*Originally published 1 May 2020* Emerging from our Cargill action we knew that, for Earth Day, we again wanted to combine a small but strong in-person action, with a broader initiative that the general public could participate in, whilst adhering to the COVID-19 regulations. Our broader action was a country-wide call-out for people to tie signs, designed by artists at Extinction Rebellion, to trees on their daily walk. Meanwhile, a small group of us composed a carefully worded letter and planned its strategic delivery to the Prime Minister, accompanied by a “Sarah doll”. The life sized doll symbolises a woman turning the age of 50 in the Netherlands, which felt apt as it was the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.[…]
Change is Happening All Around Us Right Now and This Could Spark Something Big
*Originally published 24 April 2020* The domino effect is when one change occurs, triggering another and then another. This is the situation for many countries around the world right now. The first change always feels like the hardest adjustment but, once people get used to it happening we begin to embrace new things more quickly. Branching out of our comfort zones seems scary at first, but change is not really difficult: it is inevitable. We need to abandon the ‘business as usual’ approach and, instead, take radical action to ensure that the future we want — to live in a just and sustainable world — becomes our present. Protecting our future cannot be done by anyone alone but requires the[…]
Wherever There Is Milk, There Is An Alternative. Arla Must Choose Plant-Based Milk.
Walk through any British supermarket today and you will encounter a vast array of milks. It’s not just green, red, or blue top anymore. Aisles are overflowing with alternatives and people are buying them (a quarter of UK customers). These plant-based options have spilled into cafes and restaurants too. You may find them at your work canteen, at school, at conferences or on trains. Wherever there is tea, there is milk, and wherever there is milk, there is an alternative. With the demand for plant-based milk growing, the UK cannot get left behind. We must choose the right milk to invest in. Although plant milks have been around for thousands of years (horchata and almond milk), the dairy industry has long enjoyed domination[…]
What is the Future of Animal Farmers?
*Originally published 25 February 2020* *Updated 15 November 2021* Mainstream media would have us believe that supporters of a plant-based food system and animal farmers are enemies. These two groups of people are often pitted against one another on opposite sides of the climate crisis, although, contrary to this belief, The Vegan Society states: “It is the system that is at fault, not individual farmers, who are just trying to make a living like everyone else”. Introducing the Grow Green campaign in 2015, The Vegan Society supports and collaborates with farmers and advocates for policies that will help them transition to a more sustainable system. Similarly, Animal Rebellion promotes a ‘no blame, no shame’ culture and campaigns for system change[…]
Supertrawlers: The Boats You Didn’t Know Are Ruining Our Seas
*Originally published 4 December 2019* Have you heard of super trawlers before? Super trawlers are massive fishing boats that haphazardly capture, freeze and store thousands of tonnes of fish and other sea life. They are notorious for wiping out fish stocks and contributing to large scale extermination of dolphins, seahorses, whales, and turtles. But their damage doesn’t stop there. Most UK fishing rights are currently in the hands of a few elite. FIVE families, all of whom can be found in the Times Rich List own super trawlers and control 29% of the UK’s fishing quota. Unsurprisingly, over half of the 25 top profiting fishing businesses were involved in evading designated quotas during the Black Fish Scandal, worth over £63m. Supertrawler Margiris[…]
Are We All Being Milked?
*Originally published 28 November 2019* At a ‘Women in Dairy’ conference earlier this year, Dr Jude Capper, an ‘independent livestock sustainability consultant’ who also runs the ‘Februdairy’ campaign which attempts to promote animal milk, showed a slide during her presentation which featured two young children drinking what appears to be cows’ milk products. The message on the slide read, ‘Our biggest challenge is to keep dairy in the diets of future food purchasers’. This targeting of children by the dairy industry is not new, even if, evolutionarily speaking, drinking the bodily secretions of another species is. Set against the 300,000 year history of our species, drinking milk is a relatively new habit. Before about 10,000 years ago, hardly anybody drank milk,[…]
Cargill Family, A Historic Choice is upon You: Planetary Destruction or Climate, Animal and Human Justice?
*Originally published 25 October 2019* An open letter from Animal Rebellion to the ‘silent giant’ that holds the fate of many of the world’s forests, billions of worlds’ farmed animals and much of the global food-system in its grip. Over 140 years Cargill, whilst remaining little-known, has grown to be one of the largest traders of commodities for the animal-agricultural industry. Your company is one of a handful that control up to 90% of the worlds grain markets. Your company is also the largest worldwide producer of the grain-based feed for farmed animals and the third-largest “meat processing” company in the world.Today, your agri-business is the largest food-conglomerate in the world. Astonishingly, all this makes your organisation directly accountable for: the life and death experiences of billions of commoditized[…]
Red Tractor: Assuring Animal Cruelty
*Originally published 19 October 2019* Rather than ensuring farm standards, Red Tractor fools the unaware consumer into supporting animal cruelty. ‘Facts are irrelevant. What matters is what the consumer believes’, said Seth Godin, American author and business executive. Animal agriculture and its representatives are well aware of this fact and consumers’ desire to be reassured that the products they purchase are ethical and of high quality. But how many are aware that labels, assurance schemes and terms such as ‘humane’ and ‘farm fresh’ mean very little for the 6.4 billion animals killed for food in the UK every single year? Animal Rebellion has been protesting at the headquarters of Red Tractor, a product certification programme that is made up of a[…]
Where Is the Compassion for Sentient Marine Animals in the Fishing Industry?
*Originally published 12 October 2019* As Animal Rebellion activists invite Billingsgate Fish Market into dialogue on the climate crisis and the plight of the the 2.3 trillion marine animals killed every year, we look at this often forgotten victims of our current food system. It’s easy to forget about fish or to dissociate ourselves from them and them from food, unlike cows, pigs, and sheep, which we see all around us in the landscape. When we order a salmon steak in a nice restaurant, collect a battered cod from the local chippy, or buy our favourite mackerel pate in the supermarket, we’re not usually thinking of these aquatic animals as sentient beings. It’s not often covered in the media that fish are[…]
The Amazon Ablaze: Bolsonaro and the Meat Industry Are Fuelling the Flames
*Originally published 24 August 2019* For over three weeks thousands of acres of once lush green forests of the already severely threatened Amazon, home to local indigenous communities and millions of animal, bird, insect, and plant species, have been burning. According to Brazil’s space research centre Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), over 75,000 fires have now been spotted in 2019 so far — an 85 per cent increase from the same period last year. It’s believed around one million indigenous people from up to 500 tribes are at risk from the fires, while hundreds of thousands of other animals for whom the dense forest is home, are desperately trying to flee, or are dying agonising deaths in this human-made[…]