We are delighted to announce the first in our series of Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia Webinars.

Using previously unseen video material specifically recorded for Pan Orthodox Concern for Animals Charity (POCA), our esteemed panel of Orthodox theologians will discuss themes from two videos entitled ‘Raising Awareness’ and ‘Leave us in Peace’.

The Flyer below gives further information and details of how to register. Please share with your friends and local churches to encourage Parish engagement with the subject of Creation Care.

JANUARY

We began the year with the good news that the accomplished Orthodox theologian and philosopher, Nikolaos Asproulis will join Pan Orthodox Concern for Animals as its new Chair, whilst Dr Christina Nellist will remain President and become its new Treasurer, following the death last year of Father Simon Nellist.

Dr. Nikolaos is currently Deputy Director (2017- today) of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, Volos, Greece, and Lecturer at the Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece. He graduated in Theology (University of Athens, 1997). He obtained MTh (2007) and PhD degrees (2016) in Theology at Hellenic Open University. Asproulis’ research focuses on the history and development of contemporary Orthodox theology (20st – 21st century), a field in which he approached several research avenues: systematic theology, ecclesiology, political theology, spirituality, hermeneutics, and animal theology. During his doctoral research, he specialized in the study of contemporary Orthodox theology with a special focus on the neo-patristic movement and its main figures (Florovsky and Zizioulas). His dissertation was entitled “Creation, History and Eschaton in Contemporary Orthodox Theological Hermeneutics: From Georges Florovsky to John D. Zizioulas.” He published articles in peer-reviewed journals like the Review of Ecumenical Studies, Communio Viatorum, Participatio, et. al., while he serves as reviewer in journals like Critical Research on Religion (Sage), Open Theology (De Gruyter) and Review of Ecumenical Studies (De Gruyter). Dr Nikolaos was an academic associate of the official scholarly theological journal of the Orthodox Church of Greece, Theologia (2009-2016). He is currently an official representative of the Church of Greece in CEC thematic group on Economic and Ecological Justice (2017-8, 2019-2023), Coordinator of the Network of Ecumenical Learning in Eastern and Central Europe (Nelcee – http://www.nelcee.org/); WP5 Volos Academy Team member of RESILIENCE (https://www.resilience-ri.eu/) ; and project manager of the Ecotheological project and activities of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies (https://churchgoesgreen.acadimia.org). Furthermore, he is fluent in Greek (native), English (excellent), French (reading, understanding). Despite the demanding work to organize more than 15 international conferences at Volos Academy between 2009 till today, Nikolaos has not ceased publishing since the start of his doctoral trajectory with the resulting list of numerous contributions to international journals and book chapters. Nikolasos has published over 73 articles, written 5 books, edited, or coedited 15 books and translated 7 books. He is expected to publish in 2025, a first systematic contribution to Animal Studies from an Orthodox perspective under the title: Eastern Orthodox Christian Animal Theology: God, Animals and Creation in Dialogue (Lexington Books, forthcoming 2025). We are sure you will agree that this is an excellent appointment and join us in congratulating him on his appointment.

Throughout the year we continued to support various petitions and sign letters to government ministers or institutions to increase animal protection and decrease animal suffering. This covers Bills/Acts on a wide range of issues such as the Animals Low Welfare Activities Abroad Act; the banning of animal skins in London Fashion Week; switching from real fur to faux fur for the King’s Guard’s headwear; calling for the government to ban children from attending hunts; banning the use of harmful pesticides that kill insects and bees; stopping the unnecessary deaths of many horses each year in racing events; banning the Canadian seal hunt; banning greyhound racing; banning the horse-drawn carriages in Mallorca; banning the badger cull in the UK; urging airlines to stop shipping animals to research laboratories, etc.

We also continued to post details, teachings and icons of Orthodox Saints who are known for their kindness and care for animals (Orthodox and non-Orthodox) such as St Seraphim of Sarov; St Brendan; St Isaac the Syrian; St Paul the Hermit; St Ninian; St Gertrude; St. Paisios; St. Luke of Simferopol; St. Hubertus; St Blaise.

We also continued to post details or links to various Reports on aspects of animal protection and climate instability, such as the report on reducing meat and dairy diets, which is, of course, relevant for both issues.

On other occasions we published more detailed work or information of our presentations at various events, such as that of Dr. Nikolaos Asproulis, deputy director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies and Chair of POCA, who delivered a talk at the conference entitled Together for Europe Workshop Ecology. This was on the ontological interdependence among all creatures of God and the need for Christian theology to reconsider the content of the imago Dei doctrine so as to also include non-human creatures, and his attendance at the latest Halki Summit and topic “Water: Spirit and Science – Exploring Spiritual and Scientific Perspectives”, organized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in cooperation with the Hellenic Open University.

MARCH

In March we began to work on a new book relating to Orthodoxy entitled:  CREATION CARE: EASTERN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVES and this should be published during 2025.

We also began discussions on how we might begin a Newsletter for our followers. One outcome was to invite individuals from different countries to write a paragraph or so, on the situation in their respective countries regarding Animal Protection, including any events, seminars etc on this and related themes, by the church.

MAY

In May, Dr Christina Nellist was invited by the Volos Academy to present a paper at the European Academy of Religion’s conference in Sicily, on how farmed animals and the meat and dairy diet, play a significant part in climate instability.

AUGUST

 In August Dr Christina was invited by the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics to give a lecture at Merton College, Oxford, on the work of the great Russian Writer, Philosopher and Theologian, Count Lev Tolstoy. This was entitled ‘Ahimsa, Animals and Anarchy’, and will be published in a book of collected papers by Palgrave in the coming year.

Dr Christina was also invited to participate in an Interfaith Vegan Panel discussion organised by the Shamayim Jewish Animal Advocacy.

See – https://youtu.be/CJIgw9i1LMI

SEPTEMBER

We promote Orthodox and non-orthodox calls for papers from different publishing houses/ journals and organizations, and we publish details of our books and articles in journals/magazines, e.g.                             

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-7420-5;

https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=IfN0DwAAQBAJ

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-7421-2.

https://ecen.org/articles/orthodox-church-addresses-climate-crisis

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/priests-of-creation-9780567699107

OE Magazine 2nd Edition (1) – Flipbook – Page 1 (paperturn-view.com)

We also answer questions and requests from members of the public from across the world on a range of issues.

We continue to promote Green Parish initiatives and education at Parish level.

In September we were blessed with a new Patron, Met. Serafim Kykotis of Zimbabwe

and Angola.

His Eminence, the Most Reverend Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis of Zimbabwe is the Archbishop of Zimbabwe and Angola and Exarch of Southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Angola), part of the Church of Alexandria. Prior to his assignment to Zimbabwe  and Angola, Archbishop Seraphim was Archbishop of Johannesburg and Archbishop of Kenya.

His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis was born on February 2, 1961 in Galataria, Paphos. George knew that he wanted to serve God at an early age so, at the age of twelve years, he was accepted as a novice, with the name Seraphim, at the Monastery of Kykkos on the island of Cyprus (hence the surname Kykkotis). Besides from working with agriculture at the monastery, the young Seraphim was a very good student, first attending the Pan-Cypriot High School and then the Lyceum of Kykkos from which he graduated with honors in 1982.

On September 8, 1983, Seraphim was ordained a Hierodeacon by Archbishop Chrysostomos of Nea Justiniana (1977–2006). He was then transferred from the Church of Cyprus to the Church of Greece under Archbishop Seraphim of Athens (1974–2004) in order to continue his education at the Theological School of the University of Athens, from which he graduated in 1987. During the period he attended the theological faculty, Hierodeacon Seraphim also served in Athens. Upon return to Kykkos in Cyprus, he served as Director of the Library of his Monastery.

From 1988 to 1991, Hierodeacon Seraphim continued his education in Great Britain, studying English and Patristics at Christ Church college in Canterbury and at the Universities of Oxford and Durham under His Eminence Kallistos (Ware)  then Bishop of Dioclea (1982–2007), Professor of Orthodox Theology at Oxford and Very Rev. Dr. George Dragas.

Metropolitan Serafim as ecologist stresses that everything one has received from God must be given back, without corruption. For him, hunger and poverty in Africa are a result of our sins and selfishness. He emphasizes the important of ecological metanoia (repentance) from our ecological sins, by starting a new green way of life without polluting the creation of God. “Because Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are everywhere present and fill all things, this gives us a holy vision in which we recognize that the life of God exists in all things, everywhere in the world. We must have respect for all things in the creation and treat every living thing, every person, every animal, every bird, every tree and every leaf with love, care and respect. As Orthodox Christians we inspire others by living our Christian faith. This is also our most powerful way of teaching. The scriptures tell us many things about the right operation of the earth. As Orthodox Christians we must strive to fulfil all of the Biblical teachings. Today we realize that the best ecologists are the saints. They often tame wild animals, bring healing to people and the earth, and teach a gentle, kind and loving way toward all things.”

He was elected Metropolitan of Kenya and Tanzania in 1997. In these countries today there are three Metropolis and five Bishoprics. He served also as the Dean of the Seminary of Nairobi “Archbishop Makarios III of Cyprus”. Later he was elected Metropolitan of Johannesburg and Pretoria-Tsuane (2001 -2010). Since 2010, he serves as Metropolitan of Zimbabwe and Angola. He is a Member of the Patriarchal Commission on Environment and Sustainable Development, he represents the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and His Holiness Pope and Patriarch Theodoros II at the International Organizations, UN, AU and to WCC and All African Conference of Churches as well as at the official International Theological Dialogue of Orthodox and Anglicans. He is also member of the Central com. of the WCC and member of the new commission on Climate justice and sustainable Development of WCC. His Eminence observes his name day on January 2 in memory of Saint Seraphim of Sarov.

We are also blessed with the inclusion of Dr David Goodin, Professeur Associé at the Université Laval, Institut de Théologie Orthodoxe de Montréal, as the latest member of our administrative team and our Canadian representative.

Dr David’s research interests include theodicy and eco-theology with a specialization on the sacred forests of the Ethiopian Täwaḥədo tradition. He is the author of numerous academic books and articles, including Confronting Evil: Theodicy in the Eastern Patristic Tradition (Alexander Press, 2021). Originally from Miami, Florida, Dr. David K. Goodin now resides and teaches in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

OCTOBER

In October our President was interviewed on her work and the work of our charity, by the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association. This will be aired on their television channel in the near future.

At the end of the month Dr Christina attended a two-day Annual Egyptological colloquium at the British Museum, entitled: ‘Animal mummies: from beliefs to practice’ as part of her ongoing research into this subject.

 Mummy of a cat, Egypt, British Museum EA 65502 (photograph and x-ray image).

NOVEMBER

Our President attended the Animals in War Service at the Memorial in Park Lane, London, where she laid a wreath on behalf of Pan Orthodox Concern for Animals and the Animal Interfaith Alliance.

Here is the link to a short article on the service and this year’s speech from a member of the NOWZAD TEAM.

ANIMALS IN WAR REMEMBRANCE SERVICE – Pan-Orthodox Concern for Animals

DECEMBER

In November and December much time was given to organising THE PAN ORTHODOX CONCERN FOR ANIMALS’ WEBINAR SERIES. Our first Webinar will be on the work of Met. Kallistos of Diokleia entitled: MET. KALLISTOS OF DIOKLEIA: EDUCATION ON ANIMALS AND CREATION CARE. It will take place on February 25^th, 2025, at the following times: US Pacific 10:00; US Eastern 13:00; UK 18:00; Greece 20:00; Moscow 21:00. The Panel will include Fr John Chryssavgis; Dr Nikolaos Asproulis; Fr Nektariy (Sokolov); Dr Elizabeth Theokritoff and Dr Christina Nellist.

Using unseen video material created for POCA, the panel will discuss themes raised in two Met. Kallistos videos – ‘Raising Awareness’ and ‘Leave us in Peace.’ Information will also be given on relevant Orthodox courses and materials followed by an audience Q & A. The Webinar will be hosted by The Volos Academy for Theological Studies. An official flyer will be produced in early 2025, and we will ask you to download it and circulate it among your churches and the wider communities.

Further invitations to give interviews and present at International conferences have been received for 2025 and we shall keep you updated on our FB group and page:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/241617983038367

Facebook

Finally, the POCA team thank you for your help and support, which is so very gratefully received, and the pleasure of wishing you all a wonderful 2025.

by George P. Nassos

Sustainability Should Be Embedded in All Business Courses

After 32 years in the corporate world, which ended over 25 years ago, I went into academia as the Director of the MS in Environmental Management & Sustainability program at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Stuart School of Business. It was a few years later when I concluded that sustainability should not be a separate curriculum, but rather be embedded in all the courses of the other business curricula. I tried to convince the director of the MBA program, but it was too early in the understanding of sustainability strategies. Consequently, the business school professors did not want to make changes to their syllabi.

Since that time the major environmental issues of our planet have deteriorated further, and environmental sustainability has become even more important. Global warming, now known as climate change, has increased and exceeding the 1.5°C. increase limit is inevitable. The overconsumption of our natural resources continues to increase, and globally we are consuming the equivalent of 1.7 earths of resources such as food, wood, cotton, and other agricultural products. The quantity and quality of freshwater continues to decline with fracking as an example of the misuse of this valuable resource. And, of course, contributing to all of these environmental issues is the rapid growth of the population. In less than 100 years, we have more than quadrupled the global population, going from two billion to over eight billion. For these reasons, sustainability is much more critical in preserving our planet while the business organizations continue to provide their products and services.

