager at IFAW's UK office, told the Financial Post that the fund will never make a deal with hunters because ending the hunt "is part of our mission statement". Roell says that in firing her, IFAW confirmed what seal hunters have been saying for years: that the fund depends on the heart-wrenching images of the defenceless white coat pups and the evil hunters, to maintain it's global fund raising clout. Jenkins, however, says the seal hunt is not a money earner for IFAW. Roell says that she has seen IFAW pay hunters to kill seals for the camera. In February IFAW released a video of hunters aggravating a seal before killing it, and skinning another while it was still alive. Roell says she is unsure whether the film is genuine. Even if it is, she says, "it is one isolated incident, and now half the world thinks that's the way it is." Now she wants to do something "from the other side":"I felt bad for the Newfoundlenders, as well as the native people, who really royally got screwed .... allthough their products are exempt from the EU import ban, it did destroy their markets. And I feel bad that they're being poundered on time after time ..", she told the Financial Post. |
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