Welcome to February's edition of our Farm Animal Coalition (FAC) - Organization of the Month blog! This month, we're thrilled to shine a spotlight on the incredible work of World Animal Protection. Join us as we delve into their impactful initiatives, unwavering commitment, and inspiring journey towards creating a better world for animals everywhere.
Who is World Animal Protection (WAP)?
World Animal Protection (WAP) is the global voice for animal welfare, with more than 70 years of experience driving change for a world where animals live free from cruelty and suffering. WAP has offices in 14 countries and works across 47 countries. WAP collaborates with local communities, the private sector, civil society, and governments to change animals’ lives for the better.
What is WAP about?
Eighty billion animals are farmed, transported, and slaughtered every year in an industrial global food system driven by convenience and price. Yet evidence shows that farmed animals are sentient, individual beings who experience pain and joy. WAP’s goal is to change the way the world works to end animal cruelty and suffering for both wild and farmed animals.
WAP’s Food Systems Strategy is a focused global campaign to define a new world where all farmed animals live good lives. Farmed animals experience relentless suffering at the hands of the farming industry, and according to WAP, it is their mission to implement global solutions to address global problems. As a member of FAC and the lead for policy sub-group, WAP shares the view that respect for animals and nature sits at the heart of our food system, which needs to be equitable, sustainable, resilient, and capable of feeding the world.
How does WAP plan to bring about this change?
As a campaigning organization, WAP uses powerful research and investigation evidence, animal welfare expertise, and movement building to inform their tactics and bring about change for animals. WAP identifies the global culprits and systems that enable the cruelty of factory farming to continue. Their policy work, financial initiatives, and direct corporate engagement on animal welfare improvements and sustainable alternative protein solutions aim to transform the world’s broken food system. WAP recognises they cannot do this alone and over the years has developed strong connections with partners, coalitions, and alliances, all working towards amplifying the message of “No Future for Factory Farming.”
What makes WAP the “Organization of the month”?
WAP is building a farmed animal welfare movement in Southeast Asia through their re-granting programme, Investing in Others. From Sep 2022 – May 2023, their partnership with regional partners has directly impacted 141,600 farmed animals with the potential of impacting 404,748,916,280 farmed animals (Broiler Chicken, Laying Hens, Shrimp, Pig and Fish).
WAP is offering technical support to build capacity around farmed animal welfare and corporate campaigning with small but mighty regional organisations across Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam– many of whom have not focused on farmed animals before. WAP is a champion for farmed animal welfare in wider debates on climate, food security, public health, and environmental spaces to expose all the negative impacts of factory farming. Examples are the devastating impact animal feed production has on animals (wild and farmed), communities, and the environment. WAP does this to build wider awareness and growing public opposition to factory farming.
In 2024, WAP’s focus will be on:
Raising public awareness of humane and sustainable agriculture, as well as good life standards for farmed animals, to bolster their global campaigns against industrial animal agriculture. WAP aims to work collaboratively with key stakeholders to enable and scale up solutions to significantly reduce the consumption of animal-sourced food, by flagging the environmental, health, and welfare advantages of alternative proteins.
Continuing their work on Farm Animal Responsible Minimum Standards (FARMS) albeit strategically directed to improve life for animals still exploited in the factory farming system.
Building a movement to scale up humane and sustainable solutions that bypass factory farming and achieve food systems change, as WAP strategically shifts their focus more toward transformative work in the food system.
What’s coming up over the next few months for WAP:
The Second Regional Meeting in Bangkok with their Investing in Others grantees to share what has been achieved, evaluate the animal welfare impact, and reflect on lessons learnt.
WAP continues to convene conversations across the wider network to consolidate and build on the momentum of all organisations working on farmed animal welfare. During conversations focused on the topic of fighting the big battles for farmed animals at last year’s Asia Farm Animal Day, Mark Dia, Global Director for Farming of WAP once said: “The task seems daunting with billions of animals that need to be spared from the cruelty of factory farming. But we all need to work together to make the impossible inevitable.”
WAP develops an Emissions Tracker to track and expose global emissions at the producer level, again flagging the harms of factory farming and how it contributes to climate change.
They continue to build a global movement of diverse organisations behind a common vision and pathways for change to advocate for a just transition away from industrial animal agriculture. The movement is now including the views of frontline communities around the world including food chain workers unions, smallholders, small-scale fishers, women, youth, indigenous peoples, and peasants, to grow the movement calling for a just transition away from industrial animal agriculture.
Learn more about World Animal Protection's work here. See you in the next FAC blog – Organization of the month, in March!