WSPA and partners get animal welfare onto Earth Summit agenda

Sep 16, 2011

WSPA brings sustainable agriculture on the agenda for Rio+20
© WSPA

WSPA has succeeded in getting animal welfare integrated into preparations for the upcoming Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Next year, Rio will host a major global conference on environment and sustainable development. With the focus of world leaders and the world’s public on the event, WSPA is working to ensure that animal welfare is firmly on the agenda.

The latest important event in the runup to next year’s Rio+20 meeting, the 64th Annual United Nations Department of Public Information Conference for Non-Governmental Organizations, took place last week in Bonn, Germany. WSPA succeeded in having animals and sustainable agriculture inserted into the Rio Conference declaration - the so-called ‘Bonn Declaration’ which will feed into the planning process for the Earth Summit and the texts used to prepare it.

WSPA also co-organised and chaired an event at the conference with other organisations and academics to discuss how important animal welfare was to sustainable agriculture and food consumption.

Animal welfare makes final text

The Bonn Declaration states that animal welfare should be safeguarded and notes that “sustainable development can only be ensured if humanity, directed and led by government policies, embraces humane, sustainable, low-carbon lifestyles and adopts sustainable livelihoods”.

The Declaration also has the ambitious goal that “By 2030, global agricultural production is transformed from industrial to sustainable…. This goal should also include sustainable and humane food systems that provide healthy food to meet current food needs while maintaining healthy ecosystems, farmer resilience and ensure good animal health and welfare that can also provide food for generations to come with minimal negative impact to the environment, through agro-ecological farming systems.”