[Music] there's times oh [Music] [Music] i love spring some of my earliest memories are of seal hunting as a family peering out over the water hoping for a seal to surface i'm visiting my relative journey and his grandson is and they've been kind enough to bring me out seal hunting at the flow edge so so oh foreign um oh um foreign uh um okay at some point in my childhood i realize there are people out there who don't like seal hunting every spring i'd watch people on the news call seal hunters horrible things foreign we'll be that far [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] facebook um [Music] [Music] me [Music] foreign [Applause] that's them eating steel meat yeah that's a problem their grandfather used to come home with the ceo and they were just like huskies dive right into the meat everything was [Laughter] it won't be scary in any other culture but to us it's like so cute [Music] i wanted to make this film because it bothered me when i saw animal welfare groups portray seal hunting as an evil and greedy thing the images and statements they put out don't reflect the seal hunting i know they don't even mention inuit and my friend iu peter is fighting to change that ayu is a sealskin clothing designer a lawyer and long time activist for inuit seal hunting rights when i came here i learned how to work with seal skin my mother-in-law was always sewing and i wanted to learn how to work with co skin and i was able to sell beautiful seal skin products and it allowed me to stay home and raise my children from home these are two different kinds of steel this is harpsio and this is ring seal this is the kind of coat i would want if i were a seal in the arctic sealskin dies really nicely and i find the harpsil ones are just really classy because you can still see their spots at the bottom so i took this part from here and the center part i took from the center obviously which is darker and i turned it into a shawl and it's very simple i like simple designs you want to see the pigments yes the big mess would also have the same idea or you have the big sew skin and then you could line it with the sheared beaver kind of beaver here to make it nice and warm i know a lot of inuit like ayu who depend on sealskin sales for their livelihood our economic options are very few so the sealskin market is extremely important to us unfortunately we have fewer and fewer places to sell our products because animal groups have been fighting since the 1960s to shut down the sealskin trade anti-sealing campaigns focus almost entirely on the spring hunt around newfoundland and the gulf of st lawrence in southern canada they try to convince everyone that this hunt is cruel and inhumane and that the problems with it are unfixable they argue that the only way to address their concerns is to totally ban trade in seal skin but regardless of how you feel about that hunt most seal hunters in canada and the world are actually inuit we hunt seals all around the canadian arctic as well as alaska greenland and russia but animal groups make it sound like seal skins all come from that one spring hunt in the south of canada they call it the canadian seal hunt or even just the seal hunt which completely fails to acknowledge that innate are an important part of the sealskin market we need to remind the world we exist but it's difficult to get our message heard because anti-ceiling protests tend to be loud and confrontational whereas inuit anger is much quieter in the old days if someone upset you you'd insult them with a satiric song then they'd take a turn with the drum and tease you back it's kind of like a modern day rap battle but inuk style so more quiet and slow you go back and forth until laughter replaced the tension and if you lost your temper you'd lose the battle because losing your temper can be a sign of a guilty conscience the song battles are long gone but we still try to stay calm and reasonable when we're upset how does a culture with an understated anger fight against a group that's infamous for the exact opposite behavior foreign [Music] [Music] foreign how could these groups work for so many decades to crush our industry without ever having seen it with their own eyes anti-sealers have carefully developed the image of commercial sealing as a massive and evil operation and they say it's inherently inhumane but for us this is what commercial sealing mostly looks like [Laughter] [Music] foreign i've seen many campaigns argue that sealing should end because it's not moral to kill a seal just for the fur they say fur is shame and a frivolous luxury but you need to defy that argument because we eat the meat and for us a warm coat is not a luxury it's necessary for day-to-day survival when i look at sealskin i see an ethical and sustainable economy that feeds people natural fur also keeps our hunters afloat if they fall through the ice which is happening more often due to climate change once the seal skins are cleaned and dried the last step is to clean off the oil residue by rubbing them on the snow [Laughter] [Music] steel skins his whole life and is still one of the most active sealers in his community um since our hunters live in tiny remote communities and don't necessarily speak english the government of nunavut arranges for a wildlife officer in each community to buy skins from hunters throughout the year then the government collects all the skins from all the communities and