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Is there a connection between animal rights and sustainability?

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Her Excellency, Michaelle Jean, Governor General of Canada's participation in a community feast in Nunavut, in which she helped to gut and eat seal, has ignited a storm of protest from animal rights activists.  As it turns out, I have some experience interacting with our local animal rights activists.  The research that I have done on the ecology of deciduous forests in Ontario in the last 20 years has brought me into contact with people with widely differing knowledge about and values relating to animals, including animal rights activists opposed to the reduction of high deer densities in small forest patches. Consequently, I have developed an interest in the questions of, whether and how, animal rights activists perceive their activism to be related to questions of the environment, climate change and the research fields of animal behaviour.

Here's some of what I have learned:

1.  Animal welfare differs from animal rights.  I am a strong advocate for animal welfare.  At Oxford University, where I did my doctorate on Animal Behaviour in the Zoology Department, I was lucky to get to know Prof. Marion Dawkins, an internationally-recognized expert on animal welfare. Most people that I know agree that the basic principle of animal welfare is a good thing.  As a result of my research experience, I hold, what I am sure many people would consider to be a number of radical opinions about pet ownership.  For example, I  generally disagree with the idea of urban dwellers  owning "working" dogs such collies, because, having worked with these dogs, I have seen what they are bred to do: they actually need huge amounts of exercise and they love to "work" - as in sheep herding, etc. - which they don't get much of as city-dogs.  But, I am not a supporter of animal rights - and I don't think dogs should have the same rights as humans!  This is an important point of clarification early on with animal rights activists.

2.  Most animal rights activists with whom I have spoken, are generally unaware of the broader issues surrounding biodiversity, ecology, ecological footprints and sustainability.  I usually encourage them to kick-start their broadened education by reading the international Convention on Biological Diversity.  In the case where animal rights activists do adopt scientific language, and refer to academic research, I have found that they often end up in similar territory to that which I have observed is occupied by representatives of groups such as climate-change deniers whose funding may be somehow linked to the lobbyists for big oil: their use of the primary and secondary literature is highly selective and biased.

3. There are many inconsistencies between the words and actions of animal rights activists.  Apart from the usual questions that I have, such as, why focus on seals and not cockroaches(?), I have observed that many animal rights activists are quick to accuse others of being disrespectful to them, but are, themselves, very comfortable with making extreme public statements attacking other people's values - such as "shooting a deer is barbaric".  I firmly believe that all voices and views must be brought to the table when it comes to considering sustainability, but, this does not absolve those voices from being held accountable for rude, disruptive and disrespectful behaviour.  Additionally, as an academic, I tend to pay rather less attention to uninformed, idealogically-driven, extreme opinions than to informed, nuanced opinions that take account of grey areas.

Dawn R. Bazely

The Ultimate Unsustainable Act

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Over the past year, prices of staple foods have reached unprecedented levels. Food riots have broken out in multiple countries and the UN has sounded the alarm on the severity of this emerging global food crisis.

A full page spread in the May 3 Vancouver Sun starkly highlighted the baleful impact on the world's poorest citizens. The article also ran through a myriad number of causes, including:

  • US-led investment in corn-based ethanol and the biofuel push
  • Depletion of global grain reserves
  • Unsustainable agricultural practices
  • Decline in agricultural land and rural populations
  • Rising incomes in developing countries fueling demand for meat
  • Drought and poor harvests in Australia and Europe respectively
  • Stock-market speculation
  • Liberalization of trade that has increased rural poverty by wrecking local markets, increasing dependency on imports and vulnerability to price fluctuations

The article also provided the following figures for price increases between March 2007 to March 2008:

  • Corn: +31%
  • Rice: +74%
  • Soy: +87%
  • Wheat: +130%

Rising global meat consumption in particular has been the unspoken factor in spiraling food prices, whereas even environmental groups have chosen to focus on faulty biofuel policies as opposed to this graver long-term threat. In fact, grain production has never been higher, but the sad truth is that much of that grain is being increasingly diverted to feed livestock. In China, meat consumption has doubled in the last decade alone. In largely vegetarian India, consumption has not risen as much, but dairy production is likewise up. When the grain to meat ratio of raising livestock which is anywhere between 5 to 10:1 is factored in, the environmental and climactic impacts become overwhelming.

However, this upwards movement still has a long way to go to match the unsustainable consumption levels of the West. As the New York Times put it so succinctly, meat and oil "share a great deal":

"Like oil, meat is subsidized by the federal government. Like oil, meat is subject to accelerating demand as nations become wealthier, and this, in turn, sends prices higher. Finally — like oil — meat is something people are encouraged to consume less of, as the toll exacted by industrial production increases, and becomes increasingly visible."

"Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests."

With the FAO estimating that almost a third of world's unfrozen terrestrial surface is already involved in some aspect of livestock production (gruesome fact: the US alone kills 10 billion animals a year for food), and with global meat consumption looking set to double by 2050, the gigantic scale of the threat comes into sharp, startling relief. Greenhouse gases emitted by livestock production even exceed transporation, such that if an American family lowered their meat consumption by merely 20 percent (Americans already consume double the global average), they would have the same impact as if they had sold their mid-sized sedan and bought a hybrid.

As usual, British environmental guru George Monbiot does his homework, moving beyond his devastating jeremiads against biofuels (most recently, here and here) to highlighting the possibilities and challenges inherent in converting to a more plant-based diet. His middle-of-the-road approach of reserving meat for special occasions (beef is right out) and turning to more efficient feed-to-meat sources such as tilapia fish is eminently sensible, especially for those who cannot eschew eating meat altogether.

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