Arctic policy of the European Union in 1973 and Sweden and Finland in 1995). The European Union's application to become a “permanent observer” in the Arctic Council was blocked in 2009 by Canada in response to the European Union's ban on the importation of seal products. The Arctic is an area of growing strategic importance. The European Union supports the successful Arctic co-operation and in helping to meet the challenges that now confront the region. The European Union is the world's strongest proponent of greater international efforts to fight climate change. It has three (and if the accession of Iceland to the European Union occurs, potentially
Inari Ōkami Buddhist were torn down. Among the populace, however, the blended form of worship continued. Some Buddhist temples, such as Toyokawa Inari, maintained Inari worship by arguing that they had always been devoted to a Buddhist deity (often Dakiniten), which the common folk had mistaken as Inari. In the Tokugawa period, when money replaced rice as the measure of wealth in Japan, Inari's role as a "kami" of worldly prosperity was expanded to include all aspects of finance, business, and industry. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, followers of Inari at the Ginza mint struck coins meant for offerings to