combines them for sale at international auction on the hunter's behalf this is how inui take part in the global commercial seal skin market this allows us to continue our traditions and take part in the modern world it was our main economy for over a hundred years but in 1983 everything changed greenpeace the international fund for animal welfare and other groups put out intense anti-sealing campaigns throughout the 1970s and 80s as a result in 1983 the european union banned products made from white coat harp seal pups [Music] even though the legislation only targeted one type of seal skin that we don't even sell the campaigns ruined the reputation for all types of steel skin and the whole market crashed immediately [Music] it was our great depression i want to talk to someone who lived through this so i've gone to see la salusi it's a typical february day at minus 32 degrees celsius minus 46 with the windchill i'm in urban enok so ayu lent me her warm hunting gear i'm bundled up in layers of seal caribou and wolf fur lasalusi says it's a pretty nice day so he's just wearing his lighter fabric parka [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] so taken foreign foreign [Music] are [Music] foreign [Music] um uh [Music] m [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] the 83 band was a life-altering event for inuit i grew up in the aftermath [Music] [Laughter] suicide was once a rare thing in our communities but as a result of the trauma from residential school abuse forced relocations and other destructive government policies inuit began taking their own lives at alarming rates in the 1970s when the ban hit in 83 it was yet another layer of stress on our communities causing widespread hunger and hardship within a year our suicide rates spiked even higher and have been among the worst in the world ever since to this day we're still working to undo the damage it took us 25 years to repair the reputation of seal skins and rebuild demand seal skin prices climbed back up to about a hundred dollars per skin which is almost enough to make a living on i grew up thinking the poverty and hunger i see around me every day is normal to think this hard-earned recovery could actually relieve some of this hardship makes me so hopeful unfortunately the anti-sealers are still at it and they're now pushing the european union to pass a new ban that's even worse than the last one it would reject all seal products so that means all types of seal skin and even the meat and oil i can't believe these headlines under the proposed ban seal products would not be allowed into the 27 nation block elite leaders from canada and greenland swiftly condemned the draft legislation despite a special exemption for products from traditional inuit sealers i don't even know what they mean by traditional everywhere i look online right now the anti-sealers keep pointing to this exemption but they know very well that the 1983 ban also had an exemption for england and it did nothing to protect us soon eu parliamentarians will be voting on the new ban and we hope to convince them to vote against it i love coming to my own backyard there's no trees here and everything is frozen and this is the context of our life which is so far removed from animalists and people making decisions on hunting seals a hunter is coming in on his snow machine he's been out there for hours maybe even days and i'm hoping that he he caught a seal that will provide food for his family and others in this community it is a very harsh environment and we should be allowed to eat our food and continue our culture and our tradition which we are very very proud of those guys are so tough man i'm so glad i wasn't born a man i would have to endure that cold oh man that's tough i'd deliver a baby any day than going hunting like the men do we're just days away from the eu vote ayu and a few volunteers are heading to europe to stand up for a fellow inuit nuts is a fellow seamstress mika is a hunter and dog team owner and joshua is the head of the khalid hunters association [Music] upon their arrival we're surprised to see giant anti-sealing campaigns there already the international fund for animal welfare have a humongous inflatable seal balloon and the humane society international set up a jumbo tv with anti-sealing ads [Music] because but in the in the in the legislation that we will vote at noon there is an exception for inuit people so they can go on with for their personal use with with killing seals and that's the only exception to to preserve the people of the inuit for me the exception is of no use because once the commercial hunt goes down once the price goes down we won't be he won't be able to make any money off the seals on which he depends on which he and his wife depends so whether the exception is there or not we are being affected yeah without our will i will think about it thank you all the best thank you why is this guy still talking about personal use ayu is telling him that she sells sealskin clothes for a living the eu parliamentarians seem to be having a really hard time understanding that we're part of the commercial market they're still picturing the eskimos in igloos with no need for money iu and the hunters are handing out pamphlets and standing right beside them are anti-ceiling campaigners handing out little white baby seal dolls it's been illegal to hunt white coats in canada for 30 years now but they keep using