Above – Larry the Cat Belongs to No. 10 Downing Street – Government Residence.
WAV Comment – As an Englishman and animal activist, I (Mark) can remember for many years the fact that the Conservative Party viewed the animal welfare movement as the lowest of the low. We; ‘the low’, always said in response; ‘do you not realise what additional votes there are from the animal / environmental movement if only you undertook some serious animal welfare issues’. Our advice never worked; until recently that is; with Carrie Symonds doing her bit for welfare, and good others like Zak; Theresa Villiers, Sir Roger Gale and Sir David Amess; there is a realisation in the Conservatives that animals and the environment ARE actual issues that get them additional votes. The following is an interesting article (link referenced at end) – I have included photos of thos described so that you ascertain who people are; and who ‘may be pulling green strings at No. 10’ (Downing Street.
Regards Mark
Who’s pulling the green strings in Number 10 ?
There are two – or possibly three – interpretations of the Government’s sudden conversion to the cause of animal welfare. The inclusion of a range of measures in the Queen’s Speech, including recognising animal sentience, ending the export of live animals and taking steps to stop people keeping primates as pets, is a far cry from a Conservative Party that only four years ago was promising its MPs a free vote on bringing back fox hunting.
Many people have, of course, pointed the finger at the prime minister’s fiancée Carrie Symonds, known for her work in the field of marine conservation, now employed by the conservation charity the John Aspinall Foundation.
Above – Carrie Symonds – Fiancee to the Prime Minister.
Gossip about her influence over Boris Johnson and his seemingly new-found passion for green issues goes back to 2019, when environment secretary Theresa Villiers told Natural England to scrap the planned badger cull in Derbyshire.
Above – Theresa Villiers (Yellow Jacket) – Politician and anti live animal export campaigner.
Symonds had been briefed by Dominic Dyer, until last December the chief executive of the Badger Trust, and – so the story goes – she pleaded with Johnson to intervene.
“I gave her information to give to Boris and he brought it up in Cabinet,” Dyer confirmed to ENDS. “Her intervention was significant because she understood the issue, her views were clear and she was a patron of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation (CAWF), a group that had worked hard to build a platform against badger culling.”
The NFU later took out a Judicial Review against Villiers’ decision, and the High Court judgment – though it rejected the farmers’ claim – found considerable evidence for Johnson putting pressure on DEFRA ministers to halt culling in Derbyshire.
In fact, Dyer believes it would have been easy to persuade Johnson that stopping the cull was the smart thing to do. The county was in the middle of the so-called ‘Red Wall’ that the Conservatives would target in the looming (though yet to be announced) General Election. “She told him you could be shooting badgers that have been vaccinated, and there’s no public support for that – that’s why he intervened,” Dyer said. “He didn’t want this issue coming up on the doorstep.”
Below – Lorraine Platt at badger cull demo.
But there’s another view. CAWF founder Lorraine Platt has been working for more than a decade with sympathetic MPs to fundamentally change the party’s approach to all manner of animal welfare issues. “It’s important to remember that patrons have had key influential roles in promoting animal welfare for many years, sometimes decades,” Platt told ENDS. “Sir Roger Gale and Sir David Amess have both been in Parliament for 37 years.”
Sir Roger with pet dog.
Below – Sir David Amess
And, indeed, Platt argues, Johnson wrote a piece in the Daily Telegraph in 2018 arguing for an end to live animal exports. “He used his first speech on the steps of Downing Street as prime minister to talk about animal welfare, the first PM to have done that,” she said.
But if the animal welfare and broader environmental issues are really genuine passions for Johnson, then he appears to have a mixed record in advocating them. True, he’s written pieces about elephants and pangolins, but go back a decade or more and you can find articles questioning the science of climate change and rejecting recommendations from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“If they seriously believe that I am going to give up eating meat – in the hope of reducing the temperature of the planet – then they must be totally barmy,” he wrote. Does this suggest that his embrace of green issues is superficial or that it has come later, raising once again the influence of his new partner?
CAWF patron Sir David Amess suggested to ENDS that giving Symonds all the credit for the government’s commitment to animal welfare would be to ignore the work of many other people.
“I can’t pretend to know the lady, I’ve met her once at the Conservative Party conference,” he said, “but I’ve got no evidence for her influence over these issues. I know that [environment secretary] George Eustice and [environment minister] Zac Goldsmith were talking positively about these things way before she came on the scene.” Dyer also acknowledges the considerable influence of Goldsmith in Number 10.
