 |
The increasing globalisation of trade means that farm animal welfare is now an international issue. For example, cattle and sheep are exported on horrendous week-long sea journeys from Australia and Europe to be slaughtered in the Middle East , while chickens reared in Asia end up on supermarket shelves in Europe.
Factory farming is expanding in developing countries, with millions more pigs, chickens and cattle confined and slaughtered in horrendous conditions. Often laws – labour laws to protect people, as well as those enforcing better conditions for the environment and animals – are minimal or do not yet exist.
Local rural communities in developing countries often cannot afford the products of factory farming.
Small-scale farmers in developing countries cannot compete with industrialised farms and are put out of business. Yet they are left with the environmental impacts of factory farming – polluted air and water. |
CIWF believes that it is vital to campaign, lobby and educate at an international level. Successful lobbying work has influenced the development of global animal welfare standards such as those set by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). CIWF has lobbied OIE delegates, showing them footage from international investigations of the horrors of live animal transportation. CIWF has also lobbied the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and will aim to replicate its successes in farm animal welfare standards and legislation in the EU on the world stage.
CIWF works with animal protection groups from all areas of the globe. Since 1998, CIWF has funded and worked with groups in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) such as Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, who have now joined the highly successful European Coalition for Farm Animals (ECFA). We also work with other groups in countries such as the Ukraine and Romania, on similar projects. Campaigning and education work, alongside exposés of long distance transport and animal slaughter, have resulted in increased attention to farm animal welfare in the CEECs.
CIWF’s South African representative, Louise van der Merwe, works tirelessly to end factory farming and long distance transport. She also carries out ground breaking humane education work with teachers and the police, gaining official acceptance of humane education in South Africa’s school curriculum from 2004. Louise’s work will foster compassion for animals and people in a whole new generation.
Carole de Fraga, the CIWF Oceania representative, works with Australian and New Zealand groups. Her priority campaign is the live export trade, which is arguably the world’s worst in terms of the numbers involved, the length of the journeys and the number of animals who die during the journeys.
Future work will focus on China, including our new Chinese web pages, using materials like the ‘Farm Animals and Us’ booklets to educate farmers and the public about farm animal welfare and what they can do to improve conditions for animals; working with animal protection organisations in North America; and increasing the translation and distribution of our educational resources in diverse countries such as Brazil and the Ukraine.
Get involved with CIWF
CIWF is the organisation that gets things done – but to bring improvements to farm animal welfare around the world, we need your support. You can actively help CIWF with petitions, demonstrations, donations and community fundraising. Visit the Get involved section of the website for more information.
|
