Charities must stop animal gifting programmes, urges Dr. Jane Goodall
Howard Lake | 20 December 2021 | News
Dr. Jane Goodall along with fellow scientists, religious leaders, and celebrities are urging world aid charities to end animal gifting.
The combined signatories argue that animal gifting programmes “hurt gift recipients by burdening them with more mouths to feed in areas where food and water are often scarce”. They also “worsen the climate crisis, decrease food stability, undermine sustainable development, contribute to animal suffering, and cause health impacts by promoting unhealthy western diets”.
Advertisement
The Animal Save Movement and In Defense of Animals’ Interfaith Vegan Coalition are urging charities to switch to plant-based aid programmes “which provide more food, and more stability by growing crops to eat directly instead of feeding them to animals”.
They argue that plant-based projects can help alleviate poverty, reduce world hunger, and create sustainable practices for a healthy planet. The campaign has been launched in the run-up to Christmas.
Dr Goodall acknowledges that charities are well-meaning, but she maintains that “the true cost of sending a goat, cow, chicken, or other farmed animal is environmental degradation, soil acidification, water contamination, air pollution, global deforestation, forest fires, extreme weather, flooding, zoonotic disease outbreaks, health problems such as diabetes, more community slaughterhouses, and even childhood trauma from watching beloved animals get brutally slaughtered”.
In her video statement Dr. Jane Goodall says:
“In the lead-up to Christmas, many people are feeling generous and want to help those less fortunate than themselves. There are a number of organizations that have launched campaigns, suggesting that one way to help those suffering poverty and hunger is to gift them an animal, such as a heifer. As a result, farm animals are purchased in great numbers by generous donors. Unfortunately, this can result in unintended consequences. The animals must be fed and they need a lot of water, and in so many places water is getting more and more scarce thanks to climate change. Veterinary care is often limited or totally lacking”.
She added:
“It will be ever so much better to help by supporting plant-based projects and sustainable irrigation methods, regenerative agriculture to improve the soil. Well this means charities must develop plans to create a gift package that will appeal to the generosity of those who want to help those less fortunate than themselves. Thank you.”
Stop Animal Gifting
The Stop Animal Gifting campaign includes open letters from scientists and interfaith leaders, action alerts, a petition and email letters calling on development charities, such as Oxfam, World Vision, Heifer International and Cargill’s “Hatching Hope” project, Christian Aid, Save the Children, Plan Canada, Lutheran World Relief, Feed the Children, Tearfund and others to undertake carbon disclosure of their projects, stop animal gifting, and implement plant-based food system projects as a crucial step in addressing the escalating climate crisis.
What charities can do instead
The campaign recommends that development charities can alleviate poverty and hunger by:
- Creating community seed hubs
- Rolling out water irrigation systems
- Providing training in permaculture and veganic farming techniques
- Reforesting lands and regenerating soils
- Planting trees to increase canopies to help improve the water cycle and restoring Savannah to rainforest and restoring key ecosystems
Anita Krajnc, ED of Animal Save Movement, said:
“We are so pleased Dr. Jane Goodall is supporting the Stop Animal Gifting campaign by urging shoppers to boycott animal gifting this Christmas in favour of plant-based projects. The campaign which launched in the run up to the holiday season aims to mitigate climate impacts, save water, alleviate poverty, improve human health and eliminate animal suffering”.
Nicola Harris, communications director for Animal Save Movement, added:
“Thousands of concerned members of the public have emailed Oxfam, World Vision, Heifer International and Christian Aid asking them to stop animal gifting and implement plant-based projects. All the charities declined requests to meet with Animal Save Movement ahead of the campaign launch to discuss the roll out of plant-based projects. The damaging impact of these programmes are huge, with Heifer International alone sending over 720,000 animals last year.”
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.