Worldlog week 19 - 2013 - Main contents

Last Tuesday the 30th of April was a historical day in the Netherlands, as on that day the succession took place. King Willem-Alexander was inaugurated as the new king under great public interest. The new King swore the oath during the joint meeting of the Upper and Lower House of the States General, which our party, naturally, also attended.

Members of the Parliament could elect to take an oath and swear allegiance to the King: “We swear (promise) to maintain your inviolability and the rights of your kingship.” Our party, and a number of MPs of other parties, had elected not to take this oath. We, as Members of the Parliament for the Party for the Animals, consider the oath that we took on accepting our office to be sufficient. Additionally, the swearing of allegiance to the King is also at odds with the Constitution and even with the oath that the King takes himself, in which he promises to protect the rights of all Dutch citizens. MPs should not undertake duties of loyalty towards a person when they have already sworn or promised allegiance to the Constitution.

All things considered it was a special day. We wish the new King a beautiful future.

In the run-up to the 30th of April, people could participate in a ‘contest’ through our website to send in animal-friendly advice for King Willem-Alexander. The best entry was pictured digitally on the Berlage Exchange Building in Amsterdam, which is where our party’s office is located. The slogan ‘Dear King, it hurts when you shoot your rifle’ (see picture below) as a reference to King Willem-Alexander’s hunting activities was proclaimed as best entry. Of course we hope that King Willem-Alexander will take this advice to heart.

Last weekend, I was in Istanbul for the première of the Turkish version of our documentary ‘The Hare in the Marathon’ about 10 years of the Party for the Animals. It was a great gathering and it was very inspiring to exchange ideas about animals, nature and the environment with like-minded people. Here is a short photo impression of our visit to Turkey.

In last week’s Worldlog I wrote about our new initiative to collect money to buy chunks of nature that will be sold through an auction to the highest bidder. The Dutch National Forest Service (the organisation that manages the greater part of nature in the Netherlands) has put nature on sale, because it still has to remit 100 million Euro to the state treasury due to cutbacks to nature-based spending made by former State Secretary Bleker. We cannot afford to lose a single square meter of nature. The Netherlands has but 15 per cent of its original biodiversity left. That is why we, as a party, have started this initiative and already many nature lovers are supporting our campaign! It is great to fight together for nature this way; I hope that many more people will join us so that we can secure the nature of the Dutch National Forest Service.

Finally, I want to share this impressive speech by the English lawyer Polly Higgings about Ecocide with you.

Until next week!

Marianne