Sign on Letter for
Animal Rights and Animal Welfare Organizations Opposed to OFTA
If your
organization would like to be added to this letter, which will be faxed to
every member of Congress, please email adam@wetlands-preserve.org or call
(201) 928-2831 with Your Organization’s Name, Address, Phone, Email, and
Contact Person.
Dear Member of
Congress:
We,
the undersigned animal rights and animal welfare organizations are writing to
express our opposition to the Oman Free Trade Agreement. This agreement
poses a serious threat to the welfare of nonhuman animals, including farmed
animals, marine animals, and terrestrial wildlife, as well as to human health
and the environment.
Marine Life Threatened
by Expanded Fishing and Coastal Development
OFTA not only provides
greater rights to foreign investors, including subsidiaries of US corporations,
greater rights in Oman than they are granted according to US law, it also
allows multinational corporations to actually challenge any US government
decisions about any federal contracts with the company, including natural
resource contracts, service contracts, and infrastructure projects. This
provision essentially ensures US
corporations and their subsidiaries the right to unchecked, destructive
development in Oman.
Oman is home to five species of endangered sea
turtles, and an estimated 30,000 loggerhead sea turtles nest on Masirah Island, Oman. Uncontrolled development has already
led to the disturbance and destruction of beaches that serve as vital nesting,
foraging and feeding locations for a variety of species of sea turtles.
Artificial lighting on the beaches may disorient hatchlings, drawing them away
from the ocean, and vehicle traffic on beaches compresses the sand, making nest
building difficult or impossible2. One solution to this problem is
placing limits on the number of businesses to limit the negative impact of
development projects including oil drilling, hotels, resorts and waste
incinerators 3. Yet such limits are specifically prohibited under
OFTA4.
In addition, Oman has not
signed on to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
(CITES), which regulates international trade in wildlife. However, according to
CITES reports, Oman
is home to 24 species of animals that are threatened with extinction and 189
additional species whose trade must be closely controlled for their survival.
The animals threatened with extinction include the desert lynx, the Arabian
oryx and the Indo-Pacific Humpbacked dolphin, as well as leopards, grey wolves,
urials, ostriches, monitor lizards, manatees, four species of whales, five
species of birds, and five species of sea turtles. These include the green
turtle, the hawksbill turtle, which is also listed on the World Conservation
Union’s Red List of critically endangered species, the loggerhead turtle, the
olive ridley turtle, and the leatherback turtle. Oman currently provides critical
habitat to only two of the five species of sea turtles that live on its shores,
and there is no provision of OFTA that mandates the animals’ protection in the
future.
Destructive fishing is
also a serious concern, as a source of habitat destruction for sea turtles and
other marine animals. Humpback whales, sea turtles, and critically endangered
sawfish and shark species are all seriously threatened by entanglement in
fishing nets and accidental hooking. As larger enterprises sweep through the
seas with their larger nets, sea turtles become entangled in them and drown
when they cannot reach the surface; loggerhead turtles are highly migratory,
and leatherbacks, of which just 2,300 adults are thought to remain, do not dive
very deep, leaving them especially vulnerable to fishers.
Weak Environmental
Protections
The trade agreement with Oman does not
require either country to abide by any set of minimum environmental standards,
nor does it mandate any form of sanctions for breaching key environmental
treaties on biodiversity and species protection. It does, however,
reinforce the trade rules in previous agreements which allow corporations to
sue governments for lost profit if they believe a law, be it environmental or
animal welfare, has hindered their ability to trade. The Oman agreement,
like other trade agreements before it, continues to put corporate profits above
the interests of humans, animals, and the environment.
We ask that all members
of Congress recognize nonhuman animals as stakeholders when weighing the costs
of this agreement. Mahatma Gandhi once said that, “The greatness of a
nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are
treated.” Our nation must apply this principle to matters of
international trade as well as domestic policy and members of Congress must
vote “NO!” to this inhumane agreement.
For a Humane World,
