Worldlog week 42 – 2014
We, as the MPs of the Party for the Animals, had a great closure of the week. On Thursday evening it was announced that my colleague Esther Ouwehand and I are both in the top 15 of the Sustainable 100 of the Dutch daily newspaper Trouw. The Sustainable Top 100 is an annually recurring list of Dutch people who are influential in the area of sustainability. Esther ranks fifteenth and is the fastest climber in the list as a result (she ranked #85 last year). I ranked eighteenth last year, now eleventh.
We hope that other politicians will be inspired by the fact that our entire parliamentary group is in the top 15. I am proud that our Party has so many followers. Our Party’s planet-wide vision, where short-term human interests are not central, is gaining more and more ground.
I’m pleased to let you know that my Worldlog was specifically mentioned in the interview I had with the daily newspaper Trouw. I hope that my weekly blog contributes to inspire people world-wide to make an effort for a sustainable community.
Esther struck the jury because of her decisive fights against agricultural pesticides. She defied the powers of the farmers and pesticide producers and established a contact point: Gifklikker.nl. Pesticide producers are complaining about her successful fight in full-page advertisements in newspapers. It doesn’t bother her at all 😉 It was on her insistence that the report of the Health Council of the Netherlands on the dangers of agricultural pesticide was published. The government is largely accepting the recommendations, as a result of which the first dangerous pesticides will be banned. The risks of agricultural pesticides for humans and animals, which were minimised until recently, are in the spotlight now thanks to Esther’s fight. Congratulations Esther!
It can already be asserted that 2014 is going to be a historic year for our Party. We conducted two successful election campaigns, resulting in us doubling our number of municipal council seats and we achieved one seat in Europe. We also campaigned together with Pink!, the youth organisation of the Party, against the unsustainable policy of the house bank of the Dutch Lower House: the Royal Bank of Scotland. Following that, the Lower House adopted a motion to change its house bank. Proud of our Party!
Last week, we have stood up for cows to be allowed to graze outdoors. We want the government to withdraw the bill ‘Responsible Growth of the Dairy Farming Industry’ and to replace it by a statutory duty to enforce outdoor grazing for cows.
After all, it is outrageous that the Government believes that further growth and industrialisation of dairy farming can still be called a responsible action. The Dutch diary farming industry is already bursting at the seams. We don’t need growth but we need the livestock herd to be reduced. And there should not be more megastables but more outdoor grazing for animals.
The European milk quotas will expire by April 2015. By doing so, Europe is deleting the only instrument that it had to somewhat control the livestock herd and to restrict the increase in scale. The diary farming industry will become a new form of bioindustry thanks to this bill and the already enormous surplus of manure will grow even more. That is why we advocate a law that seeks for land-oriented dairy farming, growing food locally and where no more manure is produced than can be used locally.
I also submitted a motion in the Lower House last week to ban the culling of one-day-chicks by 2018. This will be voted on on the 14th of October. Read more about this in next week’s Worldlog.
Read here: the shocking conclusion about the number of animal species that we have already lost on earth: ‘We HAVEN’T lost 50% of our animals – the truth is MUCH worse!’
Have a great week! Greetings, Marianne