The plant-based universities campaign is a decentralised push by students across the UK; students are demanding their university transition to 100% just and sustainable plant-based catering by the 2023-24 academic year. Why? It’s quite simple, industries like meat, fishing, and dairy are destroying the environment, humans, and animals. 

Universities are where a great deal of this research comes from, and therefore these institutions have an obligation to listen to themselves. All roads lead to Rome (or in this case just and sustainable plant-based catering!) 

At the University of Warwick a vote to begin the transition was only narrowly lost, despite constant sabotage and underhand tactics from university committees and student union officers. Meanwhile the campaign made waves in Lancaster, garnering the attention of national student newspaper The Tab. At the University of Sussex campaigners even wiped the floor with their opponents in an organised debate on the topic!

In an interview with Sentient Media Nathan McGovern underscored the intersectional justice the campaign is dedicated to; the just and sustainable plant-based food system the campaign aims towards is part of the greater push for human, animal, and climate justice.

On the 25th of March the campaign rocked the boat London-wide, after the teams at University College London, King’s College London, and London Metropolitan University orchestrated simultaneous banner drops! The banners read “meat & dairy = climate crisis.” This very simply spells out the situation to these institutions, who are oftentimes the source of the conclusive data on the matter! Students decided to take direct action due to the unresponsiveness and lack of engagement from their universities and student unions.

Speaking at the action, Sofia Carolina Fernandes Pontes, a student at London Metropolitan has said 

“It’s simple, universities have to act on the climate crisis and that begins with their menus. We know that meat, fish, and dairy are driving climate collapse, deforestation, and ocean dead zones. This is all whilst we produce enough to feed ten billion people, yet have hundreds of millions starving all over the world because of our woefully immoral food systems. Universities must transition to fully just and sustainable plant-based catering by the 2023-24 academic year in order to secure a livable world for the students they are educating.“

Meanwhile, at the University of Exeter, Emma de Saram is tirelessly pushing for climate, animal, and social justice in the South-West! Speaking to us she said:

At Exeter, while we have a passionate group of students and incredible academics pushing for a plant based campus, we are repeatedly halted by bureaucracy and the University system that places profit over the planet. We launched our campaign in February with a stall and online talk with activists and researchers, and have had small successes like a week-long price reduction for veggie options, but we still have a battle to fight.

With the campaign set to have upwards of 20 universities involved by the start of the 2022-23 academic year, the future is bright! We’re still looking to support and help as many students across the UK as we possibly can, so fill out our interest form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdI88OPSTQ76if-ip32HoDwVXEA1Ua3SOzZ1ztTd0w_5YwP7Q/viewform !

The post Plant-Based Universities: Taking The UK By Storm first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

Ever since one certain animal has found a way to start fires, it has become their main tool for creating warmth, cooking food and keeping darkness at bay. But as with some other advances associated with our civilisation and technology, it has simultaneously become our favourite weapon of mass destruction and to this day, it still is. Millennia ago, we used fire to do the dirty work of mass-erasing nature off the surface of this planet, only this time there is not so much left to burn, comparatively.

And just as during the first pages of the human’s pastoral history, the most likely reason for burning nature is to give way to animal agriculture, whether it is for grazing or for growing animal feed.

The issue of the intentional burning has hit the international news because we all thought that we had been doing enough to contain deforestation in Latin America, but this year we were proven wrong. The profit hungry individuals in both political and agricultural circles decided that there is yet more money to be made by transforming forests into “useful assets”. And the Amazon is not the only hotspot — we are struggling to put out “mega blaze” in Australia and fires in Indonesia further exacerbate Climate Crisis. And this is not only an issue of losing natural ecosystems and priceless hubs of wild animal activity, but also of creating a massive source of pollution and GHG emissions. Considering that animal agriculture actively destroys nature and replaces it with barren land, it is quite clear why the impact of animal agriculture on the planet is so high.

And as if that’s not enough, remember that once a forest is lost, it is lost forever, and the land is used for grazing or growing animal feed until it can sustain it no longer. In some cases nature fights back, like it does here in the UK, where heather and moorlands need annual burning to allow grazing and grouse shooting, otherwise the land would become too wild and “too natural” for these activities. But in most cases human influence prevails. It is now believed that the great desert of Sahara, which was a mix of grassland and woodlands once, has turned into a near-lifeless sand patch because of our historic pastoral lifestyle, livestock grazing and, by extension, human-started fires.

But let’s take a step back and ask ourselves — what exactly is happening during and after the fires? Without going into gory details, let’s just say that the lucky ones miraculously manage to escape, hide well or die quickly from suffocation. The others are doomed to suffer in pain for days to come. But even those few who escape or hide will have to adjust to the new environment — be it in a completely new place (hopefully away from humans and other predators) or find their home turned into an unrecognisable and grotesque black and grey desert. And by the way, this is exactly what we were so scared of just a few decades ago when we talked about nuclear holocaust.

Intrinsically, and just like the rest of animal agriculture, intentional forest fires are a tool of speciesists — discriminators against non-humans. They obliterate huge numbers of animals for the benefit of the few and convenience of the system. They use the logic of racism and fascism, saying that otherness implies inferiority and therefore yearns for iron glove dominion. They apply different values, based in many cases on financial considerations, to different species of animals and kill them accordingly — with fire, a chemical spray, a rifle, a trap, a fishing net, or a butcher’s knife.

Forest fires are allowed to happen because it is in human nature to value short-term individual gain over long-term common good. But a different approach is needed — if only we evaluated, what’s left of the natural world, not as an exploitable opportunity that happened to be within some imaginary boundaries of a ”state”, but as a planetary asset, essential for the existence of life, then we wouldn’t need to look away in shame, when our children demand to know why they are being born into ecological and biodiversity poverty.