Around the beginning of the 21st century, companies started to create positions for sustainability managers either by hiring someone who completed a sustainability program or promoting someone within to fill the position. Quite often, the person promoted into the position was not sufficiently knowledgeable to hold such a position, but the company fulfilled the requirements of its stakeholders to have such a position in the company.

Today, having a sustainability director or Chief Sustainability Officer can be asking too much from the person if s/he does not have a staff for support. A recent study of around 2,200 sustainability professionals found that one-third of the respondents were dissatisfied with the resources accessible to them. There were so few resources available to them that many cases resulted in burnout. The problem is that there are not enough fellow employees that are knowledgeable in sustainability. The obvious way to resolve this issue is for their fellow employees to learn something about sustainability. Companies should offer sustainability training to their employees so they can all work together to make the company truly sustainable while at the same time avoiding greenwashing.

This problem could easily be avoided if the schools, business schools and other colleges, embedded sustainability in the appropriate curricula. In a business school offering a major in marketing, for example, sustainability should be included in the various marketing courses teaching the students the benefits of sustainability for the purpose of marketing the product. An

operations management course should include sustainability in order to learn how to make a company’s operations sustainable in terms of material use efficiency and energy consumption. The finance courses would include something that has become very popular, that of ESG investing. ESG, the latest term referring to sustainable development, has led to ESG investing as those companies operating truly sustainably outperform those that haven’t found sustainability yet. Accounting students need to understand sustainability as there are many new SEC reporting requirements for companies operating sustainably.

I highly recommend that business schools eliminate their MS programs in Sustainability Management and embed sustainability in all their other curricula. This way all their graduates will understand the benefits of sustainability and how to implement them. However, the business schools should still offer a certificate program in sustainability for former students that never learned the subject. As an alternative to obtaining a sustainability certificate, companies should offer in-house training in sustainability for those employees that didn’t learn this very important strategy in school. Companies will then have a major portion of their employees knowledgeable about sustainability, and they can all work together to improve their company and the global environment as much as possible.

When considering the results of the recent presidential election, environmental sustainability, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), or ESG (Environment, Social, Governance), whatever you want to call it, may be more important than ever in the U.S. Donald Trump has pledged to terminate some Environmental Protection Agency rules targeting power plant pollution, end certain rules encouraging electric vehicle sales, ease liquid natural gas export permitting, increase oil drilling, and other environmental issues. Sustainability strategies should be integrated into the operations of businesses of all sizes as soon as possible so we can protect our environment regardless of the Trump administration’s new policies.

ANIMAL IN WAR 2024 LONDON

This is a brief commentary on the 2024 Animals in War Remembrance service for the millions of animals who have died in human conflicts.

We gathered at the beautiful Animals in War Memorial in Park Lane at 15:00 hours. It was cold as is usual at this time of year, but standing in that cold is a reminder of the tiny sacrifice we make to honour those animals who suffered and died, and continue to die, during the many human-made conflicts around the world.

This service is organized by The Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals (ASWA), who are also part of the Animal Interfaith Alliance (AIA), as is our own organization Pan-Orthodox Concern for Animals (POCA).

The service was conducted by Rev Samantha Chandler and began with an Introduction, Welcome and first hymn ‘O God our help in ages past’, followed by an Old Testament reading from Isaiah 2:3-4 (NRSVA). This was followed by a poem by Richard Biby:

JUST A DOG

From time to time, people tell me, “lighten up, it’s just a dog,” or “that’s a lot of money for just a dog.”

They don’t understand the distance travelled, the time spent, or the costs involved for “just a dog.”

Some of proudest moments have come about with “just a dog.”

Many hours have passed, and my only company was “just a dog”, but I did not once feel slighted.

Some of my saddest moments have been brought about by “just a dog”, and in those days of darkness, the gentle touch of “just a dog” gave me comfort and reason to overcome the day.

If you, too, think it’s “just a dog”, then you probably understand phrases like “just a friend”, “just a sunrise”, or “just a promise.”

“Just a dog” brings into my life the very essence of friendship, trust, and pure unbridled joy.

 “Just a dog” brings out the compassion and patience that make me a better person.

Because of “just a dog” I will rise early, take long walks and look longingly to the future.

So, for me and folks like me, it’s not “just a dog” but an embodiment of all the hopes and dreams of the future, the fond memories of the past, and the pure joy of the moment.

“Just a dog” brings out what’s good in me and diverts my thoughts away from myself and the worries of the day. I hope that someday they can understand that it’s not “just a dog” but the thing that gives me humanity and keeps me from being “just a man” or “just a woman.”

So, the next time you hear the phrase “just a Dog”, just smile, because they “just don’t understand.”

                                                                ………………..

This was followed by another poem, written and read by Janet Wilkes, then the Intercessions were read by Barbara Gardner. There was an Introduction to the Act of Remembrance and then The Two Minute Silence:

“They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old; age shall not weary the.                      At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.”

This was followed by The Laying of Wreaths on the Memorial.

I laid a wreath on behalf of POCA and the AIA, and it was wonderful to be joined by a Chelsea Pensioner Terry, Barbara Gardner (Founder of AIA) and Richard Ryder (President AIA). We were also joined by our dear friends from the Save the Asian Elephants organisation Duncan and Emanuela ( www.stae.org), and David Hill from Nowzad, (www.nowzad.com) who gave the main speech and kindly gave me his copy to include  here:

“Conflict zones are not only battlegrounds for humans, but also sadly for animals too. In the chaos of war, countless creatures suffer and are often forgotten amidst the human tragedy. From dogs used to detect explosives to horses and donkeys carrying supplies, animals play a crucial role, without choice risking their lives alongside their human counterparts. The Nowzad charity was founded by a former Royal Marine Commando, Pen Farthing from his own personal experience in Afghanistan. Whilst on troop patrol in 2006 within the town of Nowzad, Helmand Province, Pen rescued a stray dog from a vicious dogfight set up by the locals, sparking a passion to help the countless other animals caught in the conflict. The Nowzad charity now provides vital veterinary care, rescuing animals from dangerous situations, and finding loving homes for those in need, with our family of supporters right across the world.

Last year, under the endorsement of the Taliban, we were so proud to open Afghanistan’s first and only veterinary hospital and run the country’s first mobile veterinary clinic – taking in and treating injured dogs, cats, horses, donkeys and a range of wildlife, 24 hours a day.

More recently, Nowzad has extended its reach to Ukraine, a country devastated by war. We have a base in Lviv, from where we distribute vital aid and supplies to animal shelters and rescue groups in the hardest-hit areas. Nowzad is also working to provide veterinary training and support to local organizations, ensuring that animals receive the care they need, even in the midst of conflict. Nowzad’s work is a testament to the power of compassion and the belief tat all creatures deserve the change at a life without suffering and harm, even during a war.

Today we remember those animals who had no choice when war came.”

The service ended with the hymn ‘Just as I am’, followed by the Final Blessing by Rev Samantha.

Vladimir Chertkov, (with a preface by Leo Tolstoy)

Allowed by censorship. St. Petersburg, December 5, 1890

Printing house of A. S. Suvorin. Ertelev Lane, 13

Original here: http://www.vita.org.ru/library/prose/chertkov-amusement.htm.

Preface

A few years ago I happened to hear the following conversation between young novice hunters and former hunters who had given up hunting because of the awareness of the immorality of this amusement:

Young hunter (with confidence): What’s wrong with hunting?

Former hunter : It is bad, unnecessary, for fun to kill animals.

It is impossible to object to this, nor to agree with it. So it’s just clear and unquestionable. But, despite this, the young hunter did not give up hunting at the same time, and is still hunting. But the confidence in the harmlessness of hunting is broken; Conscience is awakened in relation to a cause that has hitherto been undoubtedly considered right.

And the young man will not hunt for long. This is the effect that this beautiful article will undoubtedly produce on all those who read it. God grant that there are as many of them as possible, especially from young people.

Leo Tolstoy October 15, 1890

Sometimes they say that it is easier to buy a hare,
than to spend time chasing him.
And, indeed, it is easier to buy a hare;
but the purchase of a hare will not replace hunting for a person,
because the purchased hare will not distract a person
from thinking about himself, about death, about misfortunes;
and hunting, playing, excitement, drunkenness,
vain cares and amusements do just that.

Pascal.

Constantly remind me, my conscience,
that I cannot harm anyone with impunity,
that by inflicting a wound on a living being,
I am doing damage to my own soul.

Mercier

Ask any hunter what the main charm of hunting is, and a rare one will say that it gives him pleasure to chase and kill animals. Most hunters will say that the beauty of hunting is not in killing, but in what is associated with it.

It is in vain to think, the hunter will say, that the very act of killing game or beast gives the main pleasure of hunting. If that were the case, it would be much easier to slaughter calves and chickens in the barnyard. The attractiveness of hunting is not in the pursuit and killing of animals, but in all those various sensations and impressions that the hunter experiences from leaving the house to returning. Hunting gives a person who is constantly engaged in one or another monotonous activity the opportunity to break out of his usual rut and, forgetting all conventional constraints, live in fits and starts with nature. And his communication with nature during hunting is not limited to passive contemplation of it: during hunting, man, obeying the law inherent in all living things – the struggle for existence, merges with nature and lives at one with it.

“A hunter exercises not only the strength and endurance of the body, the dexterity and flexibility of movements, the accuracy of the eye, the firmness of the hand, but also some spiritual qualities: energy, enterprise, perseverance. Thus, in addition to getting closer to nature, the hunter also develops in himself such physical and mental strengths that, under the conditions of urban and office life in general, are inactive and therefore weaken. From this point of view, hunting has an educational value for young people: it tames them to rely on their own strength, does without outside help; And this is especially useful for those who from childhood are accustomed to using someone else’s labor in everything that requires the application of physical strength. In addition, the passion for hunting is often beneficial in that it saves a young man from other hobbies that are morally and physically pernicious, such as wine, cards, and women. It is not for nothing that hunting is considered a courageous and noble entertainment and has been honored by all peoples since ancient times.”

This is what hunters say, who want to justify and comprehend their favorite fun. And at first glance these arguments seem to be well-founded. But are they really fair?

For many years I was a passionate hunter. I took this occupation with the greatest seriousness, not only hunting in all sorts of ways, but also theoretically studying hunting from books. Nothing in the world was so enthusiastic about me as hunting: I knew no pleasure higher than the excitement of hunting. And yet, doubts crept into my soul about the legitimacy of this pleasure. Not wanting to give up the hunt, I tried in every possible way to stifle this doubt in myself. And at first I succeeded. But doubt grew over the years, undermining the pleasure of hunting. And then the tiny, barely audible reproach of conscience gradually grew and finally began to bother me in earnest. I was compelled to face the truth, and as soon as I did so, I understood the evil of the hunt with my whole being. Now I cannot but recognize hunting as not only inhuman, but downright bestial, and therefore peculiar only to savages and people in general, who still live an unconscious life, but in no way correspond to the level of spiritual enlightenment on which we consider ourselves worth.

I gave up hunting, but for a long time, whenever I remembered hunting, I longed to return to it. Now, thank God, this passion has completely subsided in me, and I can, calmly looking back, sum up all that I have thought and felt about it.

They say that it is not the hunt itself that is important, but the conditions that accompany it.

But if this were so, then the mere communion of the hunter with nature could satisfy him. However, this is not the case. Neither walking, nor rolling, nor any occupation in the garden, in the field, in the midst of nature, can replace the hunter with a special pleasure, which, as hunters say with the consciousness of their superiority, is available only to those who have a hunting feeling.

What is this special hunting feeling and the pleasure it evokes?

No matter how much a hunter refuses, his main pleasure in hunting is precisely in chasing and killing animals. In this, and only in this, lies the whole meaning of hunting and the enjoyment of it, and the vaunted hunting feeling. It is this, and nothing else, that gives hunting its attractiveness.

It is also said that the attractiveness of hunting arises from the fact that, by indulging in it and surrendering to the law of the struggle for existence inherent in all living things, man unites with nature.

It is indeed true that if a man hunts for the maintenance of his existence, which happens only in rare cases, he is subject to the law of the struggle for existence. But, firstly, this never happens not only for rich, but also for well-to-do hunters; and secondly, the struggle for existence has a special meaning for man, which can hardly be expressed in the form of hunting.

It is true that in nature everything is constantly struggling for existence. But even among animals, the struggle for existence is not limited to devouring the weak by the strong, many animals exert no less effort and skill in the struggle against the elements of nature, arranging for themselves dwellings that protect them from bad weather, and similar cares. For man, the main form of the struggle for existence consists in the construction of dwellings, the manufacture of clothing, and, most importantly, in obtaining food for himself, in the cultivation of nutritious plants. As you move further and further away from the original savage state, the forms of the struggle for existence gradually change. The most primitive form of this struggle, hunting, really coincides with the methods of fighting in animals; But as the conditions of life improve, this brutal struggle with animals becomes superfluous, and at the present time it is no longer at all necessary for mankind to kill animals even for its own subsistence, as is confirmed by all people, whose number is constantly increasing, who consciously eat only vegetable and dairy food.