Zac Goldsmith (right) – key person in stopping UK trophy hunt imports.
So, Johnson’s new-found commitment to animal welfare could be down to Symonds, but it could also – or equally – be down to the fact that the Conservative Party, and the people who vote for it, have changed. Changing tack makes political sense.
And the third possibility? That it is intended to distract from other other measures, such as the proposed reforms to the planning system, that will have adverse impacts on the environment. Throw the blue-green voters a bone so they look away from potentially less palatable actions elsewhere, could be the thinking.
Dyer agrees there are contradictions within the Conservative agenda, whether it’s HS2 or airport expansions. “These are big issues and there are vested interests that will push back the other way,” he said.
Symonds, in other words, may have influence, but so do plenty of other people.
The short-finned mako is a shark that can be found in almost all seas on earth.
However, its widespread distribution does not prevent it from being extinguished. The stocks are showing strong signs of overfishing and the animal has long been on the red list.
Most of the mako ends up as bycatch in the nets of the fishing industry. But it is also caught specifically to eat its meat, cut off its fins or just for pleasure. 3000 tons of the ocean shark are landed in the ports of the North Atlantic every year.
The EU is responsible for 55 to 76% of the landings, mostly Spanish ports.
Swift and drastic measures must be taken to keep short-fin mako populations from becoming extinct. An in-depth investigation was conducted in 2017, which found that a recovery would be possible in the coming decades – but only if shark trapping is immediately and completely stopped.
For four years, however, the EU has been putting its hands on its lap, nothing has happened.
In 2019 and 2020, the EU even voted against restricting mako fishing.
In the meantime, the forecasts have clearly deteriorated. Another meeting will take place in 2021 to vote on global fishing quotas. Is the EU finally coming to its senses?
Only the EU and the US are still against the moratorium on short-finned mako. All other states will vote in favor.
And I mean…Mako sharks grow and reproduce slowly.
Females are slow maturing at approximately 18 years, while males mature much sooner, at 8 years.
Similar to great white shark pups, once born these baby sharks are left to fend to for themselves.
That means: a female shortfin Mako shark is estimated to reach sexual maturity at around 18 years, giving birth to relatively small litters (4-25 pups every 3 years).
Let’s think about what this means for a moment.
A female Mako sharks reproducing and giving birth to a litter for the first time this year would have been born around the year 2003!
This life history characteristic makes these apex predators extremely vulnerable to over-exploitation.
We read in the report that in 2019 and 2020 the EU even voted against restricting mako fisheries.
Like USA too.
But what common economic interests does the EU have if it supports the USA in eradicating Mako sharks from the oceans?
Actually none.
It is only because the EU has only ever cooperated with the powerful, no matter whether it’s the USA, the auto industry or the meat mafia
At the next meeting we will not be surprised if the EU re-enters as a cooperation partner of the USA and represents the interests of criminals again.
McDonald’s depots blockaded by animal activists demanding chain goes vegan
McDonald’s distribution centres which supply around 1,300 restaurants have been blockaded by animal rights protestors demanding the chain goes vegan.
Around 50,000 members of Animal Rebellion have descended on four of the fast food giant’s major sites in a bid to persuade it to introduce a fully plant-based menu by 2025.
WAV Comment – you read it here first ! – please stay with us.
BREAKING NEWS 21/5/21.
EU Citizens’ Initiative: MEPs back calls to gradually end caged farming
Press Releases
The use of cages in animal farming could be phased out by 2027, after an impact assessment and a properly funded transition, the Agriculture Committee said on Friday.
In their response to the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) “End the Cage Age”, MEPs called on the European Commission to come up with a draft EU law on fair and sustainable farming and to propose a revision of existing EU rules on the protection of animals kept for farming purposes. These legal changes should pave the way to phasing out the use of cages in EU animal farming, after an appropriate transition period and a solid, scientific impact assessment, possibly by 2027, they say.
Alternatives to cage farming exist and are being successfully implemented in a number of member states, MEPs say. These alternative systems should be further improved and encouraged at national level, but to ensure a level-playing field for farmers across the European Union, EU legislation is needed, they add.