It goes without saying that the only way to stop the mass destruction of nature is to stop animal agriculture entirely — a seismic and urgent shift in the food production system is needed — we all must demand that the animals are no longer used as a commodity, that the system becomes much more efficient at feeding the human population and that wanton destruction of nature ends immediately.

There are positive signs, of course, even as Amazon burns twice as hot — Extinction Rebellion, Animal Rebellion and others have been tirelessly hammering the message to international communities and the public. The World Bank is urged to intervene and withdraw support for the meat industry that benefits from the fires; scientists are calling for phasing out animal products; the new anti-speciesist initiatives aimed at reducing the suffering of wild animals question the existing dogmatic environmentalist approach of “No Intervention”; people selflessly saving animals from fires credited as heroes; tree planting is now universally accepted throughout political spectrum as not just essential for combating climate change, but also as a hugely popular measure. There is no better time than yesterday to acknowledge that there is no tomorrow without forests – and we know it. They are a key to the earthlings’ survival and to healing the wounds that we inflicted on our living and breathing, marvellous and forever majestic planet, our home.

The post As Forests Burn, Our Voices Must Be Twice as Loud first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

We can also celebrate its effectiveness

Talk must produce results, and as I write this there is an election coming and climate change is now an election issue even for mainstream parties. Also, the UK government plans a citizens’ assembly to look at the climate emergency (albeit watered down from what has been demanded). This is a result!

For such a young movement, any results are better than no results

I recall one of the Extinction Rebellion stalwarts at Westminster this October who acknowledged that there might be a 99% chance locking to an immovable object in the road was just pointlessly disruptive. But, they noted that if there was a 1% chance that this symbolic action might result in real action, it was a necessary gesture. Because doing nothing — in other words continuing with ‘business as usual’– guarantees extinction.

We changed the debate

In 2018, not every politically aware citizen was ready to call themselves environmentally aware. This is slowly beginning to change and we can legitimately congratulate ourselves for this. It needed changing! Now as we draw towards the year end, politically aware people are trying for size a new self-defining aphorism: “Every politically aware person has to be an environmentalist”. And vice versa: the environmentally aware are saying, sometimes privately to themselves, hesitantly, “every environmentalist has to be politically aware.” This is a conversation that wasn’t there and now is, and won’t go away. Extinction Rebellion changed all that, for which we can congratulate ourselves.

System change is openly discussed

The focus of the debate has shifted from individuals changing our light bulbs, abandoning plastic straws, driving electric or going vegan — important as all of these changes are — to examining the very nature of what passes for ‘civilization’ around these parts; questioning growth, progress, and the myth of capitalism as a desirable good thing for all. Our civilization’s faith in ‘business as usual’ has been exposed for the terrorist force it is: if allowed to run its course, it will make terminal and irreversible alterations to our mutual planetary life support system.

Personal change is important, but not enough

On a personal level, Extinction Rebellion has changed everything for me this year by shifting the focus to system change. I, and other likeminded people, have been changing our lightbulbs for 40 years or more, (so much for urgency!). I cycled to India because I didn’t want to fly, and have had a guilty conscience ever since about every flight I’ve taken, long or short, offset or not. I’ve changed every lightbulb I possibly could. I can’t possibly use any fewer plastic straws, can’t physically ride any more bikes or go any more vegan than I already am. I used whatever privilege I have to buy myself into a co-housing community, which was at the time, the largest Passivehaus development in Europe, powered by community owned solar and hydro.

Individuals made many of those changes and as we learn more — about palm oil, tetrapak or helium party balloons, all we can do is make ritual, tokenistic, conscience-torturing changes to our personal lifestyles, as if we are the problem. If my lifestyle was the problem, and I changed it, why has the rate of extinctions gone up in my lifetime? Global vehicle pollution doubled? Global meat production doubled? Because whatever changes you and I make, the juggernaut grinds on around us.

The Rebellion has helped lift the debate out of blaming and shaming of the powerless individuals trapped aboard the machine and into questioning the machine itself. This movement has changed that debate. The juggernaut goes by many names — variants on Capitalism, Colonialism, Progress or Patriarchy, and the debate is now around these structural mechanisms of violence and destruction — for which we as a movement can be justifiably congratulated. All of us can be proud to have been part of it whilst we examine and reflect on our personal learnings, insights and oversights. As a movement this is a good time to question how we ourselves act out unconscious dominance patterns learnt from growing up in the juggernaut.

We are (almost) getting to the point of realisation that “every environmentalist has to be an anti-capitalist, and vice versa.” We need to urgently examine where the various liberation struggles intersect and overlap, and add: “every environmentalist needs to be anti-racist, and vice versa” or ‘feminist’ or ‘anti-colonialist.’ or any other from a long list of conscious and unconscious structural oppressions. As environmental activists who grew up riding on the juggernaut we must reflect and challenge our role within all liberation struggles. Let’s decolonise ourselves and our movement, firstly because it is the right thing to do, and secondly so we can get on with saving the planet from ourselves.

What else is missing?

Speciesism is one of the most inconvenient and unavoidable conversations we will have to engage in now. We have to address how environmental justice is inextricably intertwined with interspecies justice and all other justice struggles. Otherwise, despite the progress we have made, we will fail to get to the root of the climate and societal crisis we are facing. Even if the wider public does not want to get involved in animal rights/liberation debates per se, speciesism should be addressed. If we remain silent on this issue, it cannot ultimately win the battle against the climate crisis and the harmful forces that are fuelling it.

