Sealskin...a question of ethics.

When designing my shoes my concept is based on beautiful handmade shoes inspired by Norwegian heritage and the Scandinavian weather.
I remember when I was young that several kids in my class wore sealskin boots in the winter and I was jealous because I never had any.
They were water proof,warm and when recently research they are made of the most waterproof material in the world.
When designing I looked back at these sealskin boots for inspiration as well as as using the material and it made me face the issues as a designer,do I use fur?

When talking to the factory about production and inquiring about the seal skin they used they had also discovered that the way we think about ethical trading is changing so they had gone away from using class A seal skin(unharmed skins-baby seals) to grade B seals (big seals and no baby skins).They also now buy skins from Greenland,where they are not allowed to club the seals on the ice,but shoot them from boats as this limits them to vast quantities.

It was a hard decision to make but after a lot of debate and the issues of how the hunting trade is a part of Inuit culture and without it a part of that culture dies,jobs are lost and the issues of alcoholism within unemployed people occur.
I have now chosen to use two styles with sealskin.