Category: Environmental
US judge in Nevada hands wild horse advocates rare victory in ruling on mustang management plans
In a rare legal victory for wild horse advocates, a judge has ruled U.S. land managers failed to adopt a legal herd management plan or conduct the necessary environmental review before 31 mustangs died during the roundup of more than 2,000 horses in Nevada last summer.
U.S. District Court Judge Miranda Du in Reno ordered the Bureau of Land Management to complete a formal herd management plan for the Pancake complex in eastern Nevada by next March 24. She also ordered the agency to reopen an environmental assessment to include the potential impact of roundups on wildfire risks.
Regards Mark
Image – Act4Wildlife
28 March 2024
On 26 March the Council of the EU endorsed the revised Environmental Crime Directive, strengthening penalties for behaviour negatively impacting the environment and wild animals. The Directive provides welcomed improvements to the current legal framework, but calls for stronger and more specific measures to be adopted by Member States when transposing the legislation.
Clarification of offences regarding animals
While the previous Directive addressed poaching and illegal trade of wild animals as offences, the new legislation provides additional information on their scope. Online trade is now expressly covered. The legislation also gives additional information on the species covered, detailing the lists of threatened species that should be considered. In line with the previous Directive, the law provides an exemption when the conduct concerns “a negligible quantity of specimens”. However, the new text specifies that elements must be taken into account when assessing this condition, including the conservation status of the species. We therefore ask Member States to enforce strict sanctions for offences concerning species threatened by wildlife trade or other circumstances affecting their populations, even when such offences concern only one or a few individuals.
Introduction of specific sanctions
The previous Directive provides minimal guidance on the penalties that should sanction the offences listed, providing that they must be “effective, proportionate and dissuasive”. The revised Directive is more specific, introducing sanctions for both natural and legal persons. In practice, Member States will have to ensure that the maximum sanctions for offences related to poaching and trading of animals are no less than three years imprisonment for natural persons and a fine corresponding to 3% of the total worldwide turnover for legal persons. These sanctions remain insufficient in light of the negative impact such behaviour has on biodiversity, conservation and animal welfare, but it is a significant step forward.
Management of confiscated animals
Although not legally binding, one recital of the legislation provides that Member States should ensure that frozen and confiscated proceeds and instrumentalities are appropriately managed, in line with their nature. In other words, Member States are encouraged to adopt further provisions to guarantee the welfare of confiscated animals. We call on Member States to further consider confiscated assets to cover the costs for the maintenance of these animals in appropriate conditions, at minimum during the proceedings.
Besides these improvements, we highlight the ambitions of the new Directive to tackle offences related to the environment as a whole. We hope that this revised framework will significantly deter harmful behaviour resulting in reduced degradation, improved environmental health and better living conditions for wild animals.
Regards Mark
Despite a clear commitment from the European Commission in 2021 to deliver proposals to ban caged animal farming by the end of 2023, it has failed to deliver on its promise.
As a result, last week, the End the Cage Age Citizens’ Committee — a group of seven EU citizens who started the ECI — launched a ground-breaking legal action against the European Commission for failing to act.
Funded by Compassion in World Farming, this historic case could result in the Commission being compelled by the court to set out a clear timescale for the legislation.
It is the first legal action to hold the Commission to account over its failure to act on an ECI — an important test case for both animal welfare and democracy.
Despite overwhelming support, animals continue to suffer
Back in 2021, Compassion in World Farming, along with millions of European citizens, celebrated the news of the European Commission’s clear commitment.
It followed the first ever successful European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) to ‘End the Cage Age’, which was signed by an overwhelming 1.4 million EU citizens and supported by a coalition of 170 NGOs led by Compassion.
ECIs were introduced with the specific purpose of giving citizens more influence over EU decision making and the tool is described by the European Commission as “a way for you and other Europeans to take an active part in EU policy-making”.
Pregnant sows are forced to nurse their piglets in crates so small they can’t even turn around; chickens can’t spread their wings, and along with countless rabbits and quail will spend all their lives in barren cages.
In October last year, the European Commission’s own Eurobarometer survey revealed that an overwhelming nine out of ten, or 89% of EU citizens — around 400 million people — believe animals should not be farmed in individual cages.
The Commission’s own scientific advisers, the European Food Safety Authority, have also backed the phasing out of cages on welfare grounds for pigs, dairy calves, laying hens, ducks, quail and rabbits.
Meanwhile, more than 300 million pigs, hens, rabbits, ducks, quail and geese continue to suffer confinement and misery in cages across the EU each year.
Pregnant sows are forced to nurse their piglets in crates so small they can’t even turn around; chickens can’t spread their wings, and along with countless rabbits and quail will spend all their lives in barren cages.