images of them deliberately misleading the public we now know they've been here for months giving out thousands of these white dolls these are huge organizations with so much money to spread misinformation and here we are with no resources to fight it [Applause] as we wait for the parliamentarians to vote we can see how few of them we've been able to reach it's us versus the little white seal dolls and we see a lot of dolls in the room so foreign [Music] since no one thought to ask inuit to be part of the discussion we didn't stand a chance of stopping this ban from happening [Music] [Music] when animal groups pretend we don't exist or that we're frozen in time and untouched by the modern economy this is what happens i feel for joshua as the leader of his hunters association it's plain to see he feels the weight of responsibility they could have chosen a certification program based on animal welfare standards they could have regulated things such as killing methods or quotas boat size or daily cash limits but instead they chose the harshest option designed to crush the entire market now we have no choice but to try to overturn the ban however um iu is talking to the national inuit association to discuss our legal options i want to confront the anti-sealers they keep saying this new ban isn't targeting us but after the last ban sales dropped from approximately thirty thousand skins a year down to less than one thousand what makes them think it's going to be any different this time so i've been looking at all the major anti-sealing campaigns and the same names keep popping up over and over again there's only a handful of them i've left them all messages asking for interviews including greenpeace which to innovate are the icons of anti-sealing but while i was looking up greenpeace this radio interview from 1978 popped up on youtube and in it paula watson a former greenpeace leader talks about why he left the organization listen to this mr watson how easy is it to raise money against the seal hunt the seal hunt has always turned a profit for the green peace foundation and then other organizations like ifa w api fund for animals also make a profit off of the field you suggesting that they they fight for seals rather than other animals because it's easy or easier to raise money that way or because it it's a profit maker for them well it's definitely because it's easier to make money and because it does make a profit because there are over a thousand animals on the endangered species list and the steel isn't one of them see the thing is the seal is very easy to uh exploit as an image we have posters we have buttons we have shirts all of which portray the head of the baby seal with uh tears coming out of the time baby seals are always crying because they're always the salt tears keep their eyes from freezing and because of that uh coupled with the the horror of the steeler hitting them over the head with the club it's an image which it just goes right to the heart of of animal lovers all over north america and now we have a dozen people this year from greenpeace california i mean they're coming from the highest standard living region in north america they're traveling to the place the lowest income per per year area on this continent telling them not to kill fields because they're acute but but not endangered species that was over 30 years ago when the atlanta carp seal population was around 2 million today is nearly 8 million but lots of campaigns still imply that seals are endangered to raise money like these ones from peta using the slogan save the seals but nobody can argue that harp seals are endangered with any kind of honesty i guess it was too hard to resist all that easy money because shortly after that interview paul watson started his own animal organization the sea shepherd society he went right back to anti-sealing and is using the same misleading imagery to this day [Music] iu's convinced the collective of inuit organizations to launch two lawsuits to try to overturn the ban through eu courts i think when i was asked why i wanted to go to law school my one of my reasons was that well i would like to be able to explain the western laws that are affecting inward way of life and in a language that the elders can understand it wasn't necessarily because i wanted to be a lawyer i'm not a practicing lawyer but i wanted to understand how come there's so much injustice in this world and is there a way that we can change it i didn't suddenly wake up and and think oh i want to be an advocate and i want to be poor forever and just fight for any rights it it didn't happen like that but i think i had a very strong sense of what was right and wrong i think people should be allowed to speak their own language and have their own culture and live their own lives in in this beautiful country it's been about a year since the new ban was passed before the ban inuit were selling around 60 000 skins a year now we're selling less than half that number and the prices for each skin fell from around 100 down to about 10 that's just the raw skins there are also the losses on finished products made from seal skins like mitts boots and coats i also cringe when i think of how much less meat people are bringing home to their families we're already the most food insecure indigenous people in any developed country with 7 in 10 inuit children going to school hungry in all of north america our region has