Decolonizing seal trade

In 2009, the European Parliament and the European Council ratified a ban on seal product trade, which was actively promoted by animal welfare and environmental organizations. This was a response to commercial seal hunting in Canada, which was considered inhumane and against EU citizens’ moral foundations. The ban affected not only commercial seal hunting, but also Inuit in Greenland and the North-East coast of Canada. Seal hunting is a significant part of Inuit culture, identity, social structures, resilience – and economy. Proceeds from selling the seal skins enables Inuit to purchase supplies for hunting, which contributes to food security in rural Arctic communities. The EU seal trade ban does not limit the Inuit seal product trade: Inuit seal hunting is considered sustainable and humane. However, with the introduction of the ban, sales from the Inuit seal hunt dropped drastically and have not recovered. This thesis studies the impacts of the EU seal trade ban on the Inuit, Finnish citizens’ impressions of seal clothing and the abilities of design to decolonize these. These are embedded in the research questions: ‘How do the limitations on seal trade in Europe affect the Inuit?’ and ‘How do sustainability discourses define the Inuit seal trade?’ and studied through a literature review. The results for the third question, ‘How can seal clothing contribute to decolonizing sustainability and knowledges?’ are based on a literature review and a questionnaire that was conducted in 2017 and received 350 responses. The structure of the thesis is organized with Charles S. Peirce’s semiotic methodology and the data is analysed with decolonial theories by Aníbal Quijano, Walter D. Mignolo and Tony Fry. The results of the thesis indicate that while for European Council and animal welfare organizations the EU sea trade ban was a question of morals, for Inuit it formed a question of cultural and human rights. These views are tied to location and culture. However, this study proposes that with Fry’s decolonial design theories, co-understanding of sustainabilities could be achieved by (i) designing seal clothing that ontologically decolonizes, and (ii) designing borderlands which make these points of view tangible and invite the stakeholders to re-evaluate the seal trade discussion by placing it in a cultural and geographical context.Vuonna 2009, Euroopan Unionin Parlamentti ja Neuvosto hyväksyivät hyljetuotteiden kauppakiellon, jota eläin- ja ympäristönsuojelujärjestöt olivat aktiivisesti ajaneet 70-luvulta lähtien. Kauppakielto oli kannanotto Kanadan kaupalliseen hylkeenpyyntiin, joka koettiin aiheuttavan eläimille tarpeetonta kärsimystä ja sen myötä se on vastoin EU:n kansalaisten moraalikäsitystä. Kielto vaikutti kaupallisen hylkeenpyynnin lisäksi myös Inuiitteihin Grönlannissa ja Kanadan koillisrannikolla. Hylkeenpyynti on osa Inuiittien kulttuuria, identiteettiä, sosiaalista rakennetta, resilienssiä ja – taloutta. Sillä on myös tärkeä rooli Arktisten kylien ruuansaannin turvaamisessa ja hylkeennahkojen myynnistä saatavat tulot kattavatkin erityisesti metsästyksen kustannuksia, kuten polttoainekuluja. EU:n hyljetuotteiden myyntikiellon ei ollut tarkoitus vaikuttaa Inuiittien harjoittamaan hyljekauppaan, sillä se koetaan humaaniksi ja kestäväksi. Kuitenkin, kauppakiellon voimaanastuessa myös kysyntä Inuiittien myymille hyljetuotteille romahti, eikä kauppa ole vieläkään toipunut. Tämä tutkimus tarkastelee EU:n kauppakiellon vaikutusta Inuiittehin, suomalaisten käsityksiä hyljevaatetuksesta ja muotoilun mahdollisuuksia vaikuttaa näihin. Tutkimuskysymyksiä ’Kuinka hyljekaupan rajoitukset Euroopassa vaikuttavat Inuiitteihin?’ ja ’Kuinka kestävän kehityksen diskurssit määrittelevät Inuiittien hyljekaupan?’ käsitellään kirjallisuuden kautta. Vastaukset kolmanteen tutkimuskysymykseen, ’Kuinka hyljevaatetus voi osallistua dekolonisoimaan kestävää kehitystä ja tietokäsitystä?’, on johdettu aikaisemmasta tutkimuksesta, sekä vuonna 2017 tehdystä kyselystä, joka keräsi 350 vastausta kaikkialta Suomesta. Tämän tutkimuksen rakenne on organisoitu Charles Peircen semioottisen metodologian mukaan ja aineisto on analysoitu Aníbal Quijanon, Walter D. Mignolon ja Tony Fryn dekolonisaatiota käsittelevien teorioiden mukaan. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat EU:n hyljetuotteiden kauppakiellon olleen sekä EU:n Neuvostolle, että eläinsuojelujärjestöille erityisesti moraalinen kysymys. Sitä vastoin Inuiiteille EU:n kauppakiellossa oli eritoten kyse kulttuurisista ja ihmisoikeuksista. Nämä molemmat näkemykset ovat sidoksissa kulttuuriin ja sijaintiin. Tämä tutkimus ehdottaa, Fry:n dekoloniaalisen muotoilun teorioita mukaillen, kulttuurienvälisen yhteisymmärryksen luomista kestävistä kehityksistä (i) muotoilemalla hyljevaatetusta, joka ontologisesti dekolonisoi ja (ii) luomalla rajamaita [borderlands], jotka sijoittavat hyljekaupan kulttuuriseen ja maantieteelliseen kontekstiin ja sitä kautta kutsuu osallisia arvioimaan uudelleen käsityksen hyljekaupasta

