Thursday

Oproep aan de Verenigde Naties

In de week voor Werelddierendag heeft Compassion in World Farming samen met vijf grote internationale organisaties een beroep gedaan op de Verenigde Naties om meer aandacht te schenken aan het welzijn van dieren.

Op een bijeenkomst van de FAO (de Voedsel- en landbouworganisatie van de VN) deden de organisaties tien aanbevelingen aan de FAO om in alle aspecten van haar werk rekening te houden met het welzijn van dieren. Dat is niet alleen in het belang van miljarden landbouw- en werkdieren in de hele wereld, maar ook van boeren en hun gezinnen. Voorkomen moet worden dat de bio-industrie, die in het rijke westen steeds meer ter discussie staat, zich uitbreidt en de samenleving ontwricht in ontwikkelingslanden, aldus de organisaties.
De oproep aan de FAO werd behalve door Compassion In World Farming gedaan door Brookes Hospital for Animals, Eurogroup for Animals, Humane Society of the USA, de Britse Dierenbescherming (RSPCA) en de World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA). Het initiatief werd gesteund door de regeringen van Argentinië, Brazilië, Costa Rica en Zweden.

Doe mee: teken voor de
Universele Verklaring voor Dierenwelzijn


Steeds meer internationale instellingen, zoals bijvoorbeeld de Europese Unie, onderschrijven het belang van het welzijn van dieren. Maar de grootste en belangrijkste landenorganisatie, de Verenigde Naties, heeft dat nog niet gedaan. Daarom roept Compassion in World Farming, samen met grote internationale collega-organisaties, de VN op een Universele Verklaring voor Dierenwelzijn op te stellen. Het aannemen van zo'n verklaring door alle 192 landen van de VN zou een mijlpaal zijn. Het zou helpen:

regeringen ertoe aan te zetten hun nationale wetgeving op het gebied van dierenwelzijn te verbeteren;
de basis te leggen voor wetgeving over dierenwelzijn in landen waar dit nog niet bestaat;
de wereldbevolking te doordringen van het belang van dierenwelzijn.
Doe nu mee en teken de oproep aan de Verenigde Naties!

Lees meer over ons werk op ciwf.nl
http://www.ciwf.nl/directdoen/mailprotest/verenigdenaties.php

Tuesday

To fight global warming, it is easy to insist the government implement new laws and policies. It is also relatively easy (albeit expensive) to change to a more fuel-efficient car. None of these affect one's personal life in any significant way, however.

If one takes the threat of global warming seriously, the most powerful personal step you can take may well be choosing a vegetarian diet. As pointed out in the Baltimore Sun (July 19, 2007; reproduced here):

We're getting "greener": Recycling, energy-saving light bulbs and fuel-efficient hybrid cars are now a part of our culture and economy. But most people are neglecting one of the most important steps toward stopping global warming: adopting a vegetarian diet.

Livestock a major threat to environment

According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent – 18 percent – than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.

Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAO’s Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior author of the report: “Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.”

With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products every year. Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes.

Long shadow

The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agricultural sub-sector. It provides livelihoods to about 1.3 billion people and contributes about 40 percent to global agricultural output. For many poor farmers in developing countries livestock are also a source of renewable energy for draft and an essential source of organic fertilizer for their crops.

But such rapid growth exacts a steep environmental price, according to the FAO report, Livestock’s Long Shadow –Environmental Issues and Options. “The environmental costs per unit of livestock production must be cut by one half, just to avoid the level of damage worsening beyond its present level,” it warns.

When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.

And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

Land and water

At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about 20 percent of pastures considered as degraded through overgrazing, compaction and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands where inappropriate policies and inadequate livestock management contribute to advancing desertification.

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs. The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops. Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of above and below ground water resources. Significant amounts of water are withdrawn for the production of feed.

Livestock are estimated to be the main inland source of phosphorous and nitrogen contamination of the South China Sea, contributing to biodiversity loss in marine ecosystems.

Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all terrestrial animal biomass. Livestock’s presence in vast tracts of land and its demand for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity loss; 15 out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed as in decline, with livestock identified as a culprit.

Remedies

The report, which was produced with the support of the multi-institutional Livestock, Environment and Development (LEAD) Initiative, proposes explicitly to consider these environmental costs and suggests a number of ways of remedying the situation, including:

Land degradation – controlling access and removing obstacles to mobility on common pastures. Use of soil conservation methods and silvopastoralism, together with controlled livestock exclusion from sensitive areas; payment schemes for environmental services in livestock-based land use to help reduce and reverse land degradation.

Atmosphere and climate – increasing the efficiency of livestock production and feed crop agriculture. Improving animals’ diets to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions, and setting up biogas plant initiatives to recycle manure.

Water – improving the efficiency of irrigation systems. Introducing full-cost pricing for water together with taxes to discourage large-scale livestock concentration close to cities.

These and related questions are the focus of discussions between FAO and its partners meeting to chart the way forward for livestock production at global consultations in Bangkok this week. These discussions also include the substantial public health risks related to the rapid livestock sector growth as, increasingly, animal diseases also affect humans; rapid livestock sector growth can also lead to the exclusion of smallholders from growing markets

Thursday

Today, too many animals are transported under unacceptable conditions on European highways. The most important issue is the duration of the transports. Current EU legislation allows for animals to be transported for several days. This has to be changed. Live animals for slaugther should never be transported for more than eight hours. Support 8hours. Our goal is to collect 1,000,000 signatures, something EU politicians will not be able to ignore.

Please take a moment to sign and help! Here is the link:

http://www.8hours.eu/index.php?lang=en
From the shampoo or shaving cream we use in the morning to the cologne we apply to go out on the town, our personal care products say a lot about us.

But there's one thing your makeup or shampoo choices should never say: that you support torturing and killing animals.

Of all the ridiculous reasons that people inflict needless suffering on animals, vanity is one of the most pathetic. Despite the availability of effective and cruelty-free product-testing methods, countless individual rabbits, mice, and other animals are still poisoned, blinded, and killed every year in outdated and ineffective tests—all for the personal care products that fill many people's bathroom cabinets.

When PETA's investigations expose companies testing on animals, we tell people to shop elsewhere. And this economic pressure gets corporate attention, often when nothing else will. Major corporations, including Revlon, Mary Kay, Method Home, Estée Lauder, Bath & Body Works, and others, have signed PETA's pledge against animal testing. In the last year alone, 44 companies have licensed PETA's cruelty-free bunny logo, which certifies their stand against cruel and unnecessary tests on animals.

Yet some companies, such as L'Oréal, Unilever, and Johnson & Johnson, remain in the "dark ages," performing cruel and crude tests on rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and other animals. Companies like these drip caustic chemicals into the sensitive eyes of rabbits, blinding them before they kill them, or they pump nail polish down animals' throats to see how much they can endure before dying in agony.

And for what? Animal tests on most consumer products are not required by the government. These experiments are bad science and do nothing to make products any safer. Even if a cosmetics maker finds that its mascara blinds animals, the company can still legally sell it to you! With the availability of so many effective non-animal testing methods—which are cheaper, faster, and more reliable—conducting animal tests for personal care products is not just unnecessary but also inexcusable.