Worldlog Week 09 – 2012

Our parliamentary group of the Lower House has finally managed to realise a public database for laboratory animal research in the Netherlands. Hartelust, a Tilburg-based company that trades in monkies must from now on publish their details on the animals it takes in and sells for the laboratory animal industry. This will prevent a lot of unnecessary animal testing!

Commercial breeders of and traders in laboratory animals such as Hartelust, have, up till now, never had to comply with the registration and reporting obligations imposed on other institutions that use laboratory animals. We've been insisting for quite a while on this exception for breeders and traders being lifted. Data on laboratory animal research is not registered in one central location, nor are the data of failed tests very often published. This means the researchers learn very little information from failed tests, and so laboratory animals are used twice unnecessarily. Thanks to the Party for the Animals, this is about to change: the government is going to work on a proper, accessible database that contains data about laboratory animals. That's great news!

The European Union has agreed that as of 2013, there will be a complete ban on using animals for testing cosmetics. Although the cosmetics industry has known for years of this up-and-coming ban, they are still pushing for a postponement. The Lower House accepted one of our motions that says the Netherlands may not agree to a postponement and that the government will call for a plan of attack to be readied for 1 April 2012.

This week we received a thank you email from dolphin champion Erwin Vermeulen from Sea Shepherd. The Japanese judge acquitted him of all charges. Japan therefore detained an innocent man under terrible conditions as a political prisoner. Minister Hagen was in Japan to talk to Mitsubishi (Mitsubishi are currently fishing all the Bluefin tuna) about the future of NedCar. He took the opportunity to discuss exporting Dutch veal and chicken, but had nothing to say about the injustice that Erwin Vermeulen has suffered by Japanese hand.

Wageningen University has appointed Professor Boom as a professor in the meat replacement field. He's the world's first Pea Professor! This chair is largely financed by crowd funding, small amounts donated by people who believe in developing new and improved meat replacement products to convince meat eaters to make the switch to plant proteins. Cattle farming currently eats up half of the world's grain reserves, whereas we could feed 30 billion people with plant proteins grown on current amounts of agricultural ground. For further information, go to http://www.thepeasfoundation.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=64&Itemid=50

Our party is needed now more than ever; everywhere you look, animals' interests are treated with disregard. Dutch newspaper 'Het Parool' recently published a gripping article about elephant slaughter in Africa. Happily, the idea that people are standing up for 'non-humans’ is on the rise. Scientists from the world over will Antwerp from 10 to 15 April about this new phenomenon of political parties that focus on animal, natural and environmental issues. Our party will be there to headline as the first Party for the Animals in history to be elected to parliament.

And finally images of 'producing' pork in the UK. It's only for those with strong stomachs. My replacement in the House, Anja Hazekamp, has once again asked parliamentary questions to try and prevent this meat of barbaric origin from being sold in Dutch stores.

See you again next week!