the highest poverty and unemployment rates and the highest cost of living when i tell southerners that we're sometimes paying 28 dollars for a cabbage 82 for 12 cans of ginger ale and 18 for a jar of cheese whiz they're stunned with fifty dollars in hand an inuit hunter could choose to buy a tiny amount of junk food or he could buy fuel to go hunting bringing enough seal meat to feed his entire extended family fresh local wild organic seal meat that's more nutritious and healthy than any meat you can buy at the store that's why the sealskin market is so important it's not just about tradition for us hunting is still the best way to feed inuit and the cash from seal skins keeps that cycle going when that cycle is interrupted the pressure to look at other economic options increases and we have very few options for example the canadian government is proposing underwater seismic testing around baffin island my home to explore offshore oil and gas reserves putting extreme stress on several of our communities we're not talking about a tiny island here baffin island is about twice the size of the uk seismic testing involves underwater explosions at decibel levels that studies have shown to cause damage to the hearing of marine mammals these explosions happen every 10 seconds for hundreds of kilometers niri ikhaluk joa is from clyde river one of the biggest ceiling communities that was hardest hit by the seal product bands he's speaking out about seismic testing because his community has seen it before [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] even in the face of poverty niri's community has been fighting for 45 years to protect one of the most delicate ecosystems on the planet from one of the most destructive industries all this time instead of getting help from animal and environment groups his community's main sustainable economy has been under attack [Music] ironically by fighting to save the seals all these groups have inadvertently put all the arctic animals not to mention us humans at higher risk i'm amazed nuri can speak with such a calm and clear voice because the whole thing makes me want to scream [Music] it's been a while since i contacted all those groups and never got a response one of the names i see in the media a lot is rebecca aldworth who's the go-to anti-sealing person for the various chapters of the humane society she's the one who organized a photo shoot with paul mccartney and his wife heather mills which got a lot of media attention campaigns like that that have helped them be really successful they've got over 200 million dollars in assets now they're definitely one of the bigger animal groups so i'm going to try contacting rebecca aldworth directly ayu is going to europe again last time she went it was just days before the vote on the seal product ban and the parliamentarians had already made up their minds this time she's going well before decisions are made on our lawsuits since we are traveling to europe as ambassadors and educators on behalf of inuit and canada and what's even more awesome a younger generation is joining us in the fight a group of inuit political science students based in ottawa are going on a speaking tour through europe iu and i are helping them prepare their presentations to eu parliamentarians and ambassadors iu's got lots of meetings and media interviews lined up in stockholm and copenhagen [Music] the students are going to paris and brussels hopefully the inuit message can reach enough people before the eu court decides on our lawsuits we're in brussels right now we're waiting for a very important meeting to talk about seal issues polar bear issues and climate change this legislation is not based on the fact that we treat our animals well that we do sustainable hunting [Applause] i'm gonna need your help in finding ways to reverse this legislation i want to keep the dialogue open with the europeans on how we can move forward from here the exemption is inhibiting us to have a sustainable way of life we want to get the word out that you know we exist in this world and their take they're trying to take away all our rights i'd like to introduce you to mrs yakansari and mr tarant who are both members of the european parliament at the bare minimum we ask that you educate your people and on how the propaganda that the animal rights groups are spreading and really all we really asked is economic equality and to achieve that we have to stop the cultural prejudice that is imposed on us by not being allowed to benefit from my natural surroundings without having to drill into the ground and that's really all we want is a people thank you for inviting us here today i do have my understanding for your situation we try to do our best how to uh how to change this old decision i don't know actually i don't know how it's possible but i can ask the commission to do its utmost in order to correct this kind of decision i mustn't tell you you have been impressingly imploding more impressively than the canadian embassy has been able to do on me in four years actually ceiling is sustainable steel skins are sustainable what you did not say but what one could add is well the alternative to have a artificial fur coat an artificial fur coat is made of oil and not renewable resource and you have a hell of a trouble and you try to get rid of it about nature oh my god man no no no no no no no no no no they're doing a photo photo should i put