Extinction Rebellion and Animal Rebellion recognize that the climate crisis is not an isolated event, but is fundamentally intertwined with other ideologies and systems of oppression. In a recent article on Medium, Sam Knight of Extinction Rebellion wrote: ‘We want the movement to develop a deeper analysis of capital and control, and to acknowledge more publicly the crises of capitalism and colonialism that are in no small part responsible for this crisis’. This is an important move on the part of Extinction Rebellion. Capital is from the same word root as “chattels,” an Old English word meaning “goods” and derived from the same word as “cattle.” How we measured or appropriated wealth was per head (per capita) of cattle, and in a very real sense this carries over to contemporary times. (Just think of the nation which most embodies Capitalism/Colonialism today and consider how important to their identity their heroic dominance myth is: the Cowboy, the steers, and the conquest of the West). African and other slaves were referred to as “chattel slaves.” The capital of their muscle power was owned, controlled, contained and legally traded by an elite class. This system has been legitimised at various times in history by theories of racial, gender or class elitism, and is bolstered by theories of difference and inferiority or superiority. Hence the call to ‘Decolonise’ the juggernaut and for us to own our failings, and to ‘Decolonise XR.’ And Extinction Rebellion is working hard to achieve this. As Knight explained, ‘We talked about economics, politics, science, race, class, gender, sexuality, religion, capitalism, colonialism, militarism, power, growth, degrowth, protest law, ecocide, reparations, climate debt, anarchism, socialism, democracy. We talked about everything we could with everyone we knew.’ It is crucial that we are having these conversations. But, the list of issues that Knight outlines is glaringly incomplete. We cannot omit the invisible ‘ism’ which lies at the root of it all: speciesism.

Speciesism is central to the debate, not a sideshow

Speciesism is at the root of extinction crisis and the habitat and biodiversity loss we now face. Let us consider the domestication of animals, the ownership of cattle. Cattle graze in fields, and the field is the original assertion of ownership and control of the wild planetary environment. The innocuous word “field” is an old English word meaning “the place where the trees have been felled.” It is to this control and containment, this original act of colonisation, that we can trace all those other intersections of which we need to talk. We need to be able to question the original idea that humans are different and superior and therefore can do what they want with all other living beings. Speciesism underpins our unconscious belief in our right to dominate all other species and our planetary life support system. We set ourselves up for disaster when we began to think that Human Nature was anything different to Nature itself, when we began to see ourselves in contradistinction to all other animals, as if we were not just another species of animals among myriad others, but somehow set apart.

The violence and dominance of speciesism is the main issue — the violence implicit in humanity’s disconnected relationship to the whole environment. Perhaps, once we step beyond our ingrained, anthropocentric world view, the relationship between speciesism and all other forms of ideological and structural violence will be exposed, and with that in our awareness, we can start to build a better world for all. Animal Rebellion is here to bring that message to the forefront. The only way we can solve the climate emergency is to solve the animal emergency, and that means ending the speciesist industries of animal agriculture and fishing driving greenhouse gas emissions and destroying natural habitats. Join us.

The post The Rebellion Has Brought the Climate Crisis to the Forefront… Now It Is Time to Address Speciesism first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

How is it possible that while there is increasing scientific knowledge and public concern about the catastrophic impact of factory farming on the earth, animals, and human beings, DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) is not reducing, as it should be, but is in fact increasing subsidies for factory farms?

A joint investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigation discovered that factory farm operators were granted approximately £70 million of public money between in 2016 and 2017. The types of operations that received subsidies include: “Feedlot-style beef units, rearing thousands of cattle in outdoor yards; so-called megadairies, with herds of up to 1,800 cows; Intensive egg producers using cage housing systems; poultry megafarms and pig units which keep thousands of animals permanently indoors” and “livestock units that have been found guilty of pollution and animal health breaches.” A 2017 report showed that intensive farming of pigs and poultry had grown by 26% since 2011, and another report indicated that in 2018 over 1400 permits for intensive poultry operations had been issued.

The number of these ethically indefensible and environmentally catastrophic megafarming operations continues to rise. According to Compassion in World Farming, as of today 70% of animals raised and killed for food in the UK are confined in factory farms. In addition to the horrific treatment of the billions of animals entangled in its vast infernal apparatus, factory farming is destroying the UK countryside and tearing apart the small rural communities that are forced to live alongside these giant houses of suffering. Among other impositions, the noxious stink of suffering and killing permeates the air and is often so pungent that residents remain holed up indoors.

In supporting the expansion of factory farms through subsidies, DEFRA has clearly lost touch with reality. The knowledge of the immeasurable suffering these massive industrial farming operations entail, and the terrible havoc they are wreaking on the fragile, burning earth and in the emptied and bleached out seas, has shaken our civilization’s once seemingly unshakable sense of entitlement to kill and consume animals and the earth’s resources at will. This growing consciousness has led to many people to adopt a plant-based diet, or to dramatically reduce their consumption of meat, fish, eggs, and dairy.

However, while changes in individual consumption patterns are important, they are not the solution. As many reports suggest, while veganism is on the rise in the UK and US, among other places, so is global meat consumption. In fact, in part due to DEFRA’s irresponsibility, individuals are left to carry the burden of (and indeed pay for!) a system that has profit, not their wellbeing or the wellbeing of the planet in mind. Single mothers and fathers, low-income families, students, and others are left scrambling to square the circle of their moral concern for other animals and the earth in a society that offers up cruelty on a plate at a much lower cost than kindness.