And therefore hunting is no longer a natural form of struggle for existence, but a voluntary return to a primitive animal-like state, with the only difference that for primitive man hunting served as a natural matter, corresponding to all the rest of his way of life. For modern cultured man, however, such an occupation encourages, exercises and develops in him such animal instincts that have long outgrown human consciousness.

One has only to vividly recall or imagine the conduct of every hunter during the hunt to be convinced that he, giving full rein to the worst qualities of his nature, resorts to such actions as under any other circumstances he would be ashamed to even think of.

There is a category of actions, some methods of action, which are quite reasonably recognized as unworthy of a decent person. Deception, deceit, imitation of someone else’s identity, ambush, waiting for one’s victim around the corner, attacking him from behind, chasing one by many, the weakest strong, finishing off a lying person, exploiting for one’s own benefit the hopeless situation of a living being, its hunger, infatuation, parental love, forcibly taking children away from parents and parents from children, luring one’s victim to certain death under the guise of a good deed – all these are vile and vile deeds in themselves. regardless of who they are committed against. And yet, by some astonishing inadequacy, all these abominable and criminal acts, and many others, which are worthily similar to them, are shamelessly committed in the sight of all in the hunt with unrequited creatures, by the very people who would not shake hands with their acquaintance if they knew that he had done something similar to a man. It is as if people are so intolerably burdensome to behave among their own kind, that they go to the forests and fields, looking for such animals over which they can freely vent their embarrassment and give full rein to their lowest and most brutal inclinations.

To tear open the belly with a dagger, to crush the brain on a stump, to tear it to pieces, etc., all these are the most ordinary and even necessary actions in hunting. But it is natural for every person to feel sorry for animals and it is painful to see their suffering. Why then do the same people, as soon as they are on the hunt, not only not feel sorry, but also not ashamed to deceive, persecute, chase, poison and torture animals in every possible way? Every man commits such acts in hunting for which he would elect or beat a street boy if he were to catch him committing them on animals that are not recognized as game.

Let every hunter consider his conduct towards the creatures he hunts; let him be transported to their position for a moment, and he will be forced to admit that this is so.

It is a strange thing that we are proud of the progress of civilization, we smugly survey what we consider to be its successes in all possible branches of life, and at the same time we do not notice that our life is often based on the most savage, unjust and cruel principles, which the future humanity will remember in due time with the same disgust with which we now look back. For example, slavery and torture.

Hunting, of course, is not the most important and egregious of all the surviving outrages of the past; but its shameless and unhindered prosperity in our time is curious and instructive. It is instructive that the true meaning of the hunt cannot be obscured and embellished with the false guise of serving some great principle, which is supposed to be necessary for the good of men, just as the true meaning of most of the manifestations of the remnants of barbarism that have survived to this day is obscured and concealed.

But the human mind is obliging and always ready to find a noble excuse for any bad deed. So it was with me when I doubted the legality of hunting, but did not want to give it up yet. I am now both ashamed and amused to remember how many intricate excuses I invented at that time only in order to somehow retain the moral right to continue my favorite amusement.

I remember that one of my justifications was the idea that every animal, carnivorous or non-predatory, destroys other living creatures. Not only does the wolf eat sheep and hares, but the hare certainly swallows with its food a large number of insects that accidentally get there and want to live as much as any other animal. Therefore, by killing one living creature in the hunt, I thereby save the lives of all those creatures that it would destroy if it continued to live. Comforted by this excuse, which seemed to me a sufficient argument, I continued to hunt.

But one day, standing on the edge of the forest during a roundup, I threw down vodka with a shot and ran up to him to finish him off with a thick stick reserved for this purpose. I struck the bridge of my nose, the most delicate part of the wolf’s body, and the wolf looked me straight in the eyes with a wild frenzy and gave a dull sigh with each blow. Soon his paws twitched convulsively, stretched out, a slight shiver ran through them, and they stiffened. I ran to my room and, all out of breath with excitement, hid behind my tree, waiting for a new victim. In the evening, in bed, I remembered the impressions of the day, and my imagination kept returning to the moment when a rustle was heard in the bushes, not far from me, a wolf appeared on the edge of the forest and began to look around. I remembered how the wolf, not noticing me and hearing the cries of the beaters behind him, set off from the forest into the steppe, how at that moment I knocked him down with a shot and how I began to finish him off.

I remembered all this with a sinking heart and relived my excitement with pleasure. Remembering this, I noticed that with a kind of real voluptuousness I reveled in the sufferings of a dying animal. I felt ashamed of myself. And then I felt at once, not in my mind, but in my heart, that this killing of the wolf was in itself a bad deed, that worse than the deed itself was my enjoyment of it, and that worst of all was the unscrupulousness with which I justified all this.

Only then did reason point out to me the logical inconsistency of my previous reasoning in favor of hunting. I realized that if, in killing a wolf, I consoled myself by saving its victims from death, then, in the position of the wolf itself, I could say in the same way that by staying alive and eating, for example, a hare, I was saving those insects which the hare would have swallowed with its food if it had lived, and so on without end.

Perhaps it would not be worth mentioning such pathetic sophisms. But when analyzing them, an analogy with those high-sounding phrases and profound arguments with which we are accustomed to justify the larger outrages of modern life, legitimized by public opinion, involuntarily suggests itself.

I also remember that at one time the danger to which the hunter is exposed in certain types of hunting served in my eyes as a circumstance that gave hunting some special dignity. I did not notice then that the hunter always arranges himself in such a way that there is incomparably less danger for him than for the animal; and the main thing is that, risking his life for fun, given to him to serve people, the hunter not only does not reduce, but even increases his guilt. There are so many ways to serve one’s neighbor at the risk of one’s life that it is a sin to expose oneself to it for one’s own lust.

But even if hunters are proud of the danger to which they sometimes expose themselves, they do not at all perceive another, incomparably more substantial danger, to which they are constantly exposed in all, absolutely all kinds of hunting.

Compassion provides one of the most precious qualities of the human soul. Feeling sorry for the suffering creature, a person forgets himself and is transferred to his position. In this way he frees himself from the limitations of his separate personality and is able to feel the unity of his life with the life of other beings, which seems to him without suffering incomprehensible and alien, completely separate, having nothing in common with his life. By exercising and developing this faculty, man approaches merging with that extra-personal life which raises his consciousness to a higher level and gives him the greatest good available to him. Thus compassion, while helping other beings to alleviate their sufferings, is at the same time of greater benefit to the one in whom it is born.

Buddha Sakkia-Muni, the teacher of compassion, forbade his disciples to kill any living creature. A touching legend has survived about how one of his wandering followers came across a dog suffering from an ulcer filled with worms. The wanderer, as the legend says, sat down on the ground, pulled out the worms with his own hands, raked them into a heap on the road and went on. But suddenly he remembered that he had taken food from the worms, and that they would die without it. And he felt sorry for them. He went back and cut a piece of meat out of his shank and put it in a pile of worms so that they would have something to eat. And only then did he go his own way with a calm soul.

This story is instructive, of course, not in the sense that we should all give ourselves alive to be devoured by worms, but in the sense that there is no limit to the increase in the feeling of pity, and that it should never be stifled, but, on the contrary, always encouraged.

Pity is the same feeling, whether it is caused by the suffering of a person or a fly. In both cases, a person, giving himself up to pity, emerges from his personality and increases the volume and content of his life. And therefore a person should especially cherish every manifestation of pity in himself, no matter what kind of creature it may be aroused, at the first slightest glimmer of pity, even if it is caused by the most seemingly insignificant reason, this feeling should be given free play without stifling it. A person who understands the meaning of pity will not be afraid that its manifestation may seem ridiculous to people. What does it matter to him that, by carrying a caught mouse out into the yard and releasing it from the mousetrap, instead of killing it, he provoked the ridicule or disapproval of those around him, when he knows that by doing so he has not only saved from death a creature who no less values his life, but, by giving free way to the feeling of compassion, has approached that supreme life of all-embracing love? which, not fitting into any conventional boundaries, frees him from death and merges with the source of life.

Every hunter does just the opposite: he does not once or twice, but constantly stifles this precious feeling of pity in its very beginning. There is hardly one among the hunters who has never experienced the slightest hint of pity for any of his victims. But every hunter always hastens to drown out this feeling, considering it shameful. And so, the first sprout of compassion, pity, from which grows the highest and most joyful feeling of love, is trampling. It is in this gradual, spiritual suicide that the main harm of hunting lies.

Yes, no matter how you look at it, hunting is a senseless, cruel and destructive thing for the moral sense of man. Therefore, it is not surprising that, in addition to evil relations with the animals themselves, hunters also mostly show the most unattractive sides of their character in communication with each other. Self-satisfaction, self-love, vanity, charisma, boasting, lying, envy, schadenfreude — all these and similar qualities are constantly manifested in hunters, depending on their upbringing, in a more or less rude and frank form. With this, I am sure, will agree any hunter who has taken a closer look at his own mood at the hunt, and at the relations of his comrades among themselves.

Perov’s famous painting “Hunters” perfectly depicts one side of this relationship. During breakfast in the field, a man of respectable years, apparently telling some of his hunting adventures, lied. His young comrade is apparently still so naïve that he does not dare to doubt the veracity of the venerable narrator. But the third listener scratches his head with such an obvious expression of distrust that excludes the possibility of the slightest respect for the gray-haired liar.

All this happens all the time.

I remember another small picture. The fox was hunted at the very burrow, to which the unfortunate woman had only two gallops left. Frenzied dogs, grabbing one by her throat, the other by her ass, tear her in different directions. She, with her mouth open, is suffocating with suffering and horror. The hunters who galloped up are savagely enjoying themselves. One of them has already jumped off his horse and runs up to the fox, tightly gripping the arapnik with which he will finish it off. Another, an old man, at full gallop reining in his horse, stared at the suffering animal with bloodthirsty animal joy. From different directions, other hunters rush to the same place.

The author of the picture, without any, apparently second thought, simply depicted one of the most ordinary episodes of hunting in a hit-and-run. But the viewer, not the hunter, looking at this disgusting scene, is decidedly involuntarily presented with the question: which of the characters is the most bestial, whether the dogs are fervent and furious, or their owners who are brutal.

There is another painting by an English artist, striking in this respect – “A Quiet Autumn Night”. On the rocky shore of a picturesque, moonlit lake, a huge deer, wounded but not tracked by hunters, has sunk to the ground in exhaustion and is breathing its last breath. Above him, with its neck stretched up, stands a doe, weeping tears, roaring desperately with an expression of such hopeless grief and suffering that it is impossible without indignation to think of those monsters who, having committed their bloody and idle crime, at this very moment, smoking and drinking wine or beer, are lying in armchairs near the blazing fireplace and discussing their heroic hunting exploits.

If it were possible to depict in a picture all the suffering and sorrow which in the course of his life the hunter alone brought into the midst of the animals he persecuted, tortured, and killed, I believe that, however callous and heartless he might be, he would nevertheless be ashamed and ashamed.

There is no need, I think, to prove the bad educational value of hunting and the harmful influence produced by that plausible environment, that false halo of nobility and even heroism, in which the most inhuman kinds of activity, including hunting, are clothed in our time. When a child or a young man sees how much importance adults attach to such an empty amusement as hunting, sees with what attention and solemnity all the trifles relating to this amusement are arranged, and, above all, sees with what undisguised pleasure people whom he respects are engaged in inflicting suffering on defenseless creatures, it is difficult to expect that such a child or youth will correctly form the concepts of good and evil. about what is important, what is insignificant, what is really worthy of respect and imitation, and what, on the contrary, deserves condemnation and contempt. It is truly horrible for the rising generation when one thinks of the atmosphere of legalized evil and approved vices which they have to breathe at the very time when the pure air of goodness and truth is most necessary for their proper spiritual growth.

It is in favour of hunting that for young people who are forced to lead a monotonous and unsympathetic life, hunting alone provides the opportunity for physical exercise in the open air in direct communion with nature. But this argument is also unfair.

For this purpose the most useful, worthy, and peaceful of all human occupations suggests itself, agriculture, in the various branches of which an infinitely varied application can be found for the very faculties of soul and body, the exercise of which is credited to hunting. Sowing, ploughing, mowing, harvesting grain and hay, threshing, felling wood, various carpentry work, laying a bed of land, gardening, gardening, caring for animals and bringing them out—it is impossible to enumerate all the various occupations connected with agriculture, and which require no less exercise of physical strength, art, and skill than shooting or riding. In all these occupations, communication with nature is constant and close, as well as with animals, which in this case man teaches to help him in a reasonable and necessary matter, as opposed to teaching them to serve the idle amusement of hunters.

Having said, as best I could, what was in my heart about hunting, I confess frankly that I expect only ridicule and mockery from most hunters in return. It is not to people with established views which fully satisfy them that I am addressing in the present case, but to that comparative minority of chiefly young people in whom the consciousness has not yet become rigid but has retained its inquisitiveness and capacity for further development, and who are bold enough to take a critical view of their views and, if necessary, to change them, even if this entails giving up some favourite amusement.

Life is not a joke, and there is no life’s work that can be treated jokingly or lightly.

