Worldlog Week 13 - 2012 - Main contents

This Worldlog was written by one of Marianne Thieme's staff, as Marianne is away on maternal leave.

Here are some gripping images of the Orang-utans' fight for life in Sumatra, due to the felling of the rainforest.

The cattle farming industry is one of the most significant causes of deforestation. This is due to the fact that large tracts of forest need felling to make way for soy fields. The Netherlands is one of the world's largest importers of soy. Because soy is chiefly used as feed for animals in the intensive cattle-farming industry, we are directly responsible for the felling of the tropical rainforest, and the Orang-utan’s fight for life. The Dutch attack on nature's riches is just as bad in other territories, too. We still import huge amounts of tropical hardwood, and our foodstuff industry uses cheap palm oil, which means large-scale felling of precious forests and mangrove plantations.

That is why we want a ban on the import and use of products such as tropical woods, soy and palm oil - the type where production affects biodiversity. The Netherlands also needs to support programmes that protect nature reserves in the world's vulnerable locations!

The New York Times started a competition in which they challenge meat eaters to write an essay about whether eating meat is ethically responsible. The winner's essay will be published in the New York Times. We're very curious about whether meat eaters can come up with a good argument or not! 😉

Terrible news from Canada. Unfortunately this is what is waiting for 40,000 seals in Canada: http://worldphotocollections.blogspot.com/2009/12/seal-hunting-photos-please-stop-seal.html

Unless we can convince Canada otherwise! Bont voor Dieren, a Dutch animal welfare organisation that fights the fur industry has started an English-language petition to give the Canadian embassy. So sign the petition and convince the Canadian embassy that this grisly seal hunt must be stopped! Canada's ambassador also tweets, go to @CanAmbNL.

Last week, Member of Parliament Esther Ouwehand tabled a motion in the Lower House to change the misleading term 'free-range egg'. The Party for the Animals believes that consumers should be able to obtain honest information about the eggs for sale in shops. Eggs from chickens that cannot go outside should no longer be able to be sold as 'free-range eggs'. Esther elucidates: “Battery chickens spend their entire lives in a barn, so 'barn eggs' are a much better name.

Chickens that lay 'free-range eggs' are locked away in a dark shed all their lives with thousands of other chickens. They have to share one square metre with eight other chickens, that is just one A4 worth's of space per animal. They are therefore in no way 'free-range'. We believe they can only be called 'free-range' if the animals can actually roam free!

This message: “People enjoy showbiz, but elephants do not” means actor Alec Baldwin is trying to make people aware of the enormous pain that elephants suffer as circus animals. He is calling for everyone to boycott circuses with wild animals. We fully support Baldwin's campaign! Hopefully, his protest will help call attention to the miserable life that circus animals, wild or otherwise, have to live in circuses.

See you next week!