In the recently debated (October 2019) Agriculture Bill 2019–20, DEFRA outlined a commitment to “Replace the current subsidy system, which simply pays farmers based on the total amount of land farmed, and instead reward them for the work they do to enhance the environment and produce high quality food in a more sustainable way.” While this is an encouraging statement, it is unclear what concrete changes will be undertaken. The dramatic rise of factory farms in recent years also undermines the credibility of DEFRA’s purported goal. Is DEFRA speaking out of both sides of its mouth, or are we really to believe that it will truly offer farmers incentives invest in environmentally friendly farm infrastructure?

Whatever the case, the bill does nothing to address the grave injustice against animals raised and killed for food products, or the deleterious impact on small-scale farming and the harm to rural communities that factory farming entails. Even if factory farms are fitted with “green” technologies, they will still use up enormous amounts of very finite resources, they will still be a blight on the landscape, they will still destroy local ecosystems, and they will very likely still rely on soy and corn monocrops imported from other continents to feed the animals languishing in misery within their confines. Indeed, the violence against animals that is intrinsic to animal farming is set to intensify and worsen in kind and degree as biotechnology becomes the go-to solution to increase efficiency on one hand, and decrease the environmental impact of intensive animal production, on the other.

As indicated above, the average individual is caught between what they know is right, and what is affordable and available to them in the supermarket aisles. Driven by conscience to do the right thing — and eat local, organic, plant-based products — but with an understandable sense of powerlessness and/or a lack of economic means — the majority of the public finds itself adapting to and ultimately accepting a system — large-scale intensive animal agriculture — that it knows and feels is fundamentally unconscionable and unsustainable. Thus, individuals and the public as a whole find themselves living a lie: literally consuming the untruth that we can continue with business-as-usual. At best, as concessions to our ethical concerns, we are offered a few tweaks here and there to the system, mostly in the form of slick (and illusory) technological fixes to ecological and welfare issues, but the system itself remains firmly in place, destructive as it is.

System change is absolutely essential if we are to make a dent in the climate crisis. Civilizational change is up next — we must finally tackle human supremacism head on, if we are to avoid total and irreversible moral, social, and environmental breakdown. DEFRA can take steps in this direction by: redirecting farm subsidies to small, sustainable, plant-based agricultural food production operations (which, if supported, could provide a wide range of affordable plant-based products to the public); assisting intensive animal farmers with a transition to plant-based farming; incentivizing new farmers to set up plant-based farms from the get-go; and actively educating the public on the benefits of plant-based foods.

In one hundred years, does DEFRA want to look back with horror and shame at the great historical crime it committed against billions of sentient animals, local communities, local and global ecosystems, and the planet? Or does it want to reflect proudly on the fact that it made the right choice to genuinely commit to a plant-based agricultural revolution?

No one wants to see more bleak barrack-like structures housing tens of thousands of animals in perpetual agony — babies, most of them — popping up in their beautiful rural communities. The grey ugliness of these spaces inside and out reflects the cold profit-driven worldview from which they have sprung, and the mechanical, clockwork cruelty against innocent creatures being perpetuated within. Rolling green hills, lush forests full to the brim with wise old trees and countless insect, animal, and bird species, and bubbling brooks teeming with fish swimming in freedom and joy are existentially unfit for megafarms, as are the gentle beasts confined therein, and as is the human spirit itself.

The post Intensive Animal Farming Operations Are Rapidly Expanding around the UK and DEFRA’s Farm Subsidies Are Largely to Blame first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

Animal Rebellion came into being to make sure that everyone who cares deeply about animals and the planet knows that, in the coming October Rebellion, there is a group representing them. A group made up of all of us. Many of you were already asking: what about the animals? Many of you were waiting for Animal Rebellion to come along. So here we are.

Most of us who formed Animal Rebellion were already involved in other animal justice groups such as Save, Animal Justice Project, AV, Hunt Sabs, and local action groups, as well as animal advocates from academia, the media, and other walks of life.

We knew that, as people who care for animals and fight for animal justice with and alongside our animal kin, it would be the worst kind of injustice to leave the safety and security of all animals out of the picture. We also know that, because of animal agriculture’s impact on the planet, from the burning Amazon, to the greenhouse emissions, to the water usage and degradation of our soil, you simply cannot fix the climate emergency without ending the animal emergency.

Why are we in alliance with Extinction Rebellion?

We know that time is running out and that if we don’t come together as a unified force, right now in this moment, then all that we love and all that we have worked for will be lost.

That’s why Extinction Rebellion introduced its Movement of Movements strategy as a crucial part of the International Rebellion in October and beyond. It will see a range of groups take to the streets together in a unified call for immediate action on the climate and ecological emergency.

And that’s why Animal Rebellion signed up, despite differences, to be a sister organisation to Extinction Rebellion and all the other groups. Separate and autonomous, but working together as rebels.

The Movement of Movements — also known as The Rebel Alliance — aims to include a wide range of groups from across society — doctors, farmers, academics, faith communities, international solidarity communities, peace groups, women’s groups, youth groups, and disability groups — as well as the animal justice community.

Together with Extinction Rebellion, we are calling on as many groups as possible to take part. We are asking all Rebels to help make this happen. We’ve signed a Memorandum of Understanding and have agreed on principles of how we work together. There are a number of resources to help support any groups that want to be involved.

Together, our alliance will culminate in the International Rebellion from 7 October, in solidarity with similar actions taking place across the globe.

We need you!

Animal Rebellion is calling for people from all over the UK to come to London in October because the evidence is clear: a transition to a plant-based food system is critical to avert climate breakdown and mass extinction. And we believe it is the crucial first step in achieving total animal liberation.