October 1, 1890

Article by Natalia Doran (Trustee POCA)

This article, originally intended to be a review of Hugh Warwick’s recently published Cull of the Wild, turned out, in the process of writing, to be more of a response to the book, a response explicitly from the point of view of animal rights. In the Introduction to his book Hugh Warwick states that he wants to have “an honest conversation about conservation”. My own aim is to suggest what a next turn in this conversation might be.
Overall, the main message of the book, imbedded in the dramatic framework of the
author’s interviews and travels, and accompanied by the recounting of many interesting and useful facts, is that we sometimes have to kill animals in the name of conservation. The message does not so much come across, as creeps into your consciousness through repetition: we have to kill some animals, sad though it is – sometimes to prevent the extinction of local species, sometimes to protect other animals, whom we deem to have a better claim to the habitat.
Many examples of this type of conservation are given: hedgehogs in the Orkney Islands, who threaten wading birds; mink who are blamed for the struggles of water voles, rats in various situations, deer, grey squirrels – the list goes on. Hugh Warwick meets and interviews many people, most of whom are conservationists engaged in the killing of animals, but some of whom, most notably the ethologist Marc Bekoff and Professor Wayne Linklater, are opposed to killing as a matter of principle. While the inclusion of these dissenting voices makes for ethically sound journalism, the overarching narrative of the book gives the impression that the author’s sympathies are on the side of the killers. Most sections reporting interviews with the killers are rounded off with tacit agreement, in the spirit of, “Well, this is very sad, but it has to be done”. Whereas the sections reporting opposition to the killing are concluded with an implied disagreement or criticism, e.g. “It was with Wayne Linklater that I found some of the stickier territory”. The criticism is twofold. First of all, those who oppose killing are accused of being unwilling to consider the middle ground – in Hugh Warwick’s view, a clear failure. Which begs the question of why the goal of every debate should be the finding of the middle ground. It could equally, if not preferably, be the finding of the truth, wherever it may lie. The second criticism is that humanity’s responsibility for saving species from extinction is being shunned. Especially in the cases where humans introduced predator species into new habitats, Cull of the Wild considers it the responsibility of the human to set things right, even if it takes extensive killing to do so. This criticism is far-reaching, and is worth considering in more detail. The following four considerations may be relevant.

1. Biodiversity, species, individual.
   In writing the Cull of the Wild, the author gives himself a rather generous starter pack: biodiversity is a self-evident good and species are self-evidently worth preserving. These propositions, however, can be, and are, questioned. As the ethicist Andrew Linzey pointed out, the concept of biodiversity is philosophically vacuous – why should there be a certain number of species, and not another? After all, it does not seem to bother anyone that only Homo Sapiens is left, of the many Hominid species that once walked the earth. As long as that one human species behaves itself, it does not occur to anyone to bemoan the fact that it is just one. With non-human animals, however, the survival of the largest possible number of species becomes an absolutized good, justifying the most horrific acts of cruelty. Furthermore, the extinction of species is demonstrably a natural and inevitable process. Yes, we should do all in our power to make sure we do not cause the extinctions. (A parallel with the death of individuals is valid: it is inevitable and natural that individuals die, but we should not cause these deaths.) But to make preventing these extinctions into an absolute goal, leading to extensive “eco-cleansing”, is simply illogical. Closely connected with the above point is the consideration of the moral value of individuals versus the moral value of species. This is where the watershed between conservation and animal rights often occurs: conservation prioritizes species (resulting in individual lives being sacrificed for their preservation), whereas animal protection prioritizes individuals (resulting in opposition to the killing of individuals for the sake of conservation). At first sight these priorities seem to be a matter of elective preference. But this is not so. If we ask ourselves why animals are accorded moral consideration in the first place, we usually answer that it is because of their sentience, i.e. the fact that animals feel joy, fear, pain, etc. But sentience is something that is predicated of individuals, not species. It is the individuals that feel joy, fear and pain, not the species. It follows that the moral priority of individuals is correct, and killing individual animals in order to preserve species is an example of putting the moral cart before the horse.

2. Philosophical basis of the discussion.
   The sort of conservation, largely espoused by Hugh Warwick, that considers it acceptable to kill some animals to help others, usually makes an appeal to science. The legitimacy of such an appeal can be questioned. Does science actually dictate that some animals are killed in order to help others? Science gives us the facts, the raw material for decision making, but it does not dictate one course of action or another. For example, science can tell us that euthanizing every human over the age of 60 would solve the NHS crisis. But the decision to thus cull or spare the seniors would be made with the help of a different set of decision-making tools, namely the tools of philosophy in general and ethics in particular. For most of the narration of the book the reader is invited to consider only two ethical positions: deontology, the idea that the most important thing in decision-making is abiding by the rules of morality (“do not kill”, “do not steal”, etc.), and utilitarianism, a system in which decisions would be made on the basis of the consequences of your actions, classically, whether your actions would cause pleasure or pain to the largest number of individuals. Hugh Warwick explicitly adopts the utilitarian approach, and this leads to problems. The most obvious problem is the frequent misapplication of the actual utilitarian principle. The book often morphs into the idea of the end justifying the means: for example, the extensive use of the anticoagulant poison brodifacoum and the deliberate introduction of myxomatosis into the rabbit population are mentioned matter-of-factly in this spirit. This is not a legitimate application of the utilitarian principle, which should be about calculating the pain and pleasure that an action causes, and not about justifying any course of action by its result. But even when applied in the correct way, utilitarianism in conservation is problematic. Utilitarian calculation of pain and pleasure is, by definition, based on exact and complete data. But in conservation such data is hardly ever available to us. There are just too many factors to consider, and it is usually impossible to predict exactly who will be affected by a certain action, and how. Human interference in nature is famously prone to the law of unintended consequences. One example was provided by the author himself: the reintroduction of red kites in Oxfordshire was deemed a “great conservation success story” – until it turned out that the kites have a taste for lapwing chicks, a bird that was marked for VIP conservation status. And the name of these examples is legion. Since utilitarianism requires exact and complete data, and in conservation it can never be fully reliable, it is questionable whether utilitarianism is in fact the best guide for decision- making in this human activity. Furthermore, there are instances where utilitarianism in conservation becomes completely self- contradictory, leading to the justification of illegal practices that fly in the face of public morality. One example is the killing of hen harriers by gamekeepers – in the utilitarian calculation, this is justified, because a large number of grouse benefit, as well as curlews. An ethical approach that runs into such contradictions is hardly fit for purpose. It is only on page 259 out of 293 that the third option (actually, the first option of classical philosophy), namely virtue ethics, is mentioned, and, even then, it is mentioned in such a cursory and slanted way as to present it as merely a kind of ethical instrumentalism, i.e. being nice to animals in order to promote human virtue. This position misrepresents, or rather under-represents, virtue ethics. Virtue ethics does not rule out the use of deontological or utilitarian principles, but makes them subordinate to the ethically thinking subject. We act in accordance with who we are. It is the only realistic ethical stance, since the only thing we can fully control is our own reaction to a situation. Unlike the utilitarian stance, it does not rely on evidence that is in principle unavailable to us, nor does its application lead to obvious moral contradictions.

3. Logical error is dealing with causation.
   Hugh Warwick’s argument for killer conservation, often centers around the fact that it was the humans who introduced ‘problem species’ into the habitat in the first place. The conclusion is drawn that it is therefore the responsibility of the humans to remove the offending individuals, most often by killing them. But to consider that the solution to a problem consists in reversing its cause is a logical error. If the cause of our breaking a leg was falling down the mountain, the solution is not climbing back up the mountain. Environmental toothpaste cannot be squeezed back into the tube, and, even if animals do cause problems and we did bring them into the habitat, killing them does not remove our misdeed, but adds another type of misdeed to it.
4. Positive and negative moral obligations
   Killer conservation usually stems from a confusion in the understanding of our positive and negative moral obligations. It would therefore be useful to make these concepts explicit. In the most basic terms, positive moral obligations are the “do’s”, the things we should do, whereas negative moral obligations are the ‘don’ts’, the things we should not do. For example, if I have small children, I have a positive moral obligation to feed, house, educate them, etc. I also have a negative moral obligation not to harm them. In the case of children I meet in the street, I do not have the same positive moral obligations to provide for them. But I have exactly the same moral obligation not to harm them. It becomes clear that our positive moral obligations are, of necessity, limited by our resources, whereas our negative moral obligations are more or less universal. In the case of animals, when we take on moral obligations to help them, care should be taken not to take on positive responsibilities (to provide safety, etc., to further the survival of species) that are not necessarily our own, while ignoring negative moral imperatives not to harm, that should be universal. No one appointed us to police the environmental impact of other species. It would be a full-time job to control our own.

With these four considerations in mind, it appears that the case for killer conservation falls apart
logically, as well as being self-evidently cruel; the latter point being something that even the author of the Cull of the Wild himself admits. So why do it?

JBS broke its supply chain rules buying cows from deforesters of Brazil’s wetlands.

Story by Naira Hofmeister and Fernanda Wenzel

the world’s biggest meat company bought cattle more than 100 times from a farm that was sanctioned and fined almost £2m for illegally destroying unique and vulnerable wetlands in Brazil, Unearthed can reveal. 

Brazilian beef giant JBS, which supplies KFC, McDonalds, Walmart and Tesco, has been repeatedly linked to large-scale Amazon destruction. JBS’s cattle purchases appear to be in direct contravention of its promises to keep its supply chain clean. 

The findings come as part of a wider investigation into the growing impact of Brazil’s beef industry on Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, a biodiversity hotspot that is increasingly threatened by wildfires and agribusiness. Our investigation, based on an analysis commissioned from satellite imagery experts AidEnvironment, found direct and indirect suppliers to Brazil’s top three meatpackers had denuded an area of at least seven times the size of Manhattan in the Pantanal in the past five years. 

The vast majority of this, 93%, was linked to JBS. Unearthed then investigated the top 10 deforesters in the analysis and found direct JBS suppliers involved with illegal deforestation and an Indigenous land conflict. 

JBS needs to be held responsible for both its reckless destruction of the ecosystem and its deceptive greenwashing

JBS has recently been promoting its deforestation controls and green credentials ahead of an attempt to list shares on the New York Stock Exchange. It says it is clamping down on deforestation in its supply chain, but is significantly expanding production in the Pantanal, with plans to create Latin America’s largest abattoir. The UNESCO World Heritage-listed wetland has just had one of its worst-ever wildfire seasons.  

“It is appalling to find out that JBS continues to be a major cause of egregious deforestation, while it deceives customers with claims that it is reducing deforestation in its supply chain,” US Senator Cory Booker said in response to our investigation. “JBS needs to be held responsible for both its reckless destruction of the ecosystem and its deceptive greenwashing.”

In a statement, JBS said: “The farms mentioned are blocked by JBS and therefore automatically prevented from doing business with the company. Blocks caused by embargoes are carried out as soon as there is visibility in the systems fed by the public institutions responsible.” 

This story was published with

• Mongabay

JBS did not comment on the scale of deforestation linked to its suppliers found by the investigation, and added that the farms were blocked before Unearthed contacted the company.

Brazil director of Mighty Earth, João Gonçalves, said: “To feed its massive meat operations JBS has demonstrated, once again, that it has little regard for people or planet by continuing to source cattle, more than 100 times, from a banned farm responsible for deforestation in the vulnerable Pantanal.

“A war on nature is being waged by the meat industry in the Pantanal and JBS is on the frontline,” he added.

The Pantanal is a unique mosaic of marshes, woodlands and rivers. It floods seasonally, its streams and rivers swollen by torrential rains that travel south from the Amazon rainforest. Until relatively recently, it has been a haven for wildlife, home to the world’s largest concentration of jaguars, hundreds of bird species and large mammals such as tapirs and giant anteaters. 

While remaining high, Amazon deforestation has dropped since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returned to the presidency in 2023. But it has continued to rise in its lesser-known neighbour the Pantanal, according to an analysis by mapping collaborative MapBiomas. Droughts, worsened by climate change and deforestation in the Amazon, make it easier for fires set by farmers to clear vegetation to burn out of control. This year satellites detected 10,956 fires from June to September, making this the second worst fire season since records began. Only 2020 was more intense, which killed more than 17 million vertebrates and burned almost 30% of the biome. 

“We are facing one of the worst situations ever seen in the Pantanal,” Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister, told journalists. 

Brazil’s butchers

Since its beginnings 70 years ago as a family butcher in the state of Goiás, JBS has expanded to become the world’s biggest meat producer, with business interests across five continents. 

This meteoric rise has demanded the large-scale transformation of large swathes of Brazil’s rainforests and savannahs into cattle ranches. In recent years, under increased international scrutiny for its role in Amazon deforestation, and seeking to list in the US, JBS has said it will eliminate all deforestation from its Brazilian Amazon supply chain by 2025 and country-wide, including the Pantanal, by 2030. 

JBS has a “zero tolerance deforestation” policy and has blocked 16,000 ranchers who were not in compliance, JBS CEO Gilberto Tomazoni told The New York Times last year.

“We have put [in] a blockchain to get information from the indirect suppliers. Until now, we have around 50% of the indirect suppliers in the blockchain…when we are fully in this blockchain we can track 97% of our beef.” 

But in the Pantanal, JBS is expanding its footprint. Earlier this year the company said it would double the capacity of its Campo Grande II abattoir, which receives cattle from many of the suppliers identified in this investigation, allowing it to slaughter 4,400 cows every day.

