Worldlog week 4 – 2014

I want the government to stop the development of laboratory stables. These closed off, climate controlled stables, where livestock breeders cover themselves from top to toe in sterile plastic and which no one is allowed to enter, are far from a solution to the Antibiotic Problem (as is argued by the livestock industry).

State Secretary Dijksma for Economic Affairs still gives livestock breeders and vets the freedom to choose which measures they want to take to reduce the use of antibiotics. This has led to the development of sterile stables , where the living conditions of livestock retreat even further from the natural requirements of livestock.

Factory farming is literally sick making. The unnatural way in which animals live in almost locked stables causes animals to catch diseases, such as pneumonia, claw disorders and breathing problems. The great amount of antibiotics used at Dutch livestock farms has caused pathogens to become immune. Antibiotics resistance causes life-threathening risks for humans and animals. It must be stopped!

The New York Times has signalled a growing awareness worldwide of the injustice that we cause to animals.

The following meat scandal has manifested in the Netherlands. This is also news outside the borders of the Netherlands.

During the weekend of 11 January, I stayed in Portugal and on Madeira, as I told you last week, and visited our sister party PAN. The people of PAN told me that the awareness of what harm we do to animals is increasingly growing in Portugal. It was nice to meet the significant number of Dutch people that had come to the meeting especially from the North of Portugal and the Algarve. I had a delicious vegan meal in the restaurant Jardim das Cerejas.

Madeira has vulnerable nature and more and more people wish to protect that nature against many building plans. Our film The Pacer in the Marathon was shown in the University of Madeira, a beautiful old building. The Party for the Animals on Madeira forms part of the coalition government in the capital Funchal.

Our film about ten years of the Party for the Animals, The Pacer in the Marathon, was again selected for various international festivals. Brilliant! The Pacer in the Marathon will in any way be shown at two festivals in February in the United States: in Florida and in Gainesville, California. The film will also be shown in three cities during the English VegFest UK; in Brighton, Bristol and London.

I regularly receive beautiful pictures on Twitter. I would like to share these unusual animal friendships with you. And this story too about the lonely whale can be called moving.

Last week, Google commemorated the 82nd birthday of Dian Fossey. Dian Fossey was a researcher from the United States , who observed gorillas in Rwanda for years. She wrote the book Gorillas in the Mist, which was later turned into a film. See pictures of this special lady here.

Steve Cutts created a very fascinating animation to make his vision on the American hunting fanatic Melissa Bachman known. See What a hunt here!

This week the first Arabic translation of my Worldlog will be published. The Worldlog can be read in 11 languages already. Hopefully this will be more soon.

See you soon,

Marianne