Ducks and geese are caged for force-feeding to produce foie gras.
How did the ban get derailed?
In September, we hoped to hear European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen set out the plans to deliver the ban in her State of the Union speech.
Instead, what we heard were words that echoed the letter she received from the farming federation Copa Cogeca. It seems she caved into pressure from the agriculture lobby to put the ban on hold.
Together with my colleagues in End the Cage Age Citizens’ Committee, we have made repeated requests to meet with the president on behalf of the millions of EU citizens who support the cages ban, without success.
The cages ban — part of the Commission’s excellent Farm to Fork strategy to meet climate and nature obligations — also has the chance to provide wider environmental and socio-economic benefits.
Yet, last October, an investigation from Lighthouse Reports revealed that “an increasingly assertive meat industry helped derail a historic democratic demand to improve animal welfare standards in the EU”.
We simply cannot allow the powerful farming lobby to have preferential access to decision-makers to influence them to backtrack on promises they have made to citizens.
This is particularly unjust when those citizens have followed the very process designed to give them more influence over EU decision-making. As a result of this injustice, both animal welfare and democracy are now at stake.
Above – Duck breeders load ducks into a truck to bring them to a slaughterhouse at a poultry farm in Saint Aubin, May 2017 AP Photo/Bob Edme© Provided by Euronews (English)
Above – walk past a truck with live chickens on sale in an informal market in central Athens, May 2012 Thanassis Stavrakis/AP© Provided by Euronews (English)
We can’t wait any longer
There is simply no justification for any further delay. All the appropriate preparation, assessments and consultations have already been carried out by Commission officials and the proposals make strong provision for financial support to help farmers transition to cage-free systems during a phase-out.
This measure is backed by the animal welfare movement who believe public subsidies should be redirected to reward farmers for transitioning to high welfare and nature-positive systems that benefit society.
Pursuing legal action is not a choice we have taken lightly, but we cannot allow the European Commission to break its promises to citizens, making a mockery of democracy in the process.
The cages ban — part of the Commission’s excellent Farm to Fork strategy to meet climate and nature obligations — also has the chance to provide wider environmental and socio-economic benefits.
A report from the Institute for European Environmental Policy found that the ban would have greater sustainability benefits.
These art installations reveal the sad truth about keeping animals in cages
European Parliament overwhelmingly backs ban on caged animal farming
In addition, it concluded that the current discrepancy between legislation in member states was leading to uneven market conditions across the EU, and that a level playing field should be created.
Democracy is not to be mocked
Pursuing legal action is not a choice we have taken lightly, but we cannot allow the European Commission to break its promises to citizens, making a mockery of democracy in the process.
Most importantly, we cannot stand by silently while millions of animals continue to suffer in cages. Caving into the big agriculture lobby and continuing to use taxpayer funds to prop up this damaging sector is not helping citizens, or the majority of small-to-medium-scale farmers.
The hope is that this ground-breaking legal action — launched on behalf of millions of supportive EU citizens as well as the voiceless 300 million animals still suffering every day in cages — will speed up the ban and ensure that every cage is an empty cage.
We will not rest until we end the Cage Age.
Olga Kikou is Head of Compassion in World Farming EU, the leading farm animal welfare organisation dedicated to ending factory farming and achieving humane and sustainable food production.
Full article and pictures at:
To protect caged animals, we are suing the European Commission (msn.com)
We are 110% behind the actions now taken;
Regards Mark
More reading https://www.ciwf.org.uk/our-campaigns/end-the-cage-age/
The League Against Cruel Sports, (LACS), with our 110% support launch their 2024 election campaign.
https://www.league.org.uk
Its time for change for British wildlife.
100 years of fighting wildlife abuse: https://www.league.org.uk/who-we-are/our-history/
Standing on the side of animals – https://www.league.org.uk/who-we-are/our-history/
From the League:
National parks are some of our country’s most beautiful landscapes, combining stunning scenery and beautiful wildlife.
Unfortunately, all is not as it seems. Hunters with packs of hounds maraud across the parks, chasing and killing wildlife, causing havoc to the public and the environment.
This fundamentally undermines the National Park Authorities’ aims to protect its land and preserve its flora, fauna, and wildlife for future generations.
https://www.league.org.uk/nationalparks
Above – Foie Gras Force Feeding
Below – The Result
14 March 2024
News
In plenary today, Members of the European Parliament urged the European Commission (EC) to come forward with the outstanding legislative proposals on animal welfare, the future of which remains uncertain. They stressed that the delay is putting the credibility of European institutions in question, as citizens’ demands remain unanswered.