We know that the only way we can ever be powerful enough to transform our society is if we find common ground on which to stand together with other movements and make unified demands of the government that they cannot ignore.

Our very survival depends upon this. The survival of all animals depends on this. We must build a mass movement powerful enough to force the government to tackle the climate and ecological emergency all of us face. No group or organisation can do this alone.

It’s time to take a stand.

Get prepared. Bring your friends. Bring a tent. And rebel for ALL life.

Join the October Rebellion

The post What is Animal Rebellion’s Relationship with Extinction Rebellion? first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

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 inferno.

Massive amounts of carbon are being emitted into the atmosphere as smoke billows up from the blazes and blankets entire cities such as Sao Paolo, blocking the sun, and turning day into night. The fires are not restricted to Brazil but are affecting other countries in the Amazon basin. In Bolivia, video footage from its Santa Cruz department shows monkeys and other animals running in search of shelter from the fires, amid burning trees and a blackened landscape. The European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (Cams), reports that smoke has reached the Atlantic coast.

While Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s right wing president, has been pointing the finger at NGOs for igniting the fires, there is no evidence to support this claim. In fact, evidence points squarely at Bolsonaro himself for inciting farmers to set the forest ablaze in order to clear the way for cattle grazing land and soy production.

Bolsonaro has made no bones about his apparent death-wish against the Amazon and its human and nonhuman inhabitants. Upon entering office, Bolsonaro proudly asserted that he would be dismantling existing environmental protections to make way for agricultural land expansion and intensified production and his policies have reflected this.

According to OpenDemocracy (DemocraciaAbierta), recently leaked documents suggest that Bolsonaro intends on wreaking yet more havoc on our earth’s respiratory system, by cutting through it to build hydro dams, bridges, and highways to service the booming agricultural sector. To crush opposition before it has a chance to form, Bolsonaro plans on increasing government presence — which will almost certainly translate into intimidation and aggression, and perhaps worse, against local communities and activist groups — in the affected areas.

What is particularly disturbing about Bolsonaro’s position is that he regards the conquest of the Amazon as part of a Brazilian nationalist project and those who oppose its systematic annihilation as part of a leftist conspiracy to undermine Brazilian national sovereignty.

Meanwhile, indigenous communities’ legitimate claims to sovereignty within the region are being trampled on. Although not necessarily stated in the leaked documents, it is clear that part and parcel of Bolsonaro’s extremist ideology is the idea that cattle farming is integral to Brazilian national identity. At stake are not only local identities and ways of life, but life on earth as such.

Celebrities and global leaders have joined the chorus of public figures calling for action. Leonardo Decaprio, Madonna, and Ariana Grande, among others, have expressed horror and apocalyptic scenario, while president Emmanuel Macron tweeted, “Our house is burning. Literally,” and called for the fires to be a top priority in discussions at the upcoming G7 Summit.

But much more urgent action at the grassroots level is needed. The climate is already in major crisis and these recent events only accelerate our headlong journey to catastrophe. We cannot rely on world leaders like Macron, who have a vested interest in maintaining the eco- and zoocidal status quo, to save the earth in yet another round of talks. It is past time to take matters into our own hands — to take to the streets and in peaceful protest demand swift action to slow the tide of destruction.

To this end, we animal justice activists from newly formed movement Animal Rebellion joined climate justice group Extinction Rebellion outside the Brazilian Embassy in London on Friday 23rd August to mass protest the Brazilian government’s responsibility for the fires raging through the Amazon rainforest. Around a thousand people attended the protest, which was led by Brazilian indigenous groups. In line with Animal Rebellion’s use of non-violent civil disobedience to bring about change, the protest included an occupation of the street outside the Brazilian Embassy and surrounding area.

While Bolsonaro, lit the proverbial match, the global animal agricultural industry and the desire for animal flesh around the world are ultimately the main culprits.. Condemning Bolsonaro for his negligence is paramount, as he is directly responsible for this latest act of zoocide. It is essential to take Bolsonaro to task for his ruthless and unforgiving scorched earth policy, but he has only brought to a head an already perilous situation for which our totally unsustainable profit-driven and exploitative global food system is fundamentally to blame. We are facing an existential crisis that can be mitigated but by no means solved by removing Bolsonaro from office and boycotting Brazilian products. An entire overhaul of the global food production system is needed.

Through peaceful civil disobedience, governments worldwide need to be pressured to take a cold hard look at what it is really fuelling this inferno — global animal agriculture.

Our governments need to commit to taking immediate steps to transition to a sustainable plant-based food system. According to the UK government’s own report, agriculture is estimated to be the driver for around 80 per cent of deforestation worldwide. Approximately 450,000 square kilometres of deforested Amazon in Brazil are now cattle pasture. A 2015 study calculated that “pasture [cleared for cattle] was the dominant driver of forested area and related carbon loss in South America”. Compared to data from 1970, over 90 percent of the cleared land in the Amazon region has been converted to cattle ranching.

While we must rise up in peaceful protest against Bolsonaro and his shamefully irresponsible policies, we must also ramp up pressure on governments worldwide to change our food system now. Time is running out.

The post The Amazon Ablaze: Bolsonaro and the Meat Industry Are Fuelling the Flames first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

The Official Animal Rights March on Saturday 17th August was an incredible day, being both uplifting and motivating, heart-breaking and full of love. It was also our launch, the official first action of Animal Rebellion. And as a wholly new movement, there were of course many questions about who we are and what we’re about.