This February, the Campo Grande II abattoir received two deliveries of cattle from a farm called Fazenda Querência in Aquidauana municipality, Mato Grosso do Sul state, according to JBS’s transparency platform. 

According to JBS’s own supply chain rules, this purchase should not have been possible. Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency, IBAMA, had placed an embargo for illegal deforestation over 1 sq km of the farm the month before, and JBS claims its systems automatically block it from buying cattle from any embargoed farms. 

Embargoes are Brazil’s mechanism for punishing farmers for destroying vegetation without permission, or in areas that are legally supposed to be protected. They prevent illegally deforested land from being used, allowing vegetation to recover while imposing a financial penalty. Buying cattle from this farm directly violates JBS’s environmental commitments.

This embargo was cancelled in late October by a preliminary court ruling. But it was far from the only time JBS appears to have bought cattle from Querência while it was under sanction. From 2018 to 2023, JBS’s transparency platform lists 112 purchases of cattle by JBS’s Campo Grande I and II abattoirs from Fazenda Querência in Aquidauana. IBAMA records show that Fazenda Querencia had two active IBAMA embargoes during this period. One of these embargoes, imposed in 2016, covered 28 sq km, roughly half the size of Manhattan, and included a fine for almost £2m.  

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The embargos were recently lifted, but in both cases, the farm owners had admitted to illegally deforestation of Pantanal vegetation. 

(JBS’s platform only lists farm names and municipalities, but only one farm in Aquidauana named Fazenda Querência appears in Brazil’s national land registry.)

JBS declined to say when Querência or the other properties had been blocked, only that the “acquisitions followed JBS Purchasing Policy according to the available information at the time.”

In total, according to AidEnvironment’s analysis, Fazenda Querência cleared a total of 50 sq km of natural vegetation between 2019 and 2023 – destroying an area of the Pantanal equal to half the size of Paris. 

In response to our questions, André Ribeiro Corrêa, a member of the family that owns Querência, said that they had contested the 2024 embargo. He sent a document showing a court order to lift the embargo while Ibama makes a final decision. Corrêa declined to comment further. 

From 2018 to 2023, while regularly buying cattle from an embargoed farm, JBS exported 83 shipments of beef or cattle byproducts from Campo Grande municipality to the UK, totalling 1,350 tonnes, trade data collected by Panjiva suggest, although the data does not detail which abattoir the products originated from. JBS exports to the US from Campo Grande totaled 46,600 tonnes, and to Italy, which imports JBS cowhides for its leather industry, more than 24,000 tonnes. Panjiva data also suggests that JBS exported beef to Germany and the Netherlands from Campo Grande during this period. 

“The meatpacking plants operating in the Pantanal are the same as those in the Amazon, but they apply fewer controls there to suppliers,” said Luciano Furtado Loubet, a state prosecutor from Mato Grosso do Sul who works on environmental enforcement. “The companies do not carry out audits to verify if their controls and systems are working properly,” he added.

AidEnvironment’s analysis tracked recent deforestation on a sample of farms that had directly or indirectly supplied Brazil’s biggest meatpackers – JBS, Marfrig and Minerva – from 2018-2019. Using GTAs from 2018-2019 – documents that track cattle between ranches and slaughterhouses, originally designed to prevent the spread of diseases – and satellite data, it found 190 farms had deforested a total of 426 sq km of the Pantanal biome from 2019 to 2023. 

This number is likely to be an underestimate, as AidEnvironment only had access to a non-comprehensive sample of GTAs, and the meatpackers may have established new supply relationships since. 

Marfrig said that from 2018 to 2019, it had bought cattle from 46 properties in the Pantanal, and subsequently blocked 17 of them when they were found to be in breach of one of the company’s commitments.

“The company reaffirms its commitment not to purchase animals from deforested areas, conservation units, indigenous lands, Quilombola territories, embargoed areas and properties or owners on the dirty list of labour analogous to slave labour in all the biomes where it operates,” Marfrig said in a statement, adding that it was already monitoring 100 percent of its direct suppliers and 93 percent of its indirect suppliers in the Pantanal.

Minerva said it had pledged to monitor all its direct and indirect suppliers in South America by 2030. Currently, it is monitoring all of its direct suppliers in Brazil, which are subject to annual audits, the company said.

“With each new animal sale, every property undergoes a compliance analysis, in accordance with the criteria adopted by the Company,” the statement read. “If any irregularities are identified in relation to the criteria, the supplier is blocked in the system, preventing further trade until the situation is regularised. In this context, the most recent audits show that all purchases made have reached 100 percent compliance.” 

Of the total deforestation linked to the three companies, 394 sq km, or 93 percent, was associated with JBS – an area larger than the Isle of Wight. 

Fazenda Querência’s huge swathe of land clearing accounts for 13% of the deforestation found in the sample of JBS suppliers analysed by AidEnvironment from 2019-2023. 

The second-biggest deforester in the analysis, Fazenda Tupaceretã, converted 17 sq km of native vegetation between 2019 and 2023. 

JBS stopped buying cattle from the farm while a 2018 embargo across 5.8 sq km was active. In fact, the farmer’s representative complained to IBAMA that the producer was “unable to sell cattle or access credit” as a result of the embargo. Trading with JBS resumed in 2020 after the owner of Tupaceretã paid “forest replacement fees” and a fine to IBAMA for the illegal land clearance. 

But between September 2021 and April 2022 – during which period Tupaceretã sold three lots of cattle to JBS – land-use experts at MapBiomas found new deforestation in areas of the farm legally required to be preserved. 

“The alert shows that deforestation was carried out for planting pasture,” said Eduardo Rosa, from MapBiomas’s Pantanal team.

JBS’s compliance system uses PRODES satellite data, which is released annually by Brazil’s space agency INPE. But MapBiomas publishes new deforestation alerts weekly, verified by staff and accompanied by detailed reports and high-resolution images.

The property was sold in December. Planet Labs satellite images from July and August show a vast 145 sq km area across Fazenda Tupaceretã that appears to have burned during this year’s fire season. Satellites have picked up more than 91 fires burning on the property this year. A lawyer for the new owners said they have not sold cattle since buying the farm. They did not offer an explanation for the fire. 

JBS’s supply chain rules do not exclude farms which use fire to clear land, despite a 2021 Greenpeace investigation linking the record-breaking Pantanal fires of 2020 to JBS’s cattle suppliers.

A lawyer for Fazenda Tupaceretã’s previous owner Linneu Rondon, who died in April, said that Rondon’s estate has signed an agreement with the Mato Grosso do Sul Public Prosecutor’s Office to repair the environmental damage found on the farm, and has paid a fine to IBAMA to settle the 2018 embargo.

Embargoes are only one of JBS’s supply chain rules; another states the company “does not purchase from those involved with invasion of indigenous lands”.

But prosecutors have accused the owners of another Pantanal JBS supplier in our analysis, Fazenda Touro Peru, in Porto Murtinho municipality, Mato Grosso do Sul state, of farming on Indigenous territory. Touro Peru was a regular JBS supplier from 2018 to 2022, and deforested 4.4 sq km over the past five years. 

Prosecutors alleged that its owners registered a different cattle farm, called Baía da Bugra, in the Kadiwéu Indigenous Territory, also in Porto Murtinho. 

According to a 2021 judicial decision, the family sought to annul the official recognition of the indigenous territory, arguing their ownership of the farm pre-dates the demarcation of the Kadiwéu territory in the 1980s. The conflict is long-standing; in 2013 and 2017 members of the Kadiwéu ethnic group occupied the farm in protest. 

Other farms belonging to the family, Fazenda Santa Lucia and Fazenda Sapucay, are also JBS suppliers in Aidenvironment’s analysis, totaling a further 1.7 sq km of deforestation. Around 60% of the Kadiwéu territory was burned during this year’s fires. 

A lawyer for the family that owns the farms sent a statement after publication noting that Touro Peru had permits for the deforestation, and denied the family had “invaded” Indigenous lands. 

He said that instead, it was “a dispute created by a government error, which expanded the area of the Kadiwéu Indigenous Reserve by means of a Decree, generating an overlap with the area of the Baía da Bugra Farm, whose process of canceling the expansion of the demarcation has been underway since the beginning of this year.”

Traditional farming under threat

For generations, the Pantanal has remained a stronghold for wildlife while still supporting traditional low-intensity farming compatible with preservation: cattle graze on the natural native grasslands and move with the seasonal flooding. Consequently, around 85% of the Pantanal’s native vegetation remains. Cows graze alongside species that are threatened elsewhere, such as marsh deer, white-lipped peccaries and giant anteaters. 

But now the biome is under pressure from large-scale agribusiness in the neighbouring Cerrado biome, where grain crops, particularly soy, are driving deforestation. 

“Around the Pantanal, soya has taken over. So the pressure to raise cattle is growing in the Pantanal because outside the biome there is no more room for it,” said biologist Gustavo Figueiroa, from SOS Pantanal, an NGO.

All the JBS suppliers that Unearthed has investigated – the top 10 deforesters in AidEnvironment’s analysis of the meatpacker’s suppliers – are situated in the five municipalities with the biggest burned area in 2024. A recent study from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro showed these were also among the most deforested locations in the Pantanal in 2023.

“Cattle farmers want to produce more per hectare and the way is to replace the native grassland with brachiaria pasture,” said Rafael Chiaravalloti, a professor specialising in Pantanal natural resource management.

The IBAMA embargoes imposed on the Querência and Tupaceretã farms all note that deforested areas were seeded with ‘brachiaria’ grass, an invasive species that competes with native grasses and is highly flammable.

With the expansion of JBS’s Campo Grande II slaughterhouse experts say demand for cattle in the Pantanal will rise.

“Any expansion of JBS’ meat operations will push the biome to breaking point, impacting the Amazon and the Cerrado,” said Mighty Earth’s Gonçalves. “JBS must get full control of its beef supply chains and urgently suspend all ranchers hell-bent on this destruction of nature for profit.”

As a wetland, the biome is also particularly sensitive to the drought currently impacting the entire continent. A recent WWF Brazil study predicts that this year could be the biome’s driest since records began – even worse than 2020, when a historic drought led to unprecedented fires, many of them started on cattle ranches. 

“It is considered a drought when the Paraguay River drops below four metres. In the 2024 floods, this measurement did not exceed one metre,” said Helga Correa, conservation specialist at WWF-Brazil.

Now some scientists fear the wetlands may be approaching a tipping point, when the Pantanal would lose its capacity for natural recovery, suffering an abrupt loss of species. 

“The Pantanal is one of the most biodiverse wetlands in the world,” Correa said. “It is a heritage that we need to conserve.”

……………….

WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP STOP THIS DESTRUCTION? GIVE UP EATING MEAT AND DAIRY; REDUCE YOUR INTAKE OF MEAT AND DAIRY; BUY YOUR MEAT FROM LOCALLY SOURCED FARMS WITH THE HIGHEST ANIMAL WELFARE = STOP/REDUCE/BUY LOCAL /HIGHEST ANIMAL WELFARE. GO ON – YOU KNOW IT MAKES SENSE!!

We as Christians, taught by Holy Tradition and by the experience of the
Holy Church Fathers, link always the theme of man as custodian of creation
with the need for repentance. When man fell, due to his sin, he lost his
identity. Because of his tendency toward transgression, man became weak
and cannot find in himself sufficient strength to return to his Creator. Man
accepts God’s love and becomes a being of communication, a being as
communion, improving, with all the Saints, his God-likeness.
So man becomes the custodian of the creation which is created by the
will of God for the single reason – to become one in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1,
22-23; 4,15). The human being is called to protect the work of God’s hands
because the deeds of God protect [nurture] him. The creation needs God for
its existence as it cannot exist by itself. Man is searching for eternity and
he is determined to care for the conjunction of unity and differences. Love
disables divisions, while the Spirit assembles all.
We are profoundly hurt by the divisions in witnessing the Christian
truth before the modern world which is yearning for spiritual direction and
the meaning of the mystery of life.
His Beatitude Patriarch Irinej, Metropolitan of Belgrade and All-Serbia,
August 31, 2012

Q.How is the Fall related to environmental destruction?
Q.Why are human beings the custodian and protector of God’s works?
Q.How can man reclaim his lost identity?

This is an excellent video from BBC Bitesize, which covers a wide range of animal protection issues. Does it matter how we treat animals? – KS3 Religious Studies – BBC Bitesize

England has stalled or is going backwards on many of its international targets to stop or reverse the collapse of biodiversity, conservationists have warned (£). 

A coalition of groups including the RSPB, the National Trust, and the Zoological Society of London issued the warning ahead of next week’s COP16 UN conference in Cali, Colombia, on stopping extinctions and habitat destruction.

The group found that England was not on course to fully meet any of its biodiversity goals, and on tackling chemicals and the effects of climate change on nature it was going backwards. 

The UK won’t be the worst heel-dragger at the COP, however. The conference was supposed to be the deadline for countries to submit their plans for meeting the biodiversity targets agreed in Montreal in 2022, including protecting 30% of land and sea for nature. In fact, around 80% of countries have failed to submit these plans. 

If, like me, you find all that a bit depressing, I’d recommend this upbeat new piece from the Conversation about the role that major cities can and are playing in restoring biodiversity and making space for nature. 