News ... of the Humane Society of the United States 17(2)

U.S. ends poisoning of predators Rhino Round-Up off in wake of protest Sealing: Good news and bad news Salt Lake City selected for annual meeting It\u27s official: Big cats are rare Polar bear ban urged Snowmobiles banned Tyler, Texas, shelter cited for construction HSUS urges ban on seal killing HSUS continues to spur improvements in zoos Legislative Roundup Soring regulations U.S. pays farms to permit hunts Utah branch improves inhumane pound Tattoo your dog Scouts, society unite in projects for animal

HS NEWS Volume 27, Number 02

President’s Perspective: Who speaks for animals? (John A. Hoyt) Another spring Silver Spring update Seal ban in sight Survey success Canine kudos Typo revealed No veal this meal : The HSUS public-awareness campaign draws national attention to the plight of milk-fed veal calves 1981 annual photography contest winners announced Wild horses and a tarnished dream: eleven years after passage of the act designed to protect them, wild horses face a government treat to trim their numbers and send thousands to an uncertain fate MMPA given new life 1080 update Grandy testifies for ESA AWA budget axed Setting the agenda Four cheers Lab changes sought Capitol rally headlines second Day of the Seal The anti-cat cult? : a rash of anti-cat books prompts an emotional response from cat lovers and feline-phobes alike (Julie Rovner) Campaigning for laboratory animals (Patricia Forkan) The HSUS cleans up at the dogfights Bunching decision upheld Spring assault Dommers named Director Trap ban sought Pound-seizure end? Bunny Bop blows up The Endangered Species Act: are your officials representing your views? (John W. Grandy) Tax deductions and non-itemizers Watt and BLM sued IRS clinic ruling HSUS opposes USDA mov

Measures with Multiple Purposes: Puzzles from EC-Seal Products

European Communities—Measures Prohibiting the Importation and Marketing of Seal Products is the first case in which the dispute system of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has wrestled with a regulation that pursued multiple conflicting, legitimate purposes. (I will explain later why Brazil—Retreaded Tyres is not such a case.) This generates puzzles about applying the definition of a “technical regulation” to complex measures; about whether an exception to a ban can be justified by a purpose different from that of the ban; and about how to apply “less restrictive alternative” analysis to measures with multiple goals. The first of these puzzles is unique to the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT); the second and third concern the TBT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and probably other agreements

The Continuing Challenge of CORI Reform: Implementing the Groundbreaking 2010 Massachusetts Law

Assesses the impact to date of a law reforming the criminal offender records information system to facilitate ex-offenders' reintegration into society and reduce recidivism by enabling them to obtain employment, housing, and positive social ties

Structural Injustice and the Place of Attachment

Reflection on the historical injustice suffered by many formerly colonized groups has left us with a peculiar account of their claims to material objects. One important upshot of that account, relevant to present day justice, is that many people seem to think that members of indigenous groups have special claims to the use of particular external objects by virtue of their attachment to them. In the first part of this paper I argue against that attachment-based claim. In the second part I suggest that, to provide a normatively defensible account of why sometimes agents who are attached to certain external objects might also have special claims over them, the most important consideration is whether the agents making such claims suffer from structural injustice in the present. In the third part I try to explain why structural injustice matters, in what way attachment-based claims relate to it and when they count

Using Deep Learning to Detect Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Bottle Status for Recycling

Following the recent ban on plastic waste import by China developed countries face challenges with a high amount of plastic waste Plastic waste has been diverted to developing East-Asia countries like the Philippines Vietnam and Malaysia The Malaysian government has taken strict action to send back over 3000 tons of contaminated plastic waste This paper aims to establish mechanisms to detect the status of post-consumer PET bottles for recycling A research-based and experimental design approach was adopted to develop mechanisms to detect PET bottle status to ensure high-quality bottles A total of 1749 images were captured using a Raspberry Pi camera belonging to four different classes seal cap seal cap no seal cap content Deep Learning technology SqueezeNet was used to train the PET bottle images The trained model achieved 98 accuracy with correct bottle status recognized The model was deployed on a Raspberry Pi to detect PET bottles in real-time The model showed a delay of 0 018 to 0 022 seconds per prediction using Intel CPU in prediction performance Whereas on Raspberry Pi the prediction performance is 5 to 10 times slower than the Intel CPU with a delay of 0 1 to 0 25 seconds per predictio