Animals and climate change

A Green Party press office briefing 2005

By Sue Baumgardt and Edited by Jack Johnson

For further information contact the Green Party press office 020 7561 0282

Introduction

· The animal population faces massive threat, with climate change set to kill off huge numbers.

• Unlike other three parties, place sustainability at heart of policies, and deliver practical policies aimed at protecting not just individual species, but biodiversity of entire planet and natural habitat.

· The Green Party Animal Rights Group believes in treating our planet and its inhabitants with respect. We must live in harmony with its resources and not exploit its animate and inanimate life.

1) Vivisection

• The Green Party would immediately end the use of primates, cats & dogs in experiments. We would phase out the use of all animals over a five-year period.

• The number of animals bred for experimental purposes is far greater than the number of animals used. These unwanted surplus animals are then destroyed. The Home Office has refused to collate any statistics relating to these surplus animals, but it is estimated that between 6-9 million surplus animals are killed each year by the industry in Great Britain.

2) Hunting with Hounds

• The Green Party would enact a proper ban on hunting with hounds. The present Act is almost unworkable and the police have said that they are unable to enter private land without the landowner's permission. They maintain they don't have the manpower to deal with the issue! Hunting with hounds is also a 'non-recordable' offence at present. The political will from the government just wasn't there when it came to banning hunting.

3) Food production

• The Green Party would be against genetic engineering of farmed animals and would promote free-range organic farming of livestock. We would also promote the use of less meat in our diets for health, environmental and global food reasons. Mass livestock farming is responsible for pollution of land and waterways, large use of precious water resources, an inefficient use of feed crops. This has a knock-on effect for the world's poor. We would inform about and help promote a (mostly) vegetarian diet. (Ghandi said "food not feed")

4) Live exports & other animal transport

• The Green Party would support an eight-hour maximum journey time and an end to long distance transport of animals. At present we have the ludicrous situation where animals are exported to the continent and at the same time we import meat and animals, often from these same countries. Long distance transport has been shown to cause animal suffering and is difficult to police due to the small number of inspectors.

5) Cosmetic testing

• While welcoming the stopping of cosmetic testing in this country the Green Party is aware that this was a voluntary ban by the 3 remaining testing labs. The Green party would also work for a marketing ban on animal tested cosmetics from other countries.

6) Fur farming

• Fur farming was banned in this country in 2000 but we still import fur from outside the UK and the government has refused to ban the import of dog and cat fur, claiming that it needs to be proven that it comes in and that any ban would breach WTO rules! The Green Party would join other countries in banning the import of dog and cat fur.

7) Badgers

• Police chiefs have complained that there is no political will to address the issue of badger baiting. The Green Party would support them in this as well as stopping the cull of badgers blamed for spreading bovine TB. We would approach the problem of TB both from the animal husbandry side and with vaccination studies.

8) Trapping exotic birds

• At a meeting of the European Union’s environment ministers, the UK government failed to support a proposal to ban the import of hundreds of thousands of wild caught birds brought into the EU each year for the commercial pet trade. The Green Party recognises that not only is this trade cruel but that it is depleting wildlife in the countries where the birds are trapped for the trade and should be stopped

9) Dogs

• The Green Party would introduce a registration scheme for dogs thus taking the burden off the shoulders of rescue societies who are left to fund the care and re-homing of stray dogs.