More than half of global food production will be at risk of failure within the next 25 years, without urgent action to conserve water and stop destruction of the ecosystems we depend upon for fresh water, the Guardian reported this week. 

This was the key finding of a major review by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, which also concluded that global demand for fresh water would outstrip supply by 40% by the end of this decade. 

The news came as the European Environment Agency reported that two thirds of the EU’s water bodies were in bad condition and water scarcity was affecting a fifth of its land each year (£). 

Closer to home, both the Observer and the BBC published exclusives this week about illegal sewage dumping by England’s privatised water companies. The BBC reported yesterday that United Utilities “repeatedly dumped millions of litres of raw sewage illegally” into the iconic Lake Windermere “over a three-year period”. 

It gives us great pleasure and an honour to announce that the accomplished Orthodox theologian Dr David Goodin, will join Pan Orthodox Concern for Animals as its Canadian representative. Dr. Goodin earned a PhD in Religious Studies from McGill University in the philosophy of religion, with a concentration in Patristic theology. Currently, he is a Professeur Associé at the Université Laval, Institut de Théologie Orthodoxe de Montréal. Research interests include theodicy and eco-theology with a specialization on the sacred forests of the Ethiopian Täwaḥədo tradition. He is the author of numerous academic books and articles, including Confronting Evil: Theodicy in the Eastern Patristic Tradition (Alexander Press, 2021). Originally from Miami, Florida, David K. Goodin now resides and teaches in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

All reactions:

10Kelly Wright, Melchiades A Lozano and 8 others

The Beginning of the Ecclesiastical New Year 2024

To the Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America,

My Beloved Children in the Lord,

Joyous feast and happy New Year!

Thou hast visited the earth and made it drunk; thou hast abundantly enriched it. The river of God is filled with waters; thou hast prepared their sustenance, for thus is the preparation thereof. 
                                        – Psalm 64:9

The world observes its civil New Year in the midst of the Northern Hemisphere’s winter, in the cold and dark of early January. Indeed, according to the ancient Roman reckoning of time, that period of the year was so bleak that it was practically acalendrical: March was originally the first month of the Roman calendar, and December the tenth and last, with those gloomy days of deep winter, our January and February, lying outside of normal social time.

In the Church, on the other hand, we observe our New Year at the height of harvest, in the season of greatest abundance: “Spring is beautiful, but autumn is plentiful,” to paraphrase a rustic Russian saying. This is reflected in the psalmody that we sing on this feast: “Thou shalt bless the crown of the year with thy goodness, and thy fields shall be filled with fatness” (Ps. 64:11).

“The river of God” – “thy fields.” These sayings remind us that the natural world, with all its bounty and beauty, is the creation of God, and it belongs to him. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and all that dwell therein” (Ps. 23:1). Man is placed in this world as its steward, not its ultimate master or owner, and the creation around us is given to us not as a right, but as a gift. Moreover, though we are given temporal dominion over our environment, the natural world, like all things that come from God, finds its truest meaning when it is offered back to God. We are called to be not just steward, but sacrificer, priest, taking what is given and offering it back to the Giver.

In this act of sacrifice—the sacrament, the mystery—we encounter and receive an even greater gift, the Giver himself. Creation, the superfluous work of God’s love, becomes the very means of encounter with God. In the greatest sacrament, the Eucharist, we offer up bread and wine—the bounty of God’s earth, the work of our hands in stewardship—and we receive back the Flesh and Blood of God himself.

Therefore, creation is holy, not because of some intrinsic quality, but because of its origin and its destiny: it comes from God and, when used properly, it is given back to God. Thus, as we celebrate the bounties of the natural world on this ecclesiastical New Year, properly ascribing thanks to God, we are also called to assess our stewardship over the natural world. We must ensure that we use all the good gifts of this world responsibly and moderately, not exploiting our stewardship or abusing our dominion.

I emphasize that this work of stewardship, though it has communal and social dimensions, is first and foremost the work of each human being, each Christian. Each of us is called to offer our environment, our work, our day-to-day, our spaces and places, our time, our very breath, back to God through virtue, generosity, thanksgiving, and prayer. We are, all of us and each of us, called to share our bounty, beautify our domain, and exercise prudent husbandry of the things entrusted to our care.

Thus, as we join in celebration of the New Year, reaping the harvest of the earth’s blessings, I pray that we always partake of nature’s extraordinary abundance with moderation and thanksgiving and generosity to others, properly exercising our role as priest and mediator—in and through Christ, the Great High Priest and true Mediator—offering up to God his own of his own, such that the very hills might be girded with joy and valleys cry aloud with the song of hymns (Ps 64:13).

To our great and everlasting God, who crowns the year with goodness and bounty, who by his power made the ages and yet rules forever, before and after and beyond all seasons and times, who is one in Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: to him be all glory, thanks, and adoration, now and ever and unto ages of ages.

Wishing you all a blessed New Year and many blessed years to come,

Sincerely yours in Christ,

+Tikhon
Archbishop of Washington
Metropolitan of All America and Canada

Article from Carbon Brief website by
Yanine Quiroz 05.09.2024 | 3:16pm

According to the study, published in Nature Climate Change, if consumers with higher dietary emissions reduced their red meat consumption in favour of more legumes and nuts, global food-system emissions would fall by 32%.

At the same time, improving the diets of “underconsuming” populations would result in a 15% increase in dietary emissions.

The researchers analysed the emissions from food products consumed by two kinds of populations – those who consume higher levels of animal-based products and those who have lower intakes of these foods – in more than 100 countries. Then, they modelled the changes in emissions resulting from a potential shift in the global diet.

The study also analyses how diets – and their emissions – vary by income group within individual countries. The findings suggest that inequalities in dietary emissions are “more pronounced” within low-income countries. 

The authors suggest that changing the food choices of consumers could not only contribute to mitigating climate change, but also to addressing inequality and food security. 

Dietary emissions

Food systems make up about one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

These emissions vary greatly between different regions, but they also vary within a given country, due to a population’s food preferences, lifestyles and income. 

To find out how each population group contributes to dietary emissions, the researchers analysed emissions along the supply chain of 140 different food products, including emissions from agricultural land-use change.

Then, using a database of consumption patterns of different population groups – classified by household expenditure – they calculated the distribution of dietary emissions in 139 countries or areas. 

The authors found that in many regions and countries, total meat and dairy emissions exceed those from plant-based foods – even though meat and dairy typically account for less than one-quarter of calories consumed. 

This is not necessarily an indicator of wealth. Both high-income countries and regions, such as Australia and the US, and lower-income ones, such as India and the rest of east Asia, generate the majority of their food-related emissions from animal-based diets. 

However, in many other low-income countries and regions, including Indonesia, the rest of south-east Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, plant-based foods produce most dietary emissions. 

The map below shows the total national dietary greenhouse gas emissions (red shading) and the per-capita dietary emissions (yellow circles). 

The chart shows the regional breakdown of dietary emissions by food type, including grains (light purple), dairy products (light yellow) and beef, lamb and pork (light blue). The regions are organised by GDP, from high (left) to low (right).

These trends are partially explained by cultural factors. For example, in south-east Asia, 42% of dietary emissions come from grains, due to the predominance of rice-based dishes.

The affordability of varied food also plays a role, the authors say. For example, high prices of animal-based foods lead many lower-income countries and individuals to opt for starchy staple foods that are cheaper, but contain high levels of carbohydrates, as in south-east Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. 

Diet and income

The researchers also examined the differences in dietary emissions within countries.

The following chart shows the breakdown of dietary emissions by food type (in the coloured bars). Each country or region is broken down into deciles based on wealth, with the lowest-income 10% of the population on the left and the highest-income 10% on the right.

In some countries, the consumption of red meat and dairy products is similar regardless of the population group. For example, in the chart above, consumption of beef, lamb and pork (light blue), dairy (light yellow) and poultry, eggs and fish (blue) in the US, Australia and Canada are at similar levels across all income groups.

However, in other countries, such as Russia, India, Brazil and the rest of Latin America, as individuals’ expenditure increases, per-capita consumption of red meat and dairy products tends to rise – along with their dietary greenhouse gas emissions, according to the chart. 

One exception is parts of east Asia, where the poorest population has high dietary emissions due to a substantial intake of red meat. For example, the research says, consumption of beef and mutton is common among lower-income populations in Mongolia.

Dr Andrêa Ferreira, a postdoctoral scholar at Drexel University and a senior researcher at the Iyaleta Research Association, an independent research collective in Brazil, says that the researchers made an “amazing” effort in attempting to collect standardised global data on food consumption and expenditure.

However, Ferreira cautions that the data might not consider the many aspects influencing how people and nations choose and use certain foods, including gender inequalities and cultural practices.

A more equitable diet

Although previous studies have addressed emissions from food consumption, the novelty of this research, the authors say, is that it breaks down these emissions by expenditure groups. Furthermore, the study models how a global diet shift could reduce inequities between these groups. 

For comparison, the researchers chose the EAT-Lancet “global planetary health diet”, a model diet designed to be “healthy for both people and planet”. The EAT-Lancet diet suggests increasing the consumption of vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes, and reducing meat and dairy intake. For example, the diet suggests consuming no more than 98 grams of red meat (pork, beef or lamb), 203 grams of poultry and 196 grams of fish per week. 

Yanxian Li, the lead author of the study, says her research team chose that diet because it provides detailed intake numbers for different food products and it has been widely used in research, allowing them to compare their results with previous studies. Furthermore, the EAT-Lancet diet is flexible and can take into account different local customs and cultural practices. 

Li, who is a PhD researcher at Integrated Research on Energy, Environment and Society (IREES) at University of Groningen in the Netherlands, tells Carbon Brief:

“We have to realise that different [countries] have different diet structures. For example, some Muslim countries don’t eat pork. We [wanted] to find an option which can [be] compatible with local diets”.

Li and her colleagues found that if the entire world adopted the EAT-Lancet diet, the global dietary emissions would drop by 17%, compared to 2019 levels. 

High-income groups in mid- and high-income countries would cut 32.4% of global dietary emissions by reducing their intake of meat and dairy products. However, this reduction would be partially offset by an increase of 15.4% in emissions of poorer populations that would result from them achieving a balanced, nutritious diet, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

To achieve such a global dietary change, the study suggests policymakers set up a wide range of incentives, from carbon pricing and “eco-labelling” to policies to lower the cost of and widen access to healthier foods for low-income populations. 

Prof Klaus Hubacek, chair of IREES, a professor at University of Groningen and study co-author, says individuals can also make a difference by choosing less carbon-intensive, locally produced and seasonal food items.

The research also indicates that with the diet shift, emissions footprints from legumes and nuts would increase, due to a wider consumption of those foods from most population groups.

However, that does not mean people have to eat one or two specific products throughout their lives – more diverse diets are better for our health, Li says. She tells Carbon Brief:

“It’s important to ensure that [vulnerable groups] still have enough nutrition from animal-based products…There’s still some room for the rich people to save some good resources for the poor ones”. 

Ferreira says this flexibility is more realistic than asking everybody to become vegetarian or vegan, which “doesn’t take into account that food is about culture”.

She suggests having a diverse diet and improving access to nutritionists and nutritional education, telling Carbon Brief:

“I see food as a right, so I work with the perspective that each of us should be allowed to choose the best practice to eat…For me, it’s [about] how we move forward to a balanced diet, and we assure the right of food diversity all over the world.”

† BARTHOLOMEW 
 By the Mercy of God 
Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarchate 
 To the Plenitude of the Church
Grace and Peace from the Creator, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Most reverend brother Hierarchs and beloved children in the Lord,

    Thirty-five whole years have lapsed since the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate established September 1st, the Feast of the Indiction and opening of the ecclesiastical year, as a Day of Prayers for the Protection of the Natural Environment. This blessed initiative had a great resonance and borne bountiful fruit. The multidimensional ecological activities of the Holy Great Church of Christ today center around the phenomenon of climate change — or rather, the climate crisis — which has caused a “planetary state of emergency.”

    We appreciate the contribution of the environmental movements, the international agreements for the environment, the related engagement on the part of scientists with this problem, the contribution of environmental education, the ecological sensitivity and mobilization of countless people and especially representatives of the younger generation. However, we insist that what is needed is an axiological “Copernican turn,” a radical change of mentality globally, a substantial revision of the relationship between humankind and nature. Otherwise, we will continue to treat the catastrophic consequences of the ecological crisis, while leaving intact and active the roots of the problem.

    The environmental threat is a dimension of the extended crisis in contemporary civilization. In this sense, confronting the problem cannot be successful on the basis of the principles of the same civilization, of the rationale behind it, which created it in the first place. We have repeatedly expressed our conviction that churches and religions can contribute significantly to a vital spiritual and evaluative conversion for the sake of the future of humanity and the planet. Genuine religious faith dissolves the arrogance and titanism of humankind, inasmuch as it constitutes the embankment of its transformation into a “man-god,” who abolishes all standards, boundaries, and values, while declaring himself “the measure of all things” and instrumentalizing both his fellow human beings and nature for the satisfaction of his unquenchable needs and arbitrary pursuits.