this on canadian seal inuit that's the difference legally i'm not afraid of anything but if you publish it i will come closer despite my looks i don't bite maybe i do this is the north pole this is greenland and i would have been born here many years ago this whole area is where inuit lived but they were colonized by four nation states canadian arctic being colonized by canadians eh and the americans here russians and danes here but we remain the same people one language one culture but different influences the first time i saw this projection of a world map was in a seminar on peace and war and then the lecturer said this will be the most strategic area of the world in the future due to the encounter of continents to the minerals and other things beneath the sea this area is very very rich in minerals in oil and gas it will provide a lot of richness if you are to mine it but we do not wish to be materially wealthy if it's going to mean the destruction of this area i don't want to be we want to do it safely of course we want to make money we want to be part of the economy we want our people to take part in this but it has to be done safely i think we have to listen to the people who have been the guardians of this earth because we can't just up and live to another earth we have to save god the earth that we live in this trip has been encouraging because it's plain to see that europeans do care about inuit but it's also becoming obvious that the so-called inuit exemption actually makes this fight harder for us the inuit lawsuits against the eu are working their way through the courts in the meantime there's another protest coming up on the international day of protest against seal hunting calling all inuit animal rights activists are planning to protest against seal hunting in toronto on march 13th 2013. if you are in toronto or you're willing to come to toronto please come and join us whether you're inuk or just a supporter of innate hunting rights we're gonna go try to crash their protests with the little mini counter protest i guess um or at least go and see if we can have a conversation with them um because i'm curious you know i've never really met these anti-sealers face to face and i have some questions i want to ask ask them you know do they even think about inuit healing do they do they ever consider how we're affected by these protests so this particular protest was organized by ifa um but today ifa's main anti-ceiling rep is cheryl fink um i see her face in name a lot and i've been trying to get a hold of her through their um website contact form but i've been getting no response so it'll be really cool if i get to meet her in person at this protest awesome rosalind commented on your status cool i'll see you there yay awesome so at least we'll have like five inuit we'll see who shows up the same inuit students that went to europe saw my facebook post and the whole class is heading from ottawa to toronto on a bus i just wanted to remind you that we don't have to behave the way other protesters behave just be true to yourself remember how your parents and your grandparents would want you to behave and we're there to remind canadians that this does affect us you know often people misunderstand and think oh there are exemptions for inuit and that we're not affected but we need to remind canadians that we are affected the places where they live in europe or southern canada or america they torture animals they eat tortured animals every day and we don't that's a point i want to make oh you'll be making that point lots today i'm sure they're kind of like busting our whole economy where we'll be forced into mining our minerals because there's been like so much opposition from the inner side and they know that they need our vote to be able to go up there and like if we don't have any sort of economy to support ourselves we'll have to go into that take lots of pictures today so we can post stuff on facebook if it's not on facebook or youtube it didn't happen [Music] help our economy grow [Music] today is the international day of action against seal hunting and so we as inuit wanted to gather and kind of do a little bit of a counter protest uh to educate people and so we decided to come down here to one of the busiest street corners in the country to reach as many people as we could what's the bigger deal it's just frustrating to hear about laws being passed banning steel skin when leather and sheepskin and and all kinds of stuff like that are allowed to be sold it just feels discriminatory [Music] supporting our ceo not the eu european union it's about us when we have pressures from you know massive companies that want to bring in uranium mines and caribou calving grounds and it's so frustrating when we're fighting those fights to be attacked on the ceiling issue which is not a threat at all [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah it's like so much more healthy right [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so we're here to defend our right to hunt seals but we also want to have a better relationship with environmental groups in animal rights groups because believe it or not we're on the same side did the animal rights folks show up today too nope [Applause] thank you guys that was awesome [Music] [Applause] before this i thought maybe the animal groups weren't getting my interview requests but i traveled over 2 000 kilometers to see them and