Species-by-species approach and properly funded transition
The gradual end of caged farming should be based on a species-by-species approach that would take into account the characteristics of different animals and ensure that they all have housing systems that suit their specific needs, MEPs say. They insist on ensuring sufficient time to make the transition and proper support, including adequate advisory and training services, incentives and financial programmes for farmers and livestock breeders before making any legislative changes. This would avoid farmers losing their competitive edge and EU production being consequently relocated abroad, where animal welfare standards are lower than in the EU.
MEPs also call for a more comprehensive food policy to support the shift towards a more sustainable food system that should focus not only on environmental, but also on economic and social dimensions. Such a policy should prevent small and medium-sized farms from abandoning livestock production and stop production being further concentrated in the hands of a few large farms, they say.
Same standards for all imported products
A fair trade policy that ensures a level playing field is a precondition for higher European standards, the Agriculture Committee says. The Commission and member states should therefore focus more on putting effective controls and customs checks in place to ensure that imported agri-food products meet EU animal welfare standards, it adds.
MEPs want all animal products imported into the EU to be produced in full compliance with the relevant EU legislation, including the use of cage-free farming systems and insist that existing trade deals should be re-evaluated to ensure that the same animal welfare and product quality standards are met. They also call on the Commission to promote animal welfare internationally.
Next steps
The draft resolution, approved in the Agriculture Committee by 39 votes in favour to four against, with three abstentions, will now have to be scrutinised by the Parliament as a whole, probably during the 7-10 June plenary session.
Background
The European Citizens’ Initiative allows one million citizens from at least a quarter of EU member states to ask the European Commission to propose legislation in areas that fall within its competence. The EU invites organisers of successful initiatives to present their initiative at a public hearing in the European Parliament, to the committee responsible for the subject matter.
During the public hearing on the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) “End the Cage Age” on 15 April, MEPs highlighted the importance of listening and acting on citizens’ concerns on animal welfare. However, many insisted that any potential phase-out of caged farming requires proper financial support, incentives and an adequate transition period. They called for strict and efficient measures to avoid imports of cheaper products with lower animal welfare standards from non-EU countries. Some also called for a proper impact assessment and insisted on EU legislative action.
The “End the Cage Age” ECI was registered with the EU Commission on 5 September 2018. By the time of submission, the initiative had gathered support from almost 1.4 million signatories from across the EU, with the required threshold for signatures met in 18 member states.
The initiative calls on the Commission to “end (…) inhumane treatment” of “hundreds of millions of EU farm animals (…) kept in cages for most of their lives”, and for an EU law to ban the use of: cages for laying hens, rabbits, pullets, broiler breeders, layer breeders, quail, ducks and geese; farrowing crates for sows; sow stalls, where not already prohibited; and individual calf pens, where not already prohibited.
Final vote on the ban of Estonian fur farms in June
20 May 2021
Loomus
WAV Comment – Estonia joined the EU as a member state on 9 December 2010.
The Environment Committee has agreed that the draft Act for Animal Protection and Nature Conservation, which would prohibit fur farms in Estonia, will be put to a final vote on June 2nd.
This announcement has brought joy and optimism to our Estonian member organisation Loomus. “Loomus has been working on the fur ban for years and the decision that the Environment Committee made today takes us very close to finally put an end to this cruel industry. We are glad that the politicians are taking animal-friendly steps and we are very optimistic that this time the farms will be banned,” said Annaliisa Post, Communications Manager and Board Member at the animal advocacy organization.
According to a Kantar Emor poll conducted in September, 75 percent of Estonians are opposed to the breeding of animals such as foxes and minks for their fur. In 2016, 69 percent of respondents agreed, indicating that support for a fur-free Estonia is growing.
European Commission introduces mandatory SARS-CoV-2 screening in all European mink fur farms
19 May 2021
LAV
On 12 May, the European Commission adopted the Implementing Decision 788 which sets standards for the surveillance and reporting of SARS-CoV-2 infections in mink (and raccoon dogs) bred for fur production.
This decision means that, for the first time, there is a mandatory and harmonised diagnostic screening and reporting system in place for all Member States, after more than 400 fur farms saw outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 in 2020.
The Commission has deemed it necessary to initiate this monitoring in all Member States “without delay”, demonstrating the considerable risks to public health connected to fur farming.