    The centuries-long experience teaches us that, without an “Archimedean” spiritual and evaluative support, humanity cannot avoid the risks of a nihilistic “anthropologism.” This is the legacy of the classical spirit, as articulated by Plato through the principle that “God is the measure of all things for us” (Laws 716c). This understanding of humanity and its responsibility through its relationship with God is expressed through the Christian teaching about the creation of Adam “in the image of God” and “according to His likeness,” as well as about the assumption of human nature by the incarnate pre-eternal Word of God for our salvation and the renewal of all creation. The Christian faith recognizes the supreme value of humanity and creation alike. In this spirit, then, respect for the sacredness of the human person and the protection of the integrity of the “very good” creation are inseparable. Faith in the God of wisdom and love inspires and supports the creative forces of humankind, strengthening it in the face of challenges and trials, even when overcoming these appears humanly impossible.

    We have struggled and still strive for an inter-Orthodox and inter-Christian collaboration for the protection of humanity and creation, as well as for the introduction of this subject in interfaith dialogue and common actions of religions. Moreover, we particularly emphasize the need to understand that the contemporary ecological crisis impacts first and foremost the poorer inhabitants on earth. In the document of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, entitled “For the Life of the World: Toward a Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church,” this topic is underlined emphatically along with the essential concern of the Church in light of the consequences of climate change: “We must understand that serving our neighbor and preserving the natural environment are intimately and inseparably connected.  There is a close and indissoluble bond between our care of creation and our service to the body of Christ, just as there is between the economic conditions of the poor and the ecological conditions of the planet. Scientists tell us that those most egregiously harmed by the current ecological crisis will continue to be those who have the least.  This means that the issue of climate change is also an issue of social welfare and social justice.” (Paragraph 76)

    In conclusion, we wish you, most honorable brothers and most beloved children, a new ecclesiastical year full of divine blessings and productivity, invoking upon you all, through the intercession of Panagia Pammakaristos, whose wondrous and miraculous icon we honor and celebrate on this day and humbly venerate, the life-giving grace and boundless mercy of the Creator of all and God of wondrous things.  

        September 1, 2024

        † Bartholomew of Constantinople
        Fervent supplicant for all before God

We have great pleasure in announcing that His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis of Zimbabwe and Angola has honored us by becoming one of our Patrons. His biography is below. You will see the His Eminence teaches love and compassion for all of God’s creatures and we are blessed to have him with us all.

His Eminence Metropolitan Seraphim of Zimbabwe and Angola

His Eminence, the Most Reverend Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis of Zimbabwe is the Archbishop of Zimbabwe and Angola and Exarch of Southern Africa (Zimbabwe, Angola), part of the Church of Alexandria. Prior to his assignment to Zimbabwe  and Angola, Archbishop Seraphim was Archbishop of Johannesburg and Archbishop of Kenya.

His Eminence Metropolitan Serafim Kykotis was born on February 2, 1961 in Galataria, Paphos. George knew that he wanted to serve God at an early age so, at the age of twelve years, he was accepted as a novice, with the name Seraphim, at the Monastery of Kykkos on the island of Cyprus (hence the surname Kykkotis). Besides from working with agriculture at the monastery, the young Seraphim was a very good student, first attending the Pan-Cypriot High School and then the Lyceum of Kykkos from which he graduated with honors in 1982.

On September 8, 1983, Seraphim was ordained a hierodeacon by Archbishop Chrysostomos of Nea Justiniana (1977–2006). He was then transferred from the Church of Cyprus to the Church of Greece under Archbishop Seraphim of Athens (1974–2004) in order to continue his education at the Theological School of the University of Athens, from which he graduated in 1987. During the period he attended the theological faculty, Hierodeacon Seraphim also served in Athens. Upon return to Kykkos in Cyprus, he served as Director of the Library of his Monastery.

From 1988 to 1991, Hierodeacon Seraphim continued his education in Great Britain, studying English and Patristics at Christ Church college in Canterbury and at the Universities of Oxford and Durham under His Eminence Kallistos (Ware)  then Bishop of Dioclea (1982–2007), Professor of Orthodox Theology at Oxford and Very Rev. Dr. George Dragas.

Metropolitan Serafim as ecologist he stresses that everything one has received from God must be given back, without corruption. For him, hunger and poverty in Africa are a result of our sins and selfishness. He emphasizes the important of ecological metanoia (repentance) from our ecological sins, by starting a new green way of life without polluting the creation of God. “Because Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are everywhere present and fill all things, this gives us a holy vision in which we recognize that the life of God exists in all things, everywhere in the world. We must have respect for all things in the creation and treat every living thing, every person, every animal, every bird, every tree and every leaf with love, care and respect. As Orthodox Christians we inspire others by living our Christian faith. This is also our most powerful way of teaching. The scriptures tell us many things about the right operation of the earth. As Orthodox Christians we must strive to fulfill all of the Biblical teachings. Today we realize that the best ecologists are the saints. They often tame wild animals, bring healing to people and the earth, and teach a gentle, kind and loving way toward all things.”

Ηe was elected Metropolitan of Kenya and Tanzania in 1997. In these countries today there are three Metropolis and five Bishoprics. He served also as the Dean of the Seminary of Nairobi “Archbishop Makarios III of Cyprus”. Later he was elected Metropolitan of Johannesburg and Pretoria-Tsuane (2001 -2010). Since 2010, he serves as Metropolitan of Zimbabwe and Angola. He is a Member of the Patriarchal Commission on Environment and Sustainable Development, he represents the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and His Holiness Pope and Patriarch Theodoros II at the International Organizations, UN, AU and to WCC and All African Conference of Churches as well as at the official International Theological Dialogue of Orthodox and Anglicans. He is also member of the Central com. of the WCC and member of the new commission on Climate justice and sustainable Development of WCC

His Eminence observes his name day on January 2 in memory of Saint Seraphim of Sarov.

Climate change is already a harsh reality with global dimensions

July 8, 2024

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew emphasized the necessity for unified
global efforts “regardless of geopolitical interests and other considerations” in a
video message screened last night at the Nisyros Dialogues. The event was
organized by the Georgios M. Mihalos Foundation and held under the auspices of
the President of the Hellenic Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, and the Patriarch
himself.
Climate change is already a harsh reality with global dimensions and
implications, not a future scenario, the Ecumenical Patriarch emphasized,
highlighting the urgent need for immediate action.

Bartholomew stated that while taking small steps is important, it is
insufficient to address what may be the greatest threat to life on our planet.
He emphasized the urgency of effectively tackling the root causes of the crisis, not
just its effects. A transition from a focus on having to a focus on being is required
The Ecumenical Patriarch highlighted the spiritual and moral roots of the
ecological crisis and social problems. He noted that a significant aspect of this crisis
is that “humans, although aware of the consequences of their choices, continue to act
as if they did not know.” He stressed that “in the face of the ecological crisis,
humans mistakenly hope that nature will somehow overcome the ongoing
human-caused destruction and regenerate itself on its own.”
After acknowledging the presence of healthy reactions and promising
developments, including notable civil society initiatives, dynamic ecological
movements, scientific breakthroughs, political decisions made for the common
good, efforts to respect human dignity and the integrity of creation, and
advancements in environmental education, he highlighted the necessary changes that
must be made.
Beyond all this, the Ecumenical Patriarch emphasized that “a radical shift in
mindset and a fundamental reversal are required—a transition from a focus on
having to a focus on being, to an eco-friendly culture and to a culture of
solidarity.” The Ecumenical Patriarch stressed that spiritual forces, such as the major
religions, can and should contribute to these changes by harnessing their ecological,
social, and peace-building potential.

This article is an extract from The Orthodox TIMES
https://orthodoxtimes.com/ecumenical-patriarch-climate-change-is-already-a-harsh-reality-with-global-dimensions/

ABSTRACT

All responsible and reputable scientists agree that we are not reducing harmful GHG emissions fast enough to prevent devastating climate-induced catastrophes, such as extreme droughts, floods, and unstable climates. With this backdrop it is no wonder that we also hear of increasing anxiety, especially amongst the young, who feel hopeless in the face of the predicted catastrophe. Yet there is one highly empowering step that can result in a quick and consistent fall in harmful greenhouse gas emissions. The question to ask is, are individuals capable or smart enough to transition from the most harmful individual practice – the consumption of the meat/dairy diet – for the greater good?

INTRODUCTION

CONTEXT

Let me place this discussion in real-time context. Sicily is experiencing a severe drought due to a lack of winter rains, which has forced dozens of towns to ration water for both agriculture and residential consumption, with the risk to agriculture in Sicily being considered a “particular concern” by the EU’s crop monitoring service. Meanwhile, in the Po valley in northern Italy, rice farmers are still dealing with the impacts of a persistent drought that began in 2022 and devastated 7,500 hectares of rice fields last year alone. The Po Valley accounts for about 50% of the rice produced in the EU. These farmers have sought to diversify their crops in response to climate change because there simply isn’t enough water for their crop to be viable. The misuse of our water is an important point to remember in my discussion on climate and food insecurity.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF ANIMALS IN SOCIETY

In my book on Eastern Orthodoxy and Animal Suffering[1] I noted that the contemporary debate on the environment^[2] highlights how historical theological and philosophical anthropocentricism with its inherent separationist ethos, denied animals the capacity for language, rationality and self-awareness. This resulted in the refusal to extend justice, mercy, personhood and any form of rights to animals, which in turn, determined our relationships and treatment of them. Over time it became increasingly easy to view animals as disposable life and units of production, rather than sentient beings and creatures loved by God. This exploitation and abuse have reached epic proportions since the second world war, as most animals are now produced in the intensive farming system, which as numerous research papers have proven, produces distortions of the animal’s true physiology, and leads to immense physical and psychological suffering because of mutilations, deprivation, and downright cruelty.  Natural behaviours and flourishing were and still are, overridden in favour of increased financial profit and cheap food.

More recently, Ethology has challenged the flawed philosophical and theological views that these abilities were unique to human beings. Informed opinion, which includes senior Orthodox theologians and philosophers such as Zizioulas and Ware, now accept that any differences are a matter of degree rather than absence. In addition, there is overwhelming scientific evidence that increasing numbers of species are sentient beings, who suffer physical pain, psychological distress, and are capable of joy and self-awareness. Legally, animals are still categorized as property although this is now being challenged in courts across the world.

The combination of these historical factors and mindset has led to the immense suffering of God’s non-human creation and resulted in far-reaching consequences for humans and the wider environment, such as water contamination, misuse and overuse, soil degradation and loss, and numerous environmental disasters. Increasingly, scientists in many disciplines recognize that our misuse and exploitation of animals is an important factor in GHG emissions, food and water insecurity, and climate instability. So why does this continue?

FAKE NEWS – DISINFORMATION AND MISDIRECTION

Much of the debate on climate change/instability has centered around the use of fossil fuels for energy, and the waste products of Carbon Dioxide and Methane. The world, in the form of COP treaties, agree on the urgent need for rapid reductions in GHG emissions by transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewable/green forms of energy. Like most of us, I cannot build, nor afford to buy solar panels, build a wind-turbine or nuclear power station, or create other green-energy technologies. We rely on the energy companies, and our governments, to do this on our behalf. Some governments, including my own, are helping individuals by placing caps on the cost of energy, and the energy companies in turn are recompensed by the governments. Yet the revenue for this compensation comes from citizens’ taxes, so we end up paying the energy companies in one way or another. Unfortunately for us and other life-forms on this planet, this deeply flawed process has not, and will not, motivate the energy companies to transition to cleaner energy technologies, or to do so more quickly than is currently the case. As a result, harmful greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.

The equally harmful animal-based diet, however, has received far less attention until quite recently. Nonetheless, both issues have hit the same problem of the vested interests, who use the Tobacco industry’s effective disinformation and misdirection campaign methods, to perpetuate their lucrative yet very harmful businesses. Their refusal to make significant changes to our energy or food systems, brings these problems back to individuals to make changes in their lifestyles and eating habits to mitigate the looming disaster of the predicted Hot-House Earth scenario, the now 2.4 degrees rise in global temperature posited last week, climate instability and food insecurity.

The acceptance of this situation indicates that our governments are more concerned with short-term thinking that prioritises their re-election and short-term biased fiscal systems that favour the few, rather than in reorientating our economies and food production systems to save the lives of their citizens, and the myriad of other species on this planet. Increasingly more people recognise this fact, and various forms of climate anxiety are increasing.

CLIMATE ANXIETY

In their excellent chapter in one of my two books on Climate Crisis and Creation Care[3], Van Susteren and Al-Delany discuss the psychological impacts of climate change. They inform us that all the losses associated with climate change carry with them an emotional toll. They outline the psychological, physiological, and psychosocial impacts of extreme weather events under specific headings such as, wildfires, violent storms and floods, summer heatwaves and drought, sea level rise, new disease threats, air pollution, vulnerable populations, and the processing of disasters. They clearly state that the medical profession is not ready for what is to come, and I suggest that we can make the same charge against our governments, and civil society in general. They also draw our attention to increased violence, much of which can be explained by unaddressed anxiety emanating from fears of impotence and vulnerability.

They explain that denial and inaction on climate-related issues is an attempt to try to control such fears, which only exacerbates the situation. What is needed, they state, is activism and now.

