Displaying items by tag: Animal Welfare

Earlier this year, our Model Animal Welfare Act book became available on our website for purchase. We want to ensure that maximum use is made of this valuable resource, especially as it is the culmination of almost four years of blood, sweat and tears! Researching and writing the Model Animal Welfare Act involved an extensive comparative law exercise, taking into account existing guidance and best practice in the field; with further refinement after consultation with leading law experts across the world. The end product is a template and guidance document for those interested in enacting new legislation or improving existing animal protection legislation; including best possible structures, systems and provisions to protect the welfare of animals.

At World Animal Net, one of our key initiatives is to help animal protection organizations around the world better understand and leverage international policy opportunities to improve the lives of animals. Unfortunately, WAN was unable to personally attend the recent Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Marrakech. However, we are pleased that our colleagues Tozie Zokufa of Humane Society International, the Pan African Animal Welfare Alliance, and member of WAN’s International Policy Forum and Caroline Wimberly of Brighter Green were kind enough to prepare reports of their experiences and work at the convention as well as outcomes and future directions for advocacy at the UNFCCC with the wider animal protection community.

As we set our sights on our goals and resolutions for 2017, we have a unique opportunity to assess our advocacy for animals and incorporate a fresh approach to our strategies in the coming year.

2016 was a busy year for WAN. We do everything it takes to achieve policy change for animals across the world, and this year this has taken us to Paris, Washington, D.C., Addis Ababa, Malawi, and Guadalajara, Mexico, working for progress for animals everywhere.

Last week, I was excited to have had the opportunity to attend the World Organisation for Animal Health’s (OIE’s) 4th Global Animal Welfare Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico. Together with WAN co-founders Wim de Kok and Janice Cox, and Model Animal Welfare Act co-author Dr. iur. Sabine Lennkh, we joined numerous other animal protection organizations (APOs) in representing the interests of animals at the conference.

WAN is pleased to announce a new resource on our website! This is “Best Practice for Animal Welfare Development and Implementation", which pulls together some of the Best Practice (or more accurately “Best Available Practice”!) on animal welfare in order to help a wide range of stakeholders to incorporate animal welfare in their work.

An African First!

WAN’s Janice Cox has just played a part in helping to shape the first Regional Animal Welfare Strategy (RAWS) covering Africa. Every continent but Africa has now agreed on a RAWS, leaving Africa lagging behind. However, the process is now off to a start, thanks to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an African Regional Economic Community (REC) representing eight eastern African countries including the horn of Africa. IGAD is now the first REC in Africa to validate a RAWS.

Each year worldwide millions of farm animals are transported on harsh long journeys taking them to slaughterhouses or for fattening.

At the end of May I attended the OIE’s 2016 General Session on behalf of WAN, which was one of a number of international animal protection organisations representing the International Coalition for Animal Welfare (ICFAW).