The EU Commission has recognised the risk to public health connected to the presence of mink (and raccoon dog) farms for the production of fur and now, finally, it has adopted a system of control of these farms with active surveillance (diagnostic tests). In Italy we have already had outbreaks on 2 farms out of 8; the time has come for the Minister of Health to assume political responsibility to permanently ban fur farming.
Simone Pavesi, Campaigner, LAV
Diagnostic surveillance involves carrying out virological tests on a weekly basis, on live or dead animals, for a number equal to at least 5% of the population of any single farm. This sampling level can be adjusted from 5% to 20% in the case of positive results for SARS-CoV-2.
However, there are possible loopholes in Implementing Decision 788. Competent authorities can decide to switch from active surveillance to passive surveillance on farms that adopt risk reduction measures. Farms under passive surveillance will only be required to test animals if mortality is increased or farm workers test positive for SARS-CoV-2.
This creates the risk of reversing monitoring systems to those of 2020 where surveillance protocol was based on mere clinical observation, in clear contrast with scientific evidence which suggests mink are in most cases asymptomatic. This would increase the risk of creating SARS-CoV-2 reservoirs, with serious public health implications.
In Italy, a country which, while having suspended mink fur farming for 2021, still has operational farms, 77% of the adult population are in favour of the adoption of emergency measures to end fur farming and breeding. This illustrates that by allowing fur production to continue, the European Commission is more concerned with protecting the economic interests of a small group of stakeholders at the expense of the health of all European citizens.
WAV Comment: The UK is working very hard against environmental pollution; credit where it is due. But this very excellent and completely effective animation shows just how much of a global environmental issue plastic has become. Below is also another video which shows the reality – this is not ‘fantasy land’; so get a grip and make every effort to speak out against the over use of plastics globally. These realistic videos show the reality of the global plastic crisis.
Regards Mark
Prime Minister Boris Johnson Drowns In Plastic In New Satirical Animation Highlighting Pollution Crisis
‘Wasteminster’ sheds light on the ‘shocking truth about what happens to plastic the government tells us is being recycled’…
Wasteminster is directed by Jorik Dozy and Sil van der Woerd for environmental organization Greenpeace. It is voiced by acclaimed impressionists Jon Culshaw and Matt Forde and produced by Studio Birthplace.
Boris Johnson satirical animation
The animation begins with Johnson at 10 Downing Street speaking to press about being a ‘global leader in tackling plastic pollution’.
Directors Sil and Jorik purposely used direct quotes from the politician and his government, as they didn’t want to ‘put words in the Prime Minister’s mouth’.
During Johnson’s speech, a barrage of plastic starts pouring down from above. Eventually, this causes a surge that floods Downing Street.
The film then cuts to real-life footage of plastic waste that has been discarded overseas.
Greenpeace says the piece aims ‘to put into stark contrast the bold promises the government has made about reducing the environmental impact of plastic, with the reality that plastic production has been rising while the government’.
‘The shocking truth’
Nina Schrank is a Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace. In a statement sent to PBN, she said: “This powerful film will show people the shocking truth about what happens to plastic the government tells us is being recycled.
“And, who better to enlist for the voiceovers than impressionists from the legendary Spitting Image… The impeccable voice talents of Culshaw and Forde.”“We need a complete ban on all plastic waste exports and legislation to make companies reduce the amount of plastic they produce…”
Sam Chetan-Welsh, Political Campaigner at Greenpeace UKMoreover, Sam Chetan-Welsh is a Political Campaigner from Greenpeace UK. He added: “The plastic we carefully wash and sort for recycling is being shipped off to other countries… It overwhelms their waste systems. And, much of it ends up illegally dumped or burnt, poisoning local people and polluting oceans and rivers.
“The government could put a stop to this but so far Boris Johnson is only offering half measures. “We need a complete ban on all plastic waste exports and legislation to make UK companies reduce the amount of plastic they produce in the first place.”
sea life trapped by plastic – Google Search
Plastic pollution
Studio Birthplace has also published an animated series and augmented reality app.
The animation aims to help ‘visualize the incredible data related to our abuse of the planet’.
Humanity’s Impact is also written and directed by Sil and Jorik. Sean Lin produces.
It illustrates how a staggering 100,000,000,000 plastic bags are used globally, every year. And, that 1,000,000 plastic bottles are produced every single minute – by showing a town that gets flooded with plastic.