they didn't even show up to their own event once they heard we're coming clearly they're deliberately avoiding us our legal challenges to the ban are nearing their end and we're doing what we can to make our voices heard iu has organized a seal celebration day and my friend carlene arria has organized a petition to overturn the ban uh blizzard warning in effect illicit anything late this morning that's snowing winds south of the 50 gusting to 70 demonizing 2 30 late this morning and then becoming light late this afternoon today despite all of our hard work the eu courts announced their decision on the inuit lawsuits against the seal ban and it didn't go our way they couldn't defend their decision based on animal welfare or conservation standards so they say they based it on moral grounds because apparently sealing offends europeans in the eu court's press release they included a sentence stating that this decision helps the inuit i don't understand how they figure rejecting a lawsuit launched by us helps us i use in ottawa to meet with lawyers about the results just because a million or a billion people do something and pass the legislation it doesn't make it right and it will never ever make it right against 32 000 inuit for instance and you're up against billions of people it still doesn't make it right even if it's majority it's still wrong we don't care if you're stopped to death or if you die of this we are more interested in the seal here we are feeling so insignificant they were only able to pass that legislation and reject this claim today because they put in wording saying but the inmate are okay we respect them they know that if the general public knew that we're affected they would not be able to pass this ban that's that gives me inspiration that we have a shot i think we really need to up our game with the the social media stuff we need to learn to understand their language [Music] how does a tiny remote population change the minds of a billion people how do we do it with no money when animal groups are spending millions a year working against us how do we do it when our anger is too quiet and soft to get anyone's attention [Music] spring is coming soon and with it comes the annual anti-ceiling bonanza i've been putting my little tweets out there but it's just not enough then just when i was wondering how to make something go viral ellen degeneres hosted the oscars during the awards she took a celebrity packed selfie picture her oscar selfie became the most retweeted photo of all time it's everywhere the photo was taken on a samsung device and samsung agreed to donate a dollar for every retweet to a charity of ellen's choice ellen is against seal hunting and chose to donate 1.5 million dollars to the humane society of the united states as if they didn't have enough money already now one of the richest anti-sealing groups is getting attention from one of the biggest events in social media history just as anti-sealing season is starting up for the year but then a young inukoman made a youtube video and addressed it directly to ellen and it's getting some media attention so let's check it out ellen my name is i own seal skin boots and they are super cute and i am proud to say that i own them but i also eat seal meat more times than i can count so when you said let me quote seal hunting is one of the most atrocious and inhumane acts against animals allowed by any government personally i was hurt with the words that you use suddenly a huge part of your fan base is targeting us as a people it isn't fair [Music] inspired by kirla's video my friend lacourk and i were talking about what else we could do and she suggested we make a play on the word selfie and post seal fees pictures of ourselves wearing seal skin or hunting or eating seals it's a cheeky but positive way to bring awareness to the fact that inuit are affected by anti-sealing campaigns so we posted our own seal fees we got in touch with local media and put out a call for other ini to join us and use the hashtag sealfee and inuit are responding [Music] [Music] the seal fees are going great but the extreme anti-sealers have found us and our tiny little corner of the internet has exploded with hateful messages my friend tanya taga posted a seal fee of her cute chubby baby next to a freshly caught seal and somebody photoshopped her baby being skinned alive some of the messages that my friends and i are receiving are truly shocking it always catches me off guard you're gonna be able to see my eyes um [Music] uh the media requests about seal fees keep coming and today iu and i got an invitation from al jazeera which is a big network that broadcasts around the world they want us to speak with rebecca aldwerth from the humane society on a live show and she's actually agreed this is my best shot so far at having a conversation with her how much you want to bet she's going to talk about subsistence hunting gotta make sure my uh seal skin earrings are ready to go we're indoors so i'm not gonna wear a seal coat or mitts um but i've to have something seal skin i was really excited to finally have a chance to talk to rebecca aldworth from the humane society and unfortunately last night she cancelled so here we are again um ready to have a conversation and the other side is just not there are you have you seen the selfie campaign what what did you think about it yes i have i'm very proud of the injury that have come out in