ACTIVISM

In his chapter in the same book on Creation Care, Miller discusses the social role of religions in the climate emergency and advocates the ‘see-judge-act’ model of Catholic social action. He states that ‘all institutions, including religious communities on the local, national, and international level must be open to thinking and acting in unprecedented ways.’ In his section ‘Living in Denial, Living a Lie,’ he offers studies that buttress the science of Van Susteren and Al-Dilany mentioned earlier, when discussing the double reality that arises from the avoidance of discussing ‘truths’ which make others feel ‘guilty, fearful and helpless.’ He argues that in so doing, we are essentially supporting the very systems that perpetuate the evils against God’s creation.

These past few years have seen the rise of student activism and groups like Extinction and Animal Rebellion and XR Elders. Many, including Miller, advocate non-violent direct action by religious groups. However, in response to this type of direct action, the British government at least, are looking at ways to limit legitimate protests, with the dangers to our freedom and liberty becoming increasingly obvious. It is not difficult to predict the banning of these types of protests as various elements of society take to the streets, just as they were doing pre Covid, demanding greater and faster action on climate instability. Such confrontations will be manipulated by malign forces/governments, with the almost inevitable outcome of increased levels of violence.

The question to ask here is what changes are available to us and once identified, will we be willing to make the necessary changes?  Last week a study from Ireland identified that whilst most citizens were concerned about climate change, they did not want to give up their cars, and saw no connection between climate change and their dietary choices. Yet there is a wealth of scientific evidence from numerous disciplines that indicate that by reducing or eliminating meat and dairy from their diets, individuals can produce meaningful reductions in GHG emissions and increase water and food security, without any confrontation or violence. The question remains as to whether we are smart enough to do so.

DIETARY CHOICES

Essentially at this stage in the climate crisis, we have a numbers and efficiency issue. Despite numerous scientific and UN reports consistently informing us that a significant reduction in animal numbers, as a direct result in the reduction of meat/dairy consumption, is a highly effective way of tackling climate change, water depletion and environmental destruction, animal numbers continue to rise. Hundreds of millions of animals are raised, processed, and transported around the globe each year. Such numbers require huge amounts of land for food, most of the world’s water, and vast amounts of energy to produce, process, and transport them.

In efficiency terms, the use of grain and other human-edible food for non-human animal food, reduces the global food balance as livestock inefficiently convert grain into meat and milk. According to the FAO, they convert the carbohydrates and protein contained in grain into a smaller quantity of energy and protein than humans could have gained by directly consuming the grain. These figures are not insignificant and you would not run your family finances in this way. For example, for every 100 calories of human-edible cereals fed to animals, only 17-30 calories i.e., less than one third of the original potential energy, enter the human food chain, and for every 100 grams of grain protein fed to animals, just 43 grams – less than half, enter the human food chain as meat or milk. Similarly, 70 per cent of the wild fish used in animal feeds could instead be eaten directly by humans. The evidence is clear – the less animals we eat, the quicker we will reduce GHG emissions, the overuse of water, the destruction of our forests for grazing land and the depletion of the soil.

The alternative vegetarian/vegan diets are the opposite in all regards. They are economically viable and physically and psychologically beneficial, for they will also reduce our level of anxiety, as they facilitate some form of control and achievable goal at reducing climate instability. They are also entirely possible to follow without violence, conflict, or danger. This will however require an element of sacrifice for an unspecified period and herein lies its flaw.

If we look across the globe at the wars and the suffering that exists, we see a high level of avoidance strategies and tokenism by the richer countries and large corporations, but not only them, by us also. We refuse to make significant changes to adequately deal with the plight of the suffering poor, the suffering animals, and the suffering environment. This is not a surprise for we humans are not generally known for our altruism, but for our arrogance and greed. Norman Russel’s work on early Monasticism found that gluttony was a constant problem and remains so in wider society until today.

The fact that many ascetics were and are vegan/vegetarian ought to remind us of God’s original dietary choice and thus the most appropriate dietary path to follow. It is important to remember that whilst God gave us the dispensation to eat meat, it was just that. He does not command or force us to do so; we retain the freedom to follow God’s original dietary choice for us. It is also important to remember that whilst we may not be killing or rearing the animals in inhumane ways, by our choice/demand for cheap animal-based food products, we are part of the reason why such practices and processes exist and continue.

For those who can do so, and in the richer nations this is most of us, this simple, single action would result in saving the lives of billions of people, other species, ecosystems and resources like water and productive soil. One would like to think that if we were as smart or rational as Aristotle and his ilk would have us believe, we would eagerly grasp this nonviolent, achievable, and effective opportunity but I am not convinced that we will.

A NEW VISION IS THEREFORE NEEDED = EXTENDING JUSTICE, COMPASSION, LOVE

Faith groups can provide an alternative voice and vision for the future where the entire world is viewed as interconnected, delicately balanced, and sacred. They can offer a practical holistic approach, which includes spiritual and ethical guidance on the link between climate change, a flourishing creation, and socially responsible goals for a more balanced and just world. A vision that replaces the existing damaging energy and food production models with an integrated, regenerative, and distributive system that focuses on the intrinsic value and well-being of all created beings working in harmony and balance, and importantly, one that works for all and at ground level. The question of whether we will do so however remains. To end this lecture, I turn directly to each of you. Have you been convinced by my arguments? I suggest to you that if you are not, it is unlikely that enough people will make the necessary dietary transition to combat climate instability and social breakdown in the time left available to us, and the consequences of that is becoming increasingly obvious to all who have ears to hear and eyes to see.

[1] Eastern Orthodox Theology and Animal Suffering: Ancient Voices in Modern Theology. (Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2018)

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-1602-1

^[2] Arguably, the contemporary non-Orthodox debate on the Church’s responsibility for the environmental crisis began with White’s article in 1967 “The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.”

[3] Climate Crisis and Creation Care: Historical Perspectives, Ecological Integrity and Justice

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-7420-5

Climate Crisis and Sustainable Creaturely Care: Integrated Theology, Governance and Justice https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-7421-2

29 February 2024
The Rt Hon Steve Barclay MP
Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

And By Email: defra.helpline@defra.gsi.gov.uk and stephen.barclay.mp@parliament.uk
cc: Lord Douglas-Miller OBE, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State
contactholmember@parliament.uk

Dear Secretary of State
OPEN LETTER – The Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023 – Activity Regulations
Following our letter of 2 February, the undersigned 102 organisations and individuals wish to further express our concern regarding the apparent lack of progress by your Department in developing and consulting on the Activity Regulations that are necessary in order to give effect to the will of Parliament expressed by the Animals (Low Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023.
The Act passed into law by Royal Assent on 18 September 2023, more than 5 months ago. At the time, the then Animal Welfare Minister Lord Benyon was quoted as saying:
“The Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act is an important step in our commitment to
ensure high animal welfare standards both here in this country and abroad, and I encourage
holidaymakers to do their research so they can make informed choices that do not encourage
poor animal welfare practices.”
Angela Richardson MP, who tabled the original Bill which became the Act, further stated:
“This legislation is a world first and will work towards greater protection of vulnerable animals
in low welfare settings from being exploited as tourist experiences.”
The Bill proceeded through both Houses with cross-party support, without amendment or division at any stage. However, this is an enabling Act, and as such can have no meaningful impact until appropriate Regulations have been passed specifying the activities the advertising and sale of which will be prohibited. Until such Regulations are in place the implementation of the will of Parliament, which so comprehensively approved this landmark legislation without division or amendment throughout its passage, is undermined.
We cannot believe that is the Government’s intention. Yet, our efforts over the past several months to seek information on the government’s plans and timetable for the introduction of Activity Regulations have thus far been deflected, most recently in discussions with your officials on 15 February 2024. Given the current electoral timetable, and the time required to conduct meaningful stakeholder consultation on the Regulations and secure approval of both Houses of Parliament, the opportunity to ensure the Regulations are in place before the General Election is fast receding.
The signatories to this letter have been standing ready to help you progress matters. We have already provided your officials with a list of suggested proscribed activities for consideration, for which we can provide abundant and compelling evidence assembled from numerous specialist and expert sources.
We urge you to establish and communicate, without delay, a clear mechanism and timetable for the development and adoption of Activity Regulations, incorporating appropriate stakeholder
consultation, with a view to ensuring that the Regulations will be in place before the end of the current Parliamentary session. The Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act commands overwhelming public and cross-party support. Effective implementation of these world-leading measures will demonstrate the standing of the UK as a leading voice for animal protection on the international stage and provide an opportunity for nations globally to adopt similar measures for the protection both of vulnerable species and of humans, preventing thousands more people from being catastrophically injured and killed while engaging in unethical and dangerous tourism activities.
We look forward to your response.
Yours sincerely
Save The Asian Elephants
Action for Elephants UK

Signatories
Karl Ammann – conservationist, wildlife photographer, author and film producer, TIME Magazine Hero of the Environment
Animal Ahimsa
Animal Aid
Animal Defenders International
Animal Interfaith Alliance
Animal Protection Agency
Animals Asia
John Arnold, Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford
Lord Black of Brentwood FRSA
Bob Blackman CBE MP
Blue Cross of India
Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary, Thailand
Born Free
Deidre Brock MP
Catholic Concern for Animals
Cheetah Conservation Fund UK
Christian Vegetarian Association
Christian Vegetarians and Vegans UK
Professor David Clough – Professor in Theology and Applied Sciences, University of Aberdeen
Compassion in World Farming
Compassion Unlimited Plus Action (CUPA)
Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation
Helen Costigan – sister of Andrea Taylor (victim of fatal attack by brutalised tourism elephant)
David Cowdrey FRGS – conservationist
Tracey Crouch CBE MP
Giles Crown – lawyer and ambassador for STAE
Crustacean Compassion
Professor Cathy Dwyer – Director of Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education
at Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, Edinburgh
Peter Egan – actor and animal welfare campaigner
Egypt Equine Aid
Ethix Digital
Sir Ranulph Fiennes OBE, Bt. – polar explorer and conservationist
FOAL Group
Baroness Foster of Oxton DBE
Four Paws UK
Freedom For Animals
The Gandhi Foundation
Dr Marion Garnett – CEO of Thinking of Animals CIC, organiser of Ealing Animals Fair
Ricky Gervais – comedian, actor, writer, director
Patricia Gibson MP
Lord (Zac) Goldsmith of Richmond Park
Wera Hobhouse MP
Humane Society International UK
Indian Vegetarian Society
Institute of Promotional Marketing
International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)
Stanley Johnson – conservationist and author
Satish Kumar – Indian British former Jain monk, peace pilgrim, founder of Resurgence Trust
League Against Cruel Sports
Professor Phyllis Lee – Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling
Rula Lenska – actress and campaigner
Caroline Lucas MP
Dame Joanna Lumley DBE FRGS – actress, TV presenter and producer, activist
Evanna Lynch – film, TV and stage actress (Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter series), animal welfare and vegan activist
Alexander Macmillan, 2nd Earl of Stockton
Clara Mancini – Professor of Animal-Computer Interaction, The Open University
Sunita Mansigani – animal welfare activist
Megan McCubbin – zoologist, conservationist and TV presenter
Stuart McDonald MP
John McNally MP
John Nicolson MP
Wendy Morgan – actress
Naturewatch Foundation
Dr Christina Nellist PhD – theologian, former Visiting Research Fellow at Winchester University
OneKind
Pan-Orthodox Concern for Animals
Partido Animalista (PACMA)
Andrew Penman – journalist
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
Protect All Wildlife
Quaker Concern for Animals
Ian Redmond OBE – wildlife biologist, Head of Conservation – Ecoflix and Ambassador for UN’s
Convention on Migratory Species
Andrew Rosindell MP
Carol Royle – actress and animal activist
Dr Richard D Ryder – conservationist, author, animal rights advocate, past Chairman of RSPCA
SARX – Christian Animal Advocacy Charity
Save Elephant Foundation and Elephant Nature Park (Thailand) – founded by Lek Saengduean Chailert, Woman Hero of Global Conservation, holder of Legion d’Honneur of France
Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Jenny Seagrove – actress and owner of the Mane Chance Sanctuary
Virendra Sharma MP
Shellfish Network
Alex Sobel MP
Sri Guru Singh Sabha Southall (world’s largest Sikh Gurdwara organisation outside India)
Peter Stevenson OBE – lawyer and animal welfare campaigner
Linda, Countess of Stockton
Touchpoint Group
Professor the Lord Trees FRCVS, FMedSci, HonFRSE
UK Centre for Animal Law (A-LAW)
Dr Madhulal Valliyatte – Asian elephant specialist, conservationist and veterinary consultant
Viva!
Rick Wakeman CBE – musician, composer, activist
Dr Clifford Warwick PGDip(MedSci) PhD CBiol CSci EurProBiol FRSB – biologist and medical scientist
Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Ann Widdecombe DSG – politician, author, TV personality
Wild Animal Welfare Committee
Wild Futures
Wild Welfare
Jay and Katja Wilde – UK’s leading organic vegan farmers, stars of “73 Cows”
World Animal Justice
World Animal Protection
Correspondence to: DuncanMcNair@stae.org

Webinar on March 2 organized by Together4Europe

With the participation of Dr. Nikolaos Asproulis, deputy director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies and Chair of POCA. Dr. Asproulis will deliver a talk on the ontological interdepedence among all creatures of God and the need for Christian theology to reconsider the content of the imago Dei doctrine so as to include non-human creatures too.

REGISTRATION IS OPEN UNTIL FEB 27 here: Together for Europe Workshop Ecology  02.03.2024       9.30 – 12.30 / 15.00 – 18.00 (office.com)