The EC had committed to publish four animal welfare proposals by the end of 2023, but backtracked from this promise by only publishing an unambitious Transport Regulation, and not putting forward the promised Kept Animals, Slaughter and Labelling regulations. The proposals were also set to include phasing out cages by 2027, in reply to the End the Cage Age ECI in which 1.4 million citizens asked for a transition to cage-free systems.
During the plenary today, a record number of MEPs (41) intervened in the oral question tabled by Neils Fuglsang (S&D, DK). 30 MEPs stressed that while the EC continues to delay action, millions of animals continue to suffer in horrible conditions across all stages of their lives; from farm to transport to slaughter. They criticised the EC for doing “very little” for animal welfare in the past legislative term, and questioned the democratic aspect of ECIs if policymakers do not react to the demands of the citizens. “You are letting down 3 million citizens,” many reiterated, making reference to the End the Cage Age and Fur Free Europe ECIs – both of which remain pending action by the EC.
They urged the EC to come forward with a concrete timeline and answer to the demands of millions of EU citizens.
Elisa Ferreira, Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, while admitting that more needs to be done for resilient food systems, said that work on these legislative files is “still ongoing”, and the EC “is analysing the best course of action”. She did not make any commitments on timeline.
In the run-up to the European Elections, Eurogroup for Animals has launched the Vote for Animals campaign which encourages candidate MEPs to take a pledge for animals, while informing citizens about the importance of these elections for progress on animal welfare.
European citizens can send a message to their candidates asking them to commit to the pledge.
The EC broke its promise on presenting the animal welfare legislation package. And while we wait for a clear timeline, millions of animals continue to live in cages, male chicks continue to be gassed at a day old, while chickens are bred to grow so fast their bodies cannot keep up. These animals deserve a legislative proposal, but there is none. We call on the EC to present a concrete timeline.
MEP Neils Fuglsang (S&D).
What has happened to the promised legislation?
What about the ban on cages?
We have been fighting for years.
How long will these animals have to wait? Not a day longer.
MEP Anja Hazekamp (The Left)
Not answering to the demands of ECIs would threaten the credibility of EU institutions – the animal welfare legislation should be a priority in the next mandate. We are disappointed – we need to see changes.
MEP Tilly Metz (Greens/efa)
The ECI is an excellent tool to improve democracy, but it only works if those who make the law react to what the citizens want. 1.4 million citizens asked for a ban on cages – more than four years have passed and 300 million animals continue to spend their lives in terrible conditions.
MEP Róża Thun Und Hohenstein (Renew).
Regards Mark
I am not allowed to reproduce the article here, so can only give the link:
‘Bewildering’ to omit meat-eating reduction from UN climate plan (msn.com)
The omission of meat-eating reduction from proposals in a UN roadmap to tackle the climate crisis and end hunger is “bewildering”, according to academic experts.
The group also criticised the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s report for “dismissing” the potential of alternative proteins, such as plant-based meat, to reduce the impact of livestock on the environment.
Regards Mark
Busking in London – Cocaine:
Hotel California
We say – Excellent ! – well done EasyJet for setting the standard we now want to see from other airlines also.
EasyJet has announced plans to change holidays, trips and excursions to make animal welfare a key priority of its business operations.
After consulting leading animal welfare charities including World Animal Protection, the tour operator has scrapped all tours that include animal-based attractions. This includes marine parks, zoos, animal performances, animal rides and sporting events involving animals.
Keep reading:
New animal welfare guidelines at easyJet prompts changes to tours and holidays (msn.com)
Top Airline ! – Regards Mark
There is a General Election on the horizon – almost certainly this year 2024.
Badgers have friends, and those friends have votes.
A new government plan to wipe out all badgers in certain areas has prompted a fresh row between officials and wildlife activists.
Badgers are blamed for carrying bovine tuberculosis (bTB), which forces dairy farmers to have infected herds culled.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has back-tracked on earlier promises to end the badger cull, which began in 2013.
Instead, as revealed by The Independent last month, officials are proposing to allow 100 per cent of populations to be killed in “cluster” hot spots for the disease. Until now, the target was 70 per cent or above.
Continue reading at:
Regards Mark
Above and below – Beautiful – In My Garden (Mark).
WAV Comment – I have enjoyed the majestic Sequoia on my travels around California in the past.. Back home here in England; there is a local park approx 2 miles from my house. Here they have a mighty Sequoia which must be 30. 40, 50 ? years old; it is huge. The following from the BBC relates to very recent info:
Giant sequoia trees, first imported to the UK 160 years ago, are flourishing despite the dramatically different climate to their native California, a new study has found.
The huge trees, which are declining in numbers in California due to increasing heat, are adapting well to the British climate and growing taller, according to a study conducted by UCL researchers.
Continue reading at:
Giant sequoias thriving in UK and could grow as tall as in California (msn.com)
Regards Mark
World Animals Voice 