large numbers and posted their garments and their pride in in wearing seal our digital producer malika bella is here and is our bridge to the digital community we also got a video comment um from the international fund for animal welfare have a listen to this hi my name is cheryl fink i'm the director of canadian wildlife campaigns for the international fund for animal welfare ifa does not oppose subsistence hunting of seals by inuit as a source of food we recognize that food security is very important our campaigns are directed against the commercial slaughter of wildlife for international trade whether it's elephants being killed for their tusks rhinos for their horns or seals for their skins that is the sort of hunting that has shown to be unsustainable over the long term thanks for letting us make this clarification so alethea several organizations talking about their clarifications but what are your thoughts on this and and does that clarification really make a difference if in the minds of let's say those of us here in the state we heal we hear about seal hunting we think bad yeah please notice she said ifa is not against inuit subsistence hunting what she fails to say and she knows this and all of these animal groups know this is that although inuit hunt primarily for food we do also sell skins for commercial income so there is a commercial aspect to the inuit hunt and we need to be able to sell those skins in order to continue hunting and when you reduce the amount of hunting that's going on that's less food on the table for immune i just kept thinking i wish the people from humane society and i thought would have shown up it would have been a much more interesting call [Applause] the al jazeera interview proves once again how hard it can be to get a truly balanced discussion on this issue even so challenging the subsistence only image seems to be working more people are asking about inuit ceiling and we can challenge misinformation but inuk style [Music] [Music] so [Music] i've been disappointed so many times on this issue that i try not to get excited about anything but something good has happened when any think of anti-sealing we think of greenpeace and today greenpeace apologized for the damage they've done to the inuit economy and culture the apology isn't perfect but it's a step in the right direction for them to admit they harmed us and that they'll work to right the wrongs they're still talking about being against commercial sealing as if that doesn't include us i guess time will tell if they'll actually do anything beyond apologizing [Music] despite finally getting a few emails back from a couple of these groups i still haven't managed to get any of them on camera but recently i found an interesting old article about a woman who used to work for ifa it says she brokered a deal with the southern canadian sealers where ifa would be given joint power to decide on their hunt quotas and their hunt would become full use meaning all the meat oil and skins would be used but apparently when she took the deal to her supervisors at ifa she was fired i found her on twitter and she's agreed to skype with me my name is anamika rowell at one point i worked for the international fund for animal welfare for about um 12 13 years if i recall correctly but they were perpetuating um a picture of of uh sealers and the seal hunt that really was not in line with reality um so i started changing my mind a little bit and the sealers wanted the same thing as we did that is a full utilization hunt we brokered a deal um i brought it to my bosses and shortly after i was fired i am over the years i've become convinced that animal welfare and animal rights organizations are not really interested in ending any of these things uh especially the canadian silhouette because it brings in millions of dollars was there much conversation ever about and how they were affected by these campaigns nobody wanted to talk about the fact that the inuit were just as much if not more affected by the european ban as the sealers were yeah it's uh it's amazing to hear you say that because of course i suspect that they knew i don't know if you heard this in the news but greenpeace they apologized to enemies did they really why they did [Music] i can imagine yes i want to take the opportunity right now to apologize for my role while i work with ifa in this whole thing because i am really uh embarrassed and i'm very very that i actually was part of all this and i i feel really to this day it's still it still uh weighs heavily on i'm sorry i need to make you cry no it's uh it's happy to yours i'm okay that's good so seriously i've always um i've do this as i said through this date it still weighs heavily on me so if there's anything i can do please let me know whoa i'm glad you found me [Music] [Music] after all these years of chasing anti-sealers and feeling invisible it was so nice to talk to animika she confirmed they've known about us all along [Music] last time i was in kim is a little boy tagging along with his grandfather now he's 13 years old and he's a hunter in his own right he's providing for his community and it makes me proud he and my son inspire me to keep sharing information respectfully and trust that will eventually turn the tide it's time for a new model of animal activism and i hope the world will see that we as inuit should be a part of it [Music] ah [Music] [Music] so [Music] uh [Music] you