Some of these ranged from: why is an animal justice movement foregrounding climate breakdown, and not the animals? Why aren’t we talking about cruelty to animals more? Do we only care about farmed animals? And why announce Smithfield Market as the October target so soon?

We’re going to answer all of these questions. As a brand-new organisation, it’s incredible how quickly we’ve grown. While those involved day-to-day perhaps think the answers are clear, it’s easy to forget that it’s not the same for everyone. So over the next few days and weeks leading up to October 7th, we’re going to answer them here. Starting with the last question first.

So, why Smithfield, and why so soon?

Animal Rebellion has formed because we’ve been inspired by the success of Extinction Rebellion (XR), are terrified by the reality of climate breakdown, but know that any vision of the future we want to see must be one that includes animal justice and liberation.

So while we are demanding the same of government as XR, and we are employing the same tactics of non-violent civil disobedience, we felt it absolutely necessary to focus on the exploitation of animals, and animal agriculture’s major complicity in the climate emergency.

So that’s why we’ve announced our civil disobedience will be at Smithfield Market.

But if the Market knows we are coming, won’t they be able to prepare more easily to disrupt our occupation? Won’t it fire up farmers and butchers against us? Aren’t we targeting the working class and letting the wealthy elite and their government apologists off the hook? If we’re in solidarity with Extinction Rebellion, why aren’t we heading to Westminster with them?

This was something we debated for a while amongst the core organising group of Animal Rebellion.

Some thought that the sooner we release the intended October action, the sooner activists and those wanting to take part could prepare (and prepare for the expected resistance to our plans). Others thought it was too early. Others have the same reservations and questions that people on the march were asking.

On balance, we considered the benefits of an early announcement were greater than keeping our plans hidden. Yes, it can act as a rallying call for those who would like to resist our non-violent direct action: and already they’re flocking to our Facebook page to shout abuse! But it also acts as a beacon for all of those who believe in Animal Rebellion’s goal: to demand of the government a swift end to the exploitation of animals within animal agriculture by investing in a safe, just and sustainable transition to a plant-based food system.

Let’s get some facts straight on Smithfield

This is the reason why we have selected Smithfield in the first place: its position at the symbolic heart of the UK’s animal agriculture industry. This is a provocative and challenging goal, to go straight to the core of the UK’s relationship with the animals we use for ‘meat’ and other products.

So let’s get some facts straight about Smithfield (and show why this is an animal justice action first and foremost). This will also straighten out some misrepresentations that the media have made about who we are.

Smithfield Market is the UK’s oldest and largest ‘meat’ distribution market, selling what they claim to be ‘high quality’ products to London’s restaurant trade and ‘discerning consumers’. Smithfield and its traders pride themselves on its ‘state of the art’ handling facilities and draws heavily on its history dating back to 1174 to justify its continued role in the exploitation of animals.

But unlike what the farmer told our spokesperson Kerri Waters on Ian Payne’s LBC radio show recently, no, not every ‘meat’ product sold at Smithfield came from an animal in the British animal agriculture industry, raised on supposedly idyllic green pasture without a care in the world. Many traders in Smithfield are importing ‘meat’ from abroad, including Brazil and the US.

That farmer on LBC urged us to ‘do our homework’ and protest against the imports coming from devastating animal agriculture of larger, more intensive industries.

Well, in occupying Smithfield, we are.

And Kerri was correct: as DEFRA have identified, British farmers are importing soy and other grains from abroad to feed their animals. Most if not all cows, for example, will be brought indoors during the winter to be fed on grain; and most ‘beef’ cows switch to grain before slaughter to be fattened up on grain. Around 75% of soy is grown to feed ‘livestock’ worldwide. Much of this comes from deforested land in the Amazon, and other cleared rainforest. In the UK, around a third of all imported soy is used as animal feed.

We are not anti-farmer. That is a myth used to attack us. We want to see a healthy, plant-based food system where farmers are secure and rewarded for crop production and environmental stewardship. This is the only way forward: because even the most sustainable animal production is still worse for the environment than the most unsustainable plant-based production. (Let’s be clear: we would never want any animal production; we’re just stating facts here. Until every animal is free.)

And like the Amazon, the UK used to be covered in forest, which was cut down for animal agriculture. What humans are doing in the Amazon is what we did centuries ago. We need to repair the damage we have done to our own country, not just point the finger at other countries and the degradation of their own land. We need to re-wild — and farmers are our best allies in this, in the right system.

And even if Smithfield Market only sold ‘meat’ from the UK? Well, no, it is not okay to suggest that we Brits get to eat our ‘meat’ while it’s ‘them over there’ cutting down the rainforest that need to change their ways. These colonial and racist claims are always to be challenged. As most research shows, not only do Western countries such as the US, Australia and the UK eat far more ‘meat’ per person than countries in the global south, it is these same Western countries that have far larger carbon footprints.

But until the animal cruelty stops, we won’t stop. Look at what else is sold at Smithfield. Veal: the male bobby calves of no use to the dairy industry, that are kept in single crates, often tethered, and fed a deficient diet so as to keep their ‘meat’ pink enough for the consumer, then killed while babies.

And foie gras, the production of which is banned in this country, because it is so cruel, but that it is still legal to sell. There are many campaigns to ban the selling of foie gras here.

Claims that meat industry workers make, that Brits are somehow more ‘loving’ of the animals and animal parts we eat, are wholly blown apart when you take a look at the products sold in this market.

What about people’s jobs?

We remain deeply sorry for the inconvenience we cause in our actions. We are ordinary people with ordinary jobs too — teachers, cleaners, engineers, project managers, vets, driving instructors, schoolchildren, grandparents — who are terrified of the future that climate breakdown is bringing. We know that climate breakdown will cost all of us our jobs.

