LENIE ‘T HART GOES TO CANADA
One million needed for Educational Seal Centre and to buy out hunters.
On the 11th of March, Lenie ‘t Hart leaves for Canada to battle against the seal hunt. Last year, 354.000 animals were shot and clubbed to death there. She will also undertake the first steps towards the planning of an Educational Seal Centre on Prince Edward Island. ’t Hart will speak to fishermen who are still hunting seals and will take steps to show that protecting the seal’s ecosystem and providing information about this to the public could in fact be of help to the local population.
A sum of one million euros is needed for setting up an Educational Seal Centre, for developing of alternative forms of employments – for example seal excursions and other forms of ecotourism – and in order to buy out of the seal hunters on Prince Edward Island. Lenie hopes to have a pledge for that sum before she leaves for Canada on the 11th of March. For that reason she will be approaching her network and the Dutch public during the coming days.
Lenie ’t Hart: ‘If the fishermen in the Canadian province Prince Edward Island stop participating in the seal slaughter this will create a great precedent. It will be the beginning of the end of the seal hunt, which is why I will first need to hunt for a million euros.’
The fishery trade-union on Prince Edward Island has recently turned against their national government. The island has obtained a bad reputation, because each year, the bureaucrats from Ottawa’s seat of government establish their headquarters on the island for the seal hunt.
The director of the fishery trade-union Ed Frenette told the Canadian broadcasting company: ‘Tourists worldwide refuse to come to Prince Edward Island because they see us as seal murderers.’
Lenie ’t Hart: ‘We would like to lend the fishermen a helping hand by buying up their seal hunting permits and to compensate them for the income they would otherwise obtain from the yearly seal hunt. Also, we will help them set up an Educational Seal Centre, create ecotourism and wildlife protection programmes. That will be beneficial to the seals, the economy and employment. If the Canadian government keeps refusing to search for alternative solutions for seal hunters elsewhere in Canada, we, as seal protectors, will keep searching for other ways. With Prince Edward Island we are setting the example.’
The director of the SRRC in Pieterburen has joined forces with American Tell-Sell queen, Cathy Kangas. Kangas sells beauty products worldwide in her own television programmes and over the internet. In the United States she will be putting her efforts in realising a total buy-out programme for all seal hunters.02-03-2007 Source: SRRC Lenie 't Hart
