Public Perception and Opinions
The following is the opinion of Welsh NGO Sea Trust:
"In 2006 Sea Trust became aware of the proposed Year of the Dolphin and offered support. We were welcomed as supporters and planned a whole years worth of events and activities in support of the campaign. Our hope of was that YoD would unite small NGO's such as ourselves all around the world and give us the opportunity to support a UN led world wide effort to create an environment of worldwide awareness and condemnation of those who endanger the future of dolphins living free and secure.
Soon after we became uneasy about the partnership of the YoD with sponsor TUI who offer visits to captive cetacean facilities to their clients. At the same time TUI's website featured a dolphinarium in the Dominican Republic. Our point was that TUI were indirectly profiting from the trade in captive dolphins by providing customers for the captive dolphin shows. Dolphins are taken from the wild and sold for 40,000 dollars each to captive dolphin shows around the world. Put simply, ultimately uninformed or gullible tourists pay for these hunts.
TUI may not at the time have been aware of the full implications. Having been informed, we hoped they might make amends, using their considerable influence in the world of mass tourism to clean up this growing threat to wild dolphin populations. Our options were to ignore the problem or try to get something done, especially with regards to TUI claiming to be a company with a green outlook, gaining credibility from our support and that of other NGO's.
No immediate action was taken and we were without any written explanation wiped from the YoD website and the YoD supporters list. The YoD Partners then took credit (I don't think they took sole credit for this, I'm sure your alliance of NGOs had a big role in laying the foundation; however, I suspect a letter from the UN is more likely to elicit action from the DRs president than 100 letters from NGOs; how about calling it synergy..') for "persuading" the Dominican Republic not to take more dolphins from Taiji, when we and other conservation groups made them aware of these issues." —Cliff Benson, Director Sea Trust www.seatrust.org.uk(see discussion forum)
Read more about this topic: Year Of The Dolphin
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