Fur Farming to be banned within 3 years!

national | animal rights | press release Sunday October 11, 2009 01:06 by Laura Broxson - Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade caftireland at gmail dot com PO Box 11019, Dublin 2

CAFT Ireland - Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade

*****PRESS RELEASE*****

3 YEAR PHASE-OUT BAN FOR FUR FARMING IN IRELAND

Contact CAFT Ireland spokesperson: Laura Broxson, 086 8729 444.

Saturday 10th October marked an historical victory for anti-fur campaigners across Ireland. Green Party members voted in favour for a new programme for government, which will see fur farming banned in Ireland within 3years.

"Our greatest goal for our fur farm campaign was to get fur farming banned - we are absolutely thrilled that this dream has now become a reality" says spokesperson for CAFT Ireland, Laura Broxson

"We have lobbied for this for so many years. Campaigning week-in, week-out - from leafleting outside government buildings, to fur farm protests, there is nothing we haven't done in the fight to get this barbaric industry abolished" she said

"There are fur farms that have been operating here for over 30years, it is disgraceful that they weren't banned years ago - but we are glad that the Green's finally came through, for this issue at least, in the end. There is a lot more that needs to be done in terms of animal rights though, we would consider this to be just the first step"

"For the thousands of mink that will be killed over the next 3 years, a phase-out ban simply isn't good enough, which is why we will continue protesting the fur farms until the day they close"

"Then we can turn our attention to banning the importation of fur in Ireland. The campaign will not end until we make this country completely fur-free" she added

CAFT Ireland - The History behind the Campaign:

Ireland’s Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT) was set up in 2005, based on CAFT UK, and has been campaigning against the country's fur trade ever since.

Every week since 2006, we have protested and leafleted outside of the Department of Agriculture (as they were responsible for licensing these death camps), keeping the pressure on the Irish government to ban fur farming in Ireland .

Every second Saturday we also have very visual and noisy protests outside shops and stores in Dublin that sell real fur, resulting in many fur-free successes (for more details, see: http://www.naracampaigns.org/furcampaign.html).

Since 2005, we have:

Organised over 400 demonstrations

Given out over 200,000 leaflets

Distributed over 300 anti-fur information packs

Organised annual Fur Farm awareness days and protests outside Ireland's largest fur farm, Vasa Ltd., in Co. Laois

In 2009, for the first time in the history of Irish anti-fur campaigning, we organised a 'Fur Farm Exposé Tour', in which we traveled to every fur-farming county to leaflet the towns and protest outside the actual farms. This was a very effective tool in highlighting the issue, resulting in a lot of newspaper and radio coverage.

Produced a campaign video on the issue, thanks to anonymously received footage exposing Irish fur farms, which can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/naracampaigns

Sent out 109 fur farm exposé packs to to various TD's, Ministers, SPCA's, radio stations and newspapers. This resulted in a number of Irish politicians getting onboard with the campaign, and an investigation on the fur farms being launched.