But to claim, as LBC’s Nick Ferrari did, that a ten-working-days shut-down of Smithfield will risk thousands of jobs doesn’t hold up.

Some of the traders at Smithfield are traditional and family-run. Many are also multi-million pound companies. Taking just the first on their traders list, Absalom and Tribe had over £150,000 shareholder funds to distribute at the end of its 2018–2019 accounts, from a £2m turnover. The oldest family trading business in the market, David Andrade and Sons, had a £270,936 shareholder funds’ pot to distribute at the end of its 2018–2019 accounts, from a £1.5m turnover.

And as the comments on the LBC news story of Nick Ferrari’s interview with our spokesperson Alex Lockwood suggest, Brexit is likely to lose Britons many times the number of jobs that our two-week action will. And those job losses will hit the poor and northern more, they will hit women more. We wonder if Nick asks the same question about jobs to Boris Johnson?

Our choosing Smithfield was not about targeting working-class people. If we do not avert climate catastrophe then there may be no jobs left in any industry. As many have pointed out, including Extinction Rebellion’s Rupert Read and academic Professor Jem Bendell, climate breakdown is driving our entire civilisation to a cliff edge.

Our plans are a response to the heavily subsidised animal agricultural industry, and one that includes the selling of veal, foie gras, game birds (let’s not get started about the illegality and cruelty of ‘game’ birds, shall we?). But the industry is just as horrific an existence for every pig, cow, sheep, chicken and goat that has his or her life ended when he or she desperately wanted to live. Every trader at Smithfield is part and parcel of the industry deeply responsible for those deaths, that are also, in turn, responsible for climate breakdown.

The UK government must show leadership

The UK is deeply responsible for climate breakdown, and we play our part in animal exploitation too. It is we who need to show leadership in transforming our food systems and our consumption of fossil fuels. The industrial revolution started here, in the UK. There is no country with greater responsibility — or opportunity — for transforming the status quo when it comes to climate breakdown.

We know that we need to act. And we know that non-violent civil disobedience has been part of every successful social justice movement, from the Suffragettes to Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights marches.

Despite all of this, we need to reiterate: our target is the government. Our government is in the position to act swiftly enough to tackle climate breakdown. We’re demanding of the government that they tell the truth and act now on the impacts that industrial animal agriculture has on climate breakdown.

In that, the launch of the new nationalfoodstrategy.co.uk initiative is window dressing. Another year-long exercise to tell us what we already know? What the UN has already said? What the RSA’s Food, Farming and Countryside Commission have just spent the last year researching? That we need an urgent transition to a plant-based food system.

Our target is the government, and we are demanding it lead the transition of the UK to a plant-based food system, investing in and supporting farmers and workers into new and more secure jobs. We already know most farmers in the UK who raise animals also grow crops, such as beet and grasses, to feed their animals. Working with, for example, the Vegan Society’s Grow Green campaign, there is a huge opportunity here to improve the UK’s food security and food sovereignty. And to transition Smithfield into the biggest, brightest, boldest statement of the UK’s investment in its own future, as a new fruit, veg, grain and pulse market (plastic-free, too), as a statement of our intent to take climate breakdown seriously.

This is why we announced Smithfield Market as our occupation site so early. It gives us the chance to build a movement, plan well, and talk in public about this transition with a clear, definable subject at the heart of our story.

But Smithfield is not our only target. Watch this space…

We wish to stand in alliance with all of those who fear for the future, and want to act. From farmers to city workers to environmental and animal justice activists, we will only bring about the change we need if we stand in solidarity together, with love in our hearts, ensuring the future is fit for every animal, as much as it is for we humans.

The post Why 10,000 Animal Rebels are Occupying Smithfield Market in October first appeared on Animal Rebellion.

Today we officially share the announcement of our second site for the Rebellion, our Garden City camp at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) in Westminster.

Below we talk about the important way our linked actions at the two main sites, ‘The Garden City’ at Defra and our ‘Vision for the Future’ at Smithfield, work together to send a powerful message to government. We need government to #TellTheTruth and #ActNow on the climate, ecological and animal emergencies. And we need you to deliver this message.

Below we also give you all the key information you need to know for arriving on Monday 7th, then for the first 36 hours at Smithfield, and then for setting up our Garden City. Read on so you can come and join the most rebellious and transformational experience in our movement’s history!

THE GARDEN CITY: OUR SPACE IN THE MOVEMENT OF MOVEMENTS

The Movement of Movements — also known as The Rebel Alliance — includes people from across society: teachers, faith communities, schoolchildren, international solidarity communities, peace groups, women’s groups, youth groups, and disability groups… the list goes on. Just look at these doctors glueing themselves to government buildings!

Animal Rebellion is part of that community, and we are proud to stand alongside Extinction Rebellion and all of these sister groups in Westminster, to be together in great numbers, and to focus the world’s attention on government inaction on the climate emergency.

That’s why we’ve chosen Defra as our second site. This government department is responsible for our food and farming industry; it’s also responsible for the badger cull.

This is the site that holds the key to our plant-based future. On rural grants, agricultural subsidies, products like foie gras brought into this country, and live exports of animals… all these are ruled upon by Defra. And, of course, climate change advice to local councils and the protection of our environment.

But Defra has failed to safeguard our food, failed to protect farmers and are failing to build a sustainable food industry, one that serves our needs, protects the environment and respects the rights of animals. They are failing us all and leading us towards climate breakdown.

And make no mistake — Defra is hugely powerful. It could be on the side of science, on the side of solutions, on the side of history. It could set greenhouse gas limits that avoid catastrophe. It could end the animal emergency. But it hasn’t. We make no apology for disrupting government and staying here for as long as it takes. It is the site where our voice must be seen and heard.

Our Garden City site will be uplifting, safe, empowering, and demanding. It is for you to shape it. We will arrive there on the afternoon and evening of Tuesday 8th October. But first…

BUT FIRST… SMITHFIELD

On Monday 7th October at 11am we will begin to gather in Russell Square, and we will welcome everyone, and make everyone feel part of our community.

After our opening speech, briefing and NVDA training, from 1.30pm we will march to Smithfield Market, where we will set up our protest and our ‘Vision for the Future’ of what this site at the heart of the UK’s meat industry could and should — must — be, as part of the immediate and just transition to a plant-based food system. We arrive and declare our Rebellion, and we claim the iconic Grand Avenue as our space to show the world our vision of a just and sustainable future.

And we have some news…

Through peaceful, respectful dialogue, we can announce that we have convinced Smithfield Market, the Corporation of London, and the City of London Police, to give us this space so we can share our vision with the world. This is not the usual message that the right-wing media wants to tell about us: that it’s always “those angry animal justice activists vs. farmers and butchers” or that “we want to stop ordinary people earning a living”.

In fact, it is the opposite.

This is the story now: that our vision for the future is so compelling, so necessary, so inevitable, that Europe’s biggest and oldest meat market has been convinced to let us share it with the world from the very centre of their business, the iconic Grand Avenue.

And we have some other news…

Around 4 or 5pm, when we have set up this joyous, colourful, healthy, sustainable and plant-based vision, the incredible writer and activist George Monbiot will ‘cut the ribbon’ on our ‘Plant-based Market for 2025’ and give us the motivating speech of our lives!

Then, through the night, we will hold this space, with spontaneous and creative actions. We will engage with those around us, we will sing, dance, and hold vigils for the animals. When people begin to pass through OUR market in the morning on their way to work, we will show them, and the world, why we need to move towards a plant-based society. NOW.

TWO SITES, ONE GOAL

We have adapted our original plans to be at Smithfield for two weeks. In many conversations with Extinction Rebellion, our volunteers and people in our wider movement, we have adapted to the situation on the ground, and listened to the calls to build solidarity across this movement.

We have to be at Smithfield. It is our duty to claim this space and show our vision. And due to the passionate, dedicated and dutiful presence of thousands of us at Smithfield Market, we will have created a view into a future that we could build together — a vision of joy, humility and responsibility.

Following our protests and meaningful dialogue with the traders of Smithfield and the police, where we have convinced them of our right to share this vision in the middle of their market, it is now the government’s duty to start creating a roadmap to get us there.

As it stands, we still have a government that fails to act responsibly to the climate emergency. We must take our vision and hope of the future directly to those who can truly make it happen.

As part of the wider movement that Extinction Rebellion has led to reach government, we accept we need to be at government. But as animal justice activists, we know that we need to go to Smithfield first and paint a picture of what the government needs to *act upon*.

So we go to Smithfield, we show the world our vision, and we take that vision to government as part of the International Rebellion.

This is our goal. This is how we win. Watch this video for more:

THE LOGISTICS: MAKING THIS HAPPEN

You need to know how to make your part in this Rebellion joyful, safe, and transformative.

So, from Monday 30th until October 7th we will be sending daily updates with any further logistical information to get you here, to involve you, to empower you, and to make this Rebellion a success. What we can tell you now is the outline of this first 36 hours.

Monday 7th into Tuesday 8th October

11am Gather in Russell Square

12pm The Rebellion begins with speeches and briefings

130pm We march to Smithfield

230pm We begin setting up our vision in Grand Avenue

4/5pm George Monbiot opens ‘OUR plant-based market’

5pm LunchBox restaurant delivers warm vegan taster boxes!

5–8pm Creativity, Talks, Singing. This is our space now.

8pm People’s Assembly: why are we here? What can we do this fortnight?

11pm onwards… actions and protests through the night

(some people will sleep; some will not; we will have this space and a close-by regenerative space for wellbeing)

5am outreach as commuters begin to pass through Grand Avenue

8am onwards… spontaneous actions around Smithfield

Midday onwards we take our vision to Defra and set up The Garden City

Tuesday 8th, Evening

Activities begin at Defra.

Our sites will be respectful, humble, and welcoming to every part of every one. And when we leave, we leave nothing behind. No litter, no plastic. The plant-based food we use to envision the future will then go to the October Sustenance kitchens to feed the Rebellion.

ACTIONS OVER THE FOLLOWING TWO WEEKS

There will be a number of actions targeting government and other sites of animal exploitation across the two weeks. More details will follow very soon. All actions will be aligned with our Principles, and especially the need to put animal lives at the heart of any future discussion in a citizens’ assembly.

But for now, look at this PACKING LIST at www.animalrebellion.org/packinglist. Share with your friends. And see you in London. And it’s not too late to volunteer! Please contact us direct if you want to be involved: info@animalrebellion.org telling us what you can do.

#EverybodyNow #WeAreAllCrew #MovementOfMovements #ClimateEmergency #AnimalEmergency

*Correction: in the video we say that humans are 0.1% of all living beings but have wiped out 83% of wild mammals. In fact, it is worse than this by a magnitude: humans are 0.01% of all living beings, but have wiped out 83% of all wild mammals: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study

The post Announcing The Garden City: Our Space in this Rebellion for October first appeared on Animal Rebellion.