Latest revision as of 19:38, 19 May 2021

Twin Page: Common Allies

Groups/movements that don’t live up to our ethical standard, but who we may find useful to collaborate with to achieve our campaign goals.

What do we mean by alliance?

At basic it's just an expression of approval with one another e.g. an anti-fracking camp has a bunch of signatures on it's website from local charities and business showing the extent to which the campaign aligns with popular local opinion.

More than that it's a commitment to joint co-operation, where volunteers will sometimes spend time helping out each other's campaign. For example, some animal shelter volunteers could have put extra work into taking in domestic violence victim's companion animals as a priority, so volunteers at the domestic violence shelter might help out at the animal sanctuary to say thanks and get to know each other better, so they can form a closer working relationship.

With contentious alliances it could be The Party for the Animals in Denmark and the conservative pro-hunting party writing a bill together to subsidize turning over more farmland to wildlife habitat.

Do we have to give up any of our principles?

No, we can still:

• Remain firm in our public and individual advocacy that taking a life for an unjustified reason is still wrong.

• Raise the issue of people developing a sadistic joy from killing animals which they can transfer onto people in their personal life like the high rate of slaughterhouse workers who commit domestic violence.

• Advocate against the rate of people who without tough legislation will go out hunting before they're highly skilled and torture the animals with non-lethal shots.

• Put forth a positive vision in cherishing the wonder of every life you can observe in nature. If another animal kills a prey species for survival and the only way it can get strong and provide for its offspring then that is part of a delicate eco-system tapestry. People can also train to be wildlife officers who can rescue or euthanize injured wildlife or organize/volunteer with citizen science projects to limit casualties due to human development or climate change.

Make clear in your advocacy a timeline of legislation you think will be the best route to animal liberation in the shortest amount of time. Then be able to invite the person into agreeing with you on the first steps:

• Blood sports; the sadism of activities such as bull fighting and fox hunting, done to get to enjoy us taunting other animals or pitting animal against animal.

• Animal farming; the confinement, forced breeding, separation and slaughter at a young age.

• Shoot hunting; the least objectionable ecologically, where the animal has lived a good life and hunter is at least taking responsibility for what they're eating, but still obviously ending a life earlier than necessary, so not something you should want to do.

Animal rights legislation

Higher welfare reform

Welfare reformist perspectives

Whether it's through a sense of loving their pets or just wanting tastier meat.

Vegan perspectives

In some cases it would be good to work with welfare reformists to ensure higher welfare legislation for all animals, like bigger cages at the least. A good reason for doing this would be if it costs more money to produce and becomes less profitable, so fewer animals are being bred to be killed.

It's unlikely the agricultural industry can increase the number of people wanting to pay extra for higher welfare meat so dramatically that profits even out, but we can watch out for gimmicks like this on a small scale and avoid working with those companies where we're simply helping them advertise a product.

Joint activism

Petition/Lobby for higher welfare legislation.

• Advocates for Animals

Speciesist slaughter/hunting abolition

Joint activism

Indigenous communities can help advise better messaging in campaigns such as against Yulin dog meat festival, plus whaling and dolphin hunting. Rhetoric currently used towards indigenous peoples about inviting them to join the global community often only serves to push them further away as they want to hold onto what parts of their culture makes them different. 1

Vegans can help volunteer in indigenous communities & learn a local language.

• First Nations University

Environmental Preservation / Rewilding

Low Impact Lifestyles

Reducitarian

Including pescatarians, vegetarians & beegans.

Since the widespread assimilation of the term vegan into the language and what it means, it's become well understood how in terms of striving to maximising the happy flourishing of sentient beings these other diets are logically inconsistent with that end goal. And so are simply lines in the sand where one cares a lot about mammals say, but can't face the added social pressure of refusing all animal foods.

Joint activism

Reducitarians who are highly anxious about social pressures or depressed and feel they require certain foods to help them get through the day exist as a examples of how we can all be kinder to one another i.e. take the time to create more welcoming spaces and check in our friends more often.

Religious vegetarians like Hindus, Jains and Buddhists can also reach out to their wayward meat eating religious community and remind them of the grand mosaic of folklore and philosophies which make their community what it is. So, not to give up on a low impact sustainable model of society for fleeting taste pleasure.

Vegans in return can help in the simple community building projects which make it possible for people to consider the emotional lives of animals. Although milk (and even dirt to a degree) played a role in helping acquire vitamins like B12, most everyone exists in a state of deficiency and likely has throughout all human history, where not everyone was able to achieve optimal health. Now we know we can brew b12 like beer and have over 20,000 edible plant foods, which are increasingly at our fingertips with international travel and green house growing, we can plan a varied diet to achieve all our needs, help soil health and do it with less land use, preserving wildlife habitat.

• Jain Vegans

Locavore

Vegan perspectives

The most important positive attribute to acknowledge about this lifestyle is it's another broad food category that in its wholefood form is easy to distinguish on the shelf. Therefore experimenting with the diet doesn't need to feel like a burden to take on board in the same way researching and seeking out conflict-free minerals in everything you buy can be for example.

Also of those whose reasons for wanting to be vegan encompass the environment, it's good to acknowledge how you can be using multiple metrics to align your actions with your principles.

This helps vegans to be seen for a diverse group drawing upon many philosophies and not the stereotype of a purity club where the sole purpose is to funnel you down more restrictive levels of the same monolithic ideology.

So in tern if we look at what motivates a majority of locavores e.g. community cohesion, climate change, etc. We can then relate how the most environmental friendly vegan diet of course incorporates local food schemes to cut down on fossil fuel use in transport. As well as mention how locavores can draw upon veganism in seeking to satisfy the environmental reasons they decided to eat more locally in the first place.

Joint activism

Help organize a veg box or field to street local food distribution network.

Petition/donate/fundraise for land to be opened up for allotment clubs.

Help organize/donate/fundraise to restore shrub land for use again e.g. overgrown apple orchards and hazel coppices. As well as manage land to encourage wild edible plants, reintroduce animal species and maintain diverse forests that would encourage tourism and local artisan industry.

Map foraging and gleaning locations, plus organize events to go out and for example help each other shake apple trees and catch in nets.

Guerrilla garden public spaces and abandon plots of land.

Petition farmers to sow seeds once a year, but not to till or spray pesticide at the edge of their fields, to allow wildlife corridors in hedgerows. Build a relationship by organizing with the farmer to glean fields that could not be sold that year or paying for the right to pick grown or wild food at the edges of the field by hand.

• Fruit & Veg Scheme
• Campaign for more allotments
• Woodland Trust
• Falling Fruit
• Abundance
• Incredible Edible
• Feedback

Wildlife Habitat Expansion

Shoot hunting & pole fishing

Vegan perspectives

We don't need to compromise with cruel blood sports like trophy hunting, canned hunting and trapping. Or cruel simulated hunting like catch and release fishing & paintball hunting. Or cruel hunting methods like low powered guns & crossbows for big animals, types of hunting dogs which use non-lethal bites on the animal or going out hunting while still at a low skill level.

The most important reason not to demonize all hunting in our advocacy is those low income communities where it absolutely helps with economic hardship and undernourishment.

Secondly any opportunity to turn land back into a thriving eco-system of dense animal life is a win for the animals and the environment. Animals get to express all their evolved capabilities, have the freedom to roam in their preferred habitat, plus form their own social and family relationships. While forests act as a carbon sink to lessen the impact of climate change.

Thirdly community cohesion, countryside social life.

Joint activism

When petitioning for gov subsidies to put farm land aside for wildlife habitat, it's simply much easier to do so by appealing to the large number of members at shoot hunting & pole fishing clubs, who can invest in infrastructure and bring tourism to the area.

• Rewilding Britain

Wild animal farming

Vegan perspectives

We don't need to compromise with cruel wild animal farming in a barren or confined environment. Also because parents aren't able to pass down to their young how to survive in the wild.

Joint activism

By way of re-introducing the indigenous animals that are better suited to the environment, like Musk Ox in far northern regions rather than cows which have to be kept in sheds most of the year.

• Musk Ox Farm

Horse riding, plus horse & dog pulling

Vegan perspectives

We don't need to compromise with cruel competitive animal sports which harm the animals, plus encourage excessive breeding and dumping.

We can still advocate against the 'breaking in' of horses to be ridden and the stress put on horses back-bones at any age but especially during their younger years when bone plates are yet to fuse.

Joint activism

Potential to work with communities who can encourage people into the countryside e.g. horse-drawn travel, dog sledding & skorjing. As well as using draft horses in the extraction of logs without heavily disturbing the land.

• The Horse Drawn Camp
• British Horse Loggers

Foxhound drag-hunt racecourse & Bloodhound hunting

Drag-hunt and bloodhound hunters perspective

Whether it's accepting not wanting to break the law or seeing your friends risk getting locked up, having more people in your community following a drag hunt might just be a lot more pleasant social affair.

Vegan perspectives

We don't need to compromise with cruel blood sports like fox hunting or competitive racing with the earlier addressed harms.

Joint activism

Encourage fox hunters over to the two activities below that involve no bloodshed:

Drag Hunting is a legitimate sport created in the 1800s which was not intended to mimic animal hunting and is done well away from fox habitat. These have their own clubs with courses chosen for their most enjoyable riding, like race car tracks. A well scented drag is pulled along the ground for the hounds to follow and so that riders have to keep up at a good speed.

This is mostly done as a leisure activity, so the horses are likely the lucky ones that are getting a good amount of exercise and being able to explore new environments.

Clean boot or bloodhound hunting is where riders follow along as "bloodhounds search for the scent of running people (one or more runners) who will reward them at the end with praise or treats." Bloodhounds are also trained to be used in search and rescue.

• Hunt Saboteurs Association

Sighthounds, coonhounds, pointers, retrievers, ferreting & falconry to eat

Vegan perspectives

We don't need to compromise with outdated and cruel hunting methods which torture the prey animal e.g. domesticated animals bred solely to help hunters by using non-lethal bites to pin the prey, the same way spear fishing is made illegal in many countries. Or in the case of cruel lifelong wild animal confinement e.g. elephant logging, plus cormorant and otter fishing.

Joint activism

Potential to work with shoot hunting communities that use dogs simply to scent track, flush, herd, point at or retrieve dead prey. As well as communities who allow sighthounds and ferrets to catch prey as they would in the wild, plus those communities who keep birds of prey for a short time which gives them a better chance of surviving their first few winters